When I first came to the UK, finding the food I grew up with was a matter of luck. Someone in a group chat would mention a shop. You would travel there, and half the time the thing you went for was out of stock, or had never been stocked at all.
That problem has not gone away. We hear it constantly from people who use African Stores. They find a shop on the directory, they make the trip, and the one thing they needed is not on the shelf. A wasted afternoon, and a wasted fare.
Finding home food should not depend on luck.
The directory fixed part of this. You can see which shops exist near you, wherever in the country you are. But knowing a shop exists is not the same as knowing it has what you need today.
So the next thing we are building is messaging. A way to ask a shop or a cook a simple question before you leave the house. Do you have this. Is it fresh. What time do you close.
It sounds small. It is not. For a lot of people it is the difference between a trip worth making and an afternoon lost. It also gives shop owners something they keep asking us for: a direct line to customers who are ready to buy.
We are testing it with a small group of shops first, so that when it opens, the people on the other end are real and ready to reply. Charles has written up exactly how it will work, and you can read that below.
