Introducing Huski - A meal delivery company in Morzine

What are the advantages? Simple. For the majority of British skiers and snowboarders, a winter trip amounts to one treasured week in the snow – a week which you’ll have likely spent the majority of a year planning for and looking forward to. Those precious six days are most certainly not for wasting doing menial, boring tasks like shopping or preparing food. No, rather the majority of us would prefer to spend the time skiing or snowboarding and making the most of our trip away. Huski's service allows you to do exactly that. It takes the hassle out of shopping and eating while you’re on your winter holiday.

As anyone who’s been in a French Alpine resort over the holiday periods will attest, queues in the supermarkets are often horrendous and, as if to add insult to injury, you’ve then still to endure lugging the stuff back to your apartment or chalet, then storing it, then cooking it, and will likely have a mountain of pots to wash once you’re finished. This is most certainly not the stuff holiday memories are made of.

Rather, with Huski, you can order your food for the week before you even leave the UK. Depending on your choice of accommodation, your Huski delivery driver will stock up your fridge or freezer before you’ve even arrived. Say goodbye to those first night blues, arriving in resort starving and thirsty for a beer or wine after a long day travelling. With the Huski service, your food and drinks can arrive before you do.

I recently tried the Huski service through curiosity more than anything else. I’d heard the company produces great food and offers an equally impressive service so, as a surprise for the people I’ve been riding with this season, I thought I’d order some food off their website. Nothing that would break the bank, mind, we are still saisonnaires after all! I wasn’t aware at the time but I could have benefitted from a further 10% off the main Huski website prices by ordering direct on SeeMorzine.com and using the code SEETHEWORLD10. Anyway, the company’s prices are very good, particularly when you consider the cost includes delivery.

We ordered from the COOK menu although there is also the made-to-order Gourmet73 menu available. In our case, I went with a few Indian dishes, roasted vegetable lasagne and some desserts. We were supplied a date and time when our order would arrive and the food was delivered quickly and on time though, as mentioned, Huski can actually do all this prior to you arriving depending where you’re staying.

The food we ordered was delicious – quick and easy to prepare with no need for pots, pans and the like. We just popped the trays in the oven and, 30 minutes later, were feasting on a range of Indian dishes. Super easy, super quick, super tasty.

Indeed, I enjoyed their food and their service so much I was intrigued to find out a little more so I arranged a quick meeting with Mark Fielding, Head of Sales and Marketing at Huski to learn more about this ever-expanding, innovative and highly successful company.

Thanks for taking the time to meet me, Mark. So, first things first – who is Huski? Who's behind the company and where did the idea come from?
Founders Paddy & Mark were sitting on a chairlift in the middle of a family ski trip, planning all the stuff they had to sort out before they could chill-out and drink a beer: the firewood, the supermarket, the dinner, the picking up the kids… and they set themselves the challenge of coming up with a better way. The company started in 2016 and has been expanding ever since.

When you say it now, it seems such an obvious, yet fantastic, idea. Starting a company is never easy, though, so what were the biggest challenges getting set up?
The biggest challenge was finding the best product. In COOK, we found that. Their food is trusted, tasty and, with over 100 shops in the UK, has a huge following.

I must say, the COOK food we ordered really was good. So in terms of expansion, what's your company growth been since starting?
We have doubled in size every season.

Where do you offer the service? Where are your areas of operation?
We deliver across the French Alps. See our site for the resorts we cover.

Who are your main clientele? Individuals, chalet companies for the staff's days off, hotels, apartment owners wanting to provide food included in their rental? What nationalities?
All of these. We work closely with the tour operators and chalet companies but also deliver to private chalets and groups via Airbnb, Home and Away, Booking.com, etc. If you want food, have a road and are in the French Alps, we will deliver to your door.

Do you partner or work with other companies to promote your service?
Yes. Every big British tour operator you can think of, and then some. We are also working with a few French accommodation providers and even the Les Arcs resort in France. Together we are cracking it!

In your opinion, why should clients use Huski?
What’s the most important commodity there is? Time, right? We give our customers time. Time for skiing, time with friends and family, time in the bars listening to music, enjoying après, chatting, laughing and smiling with friends and loved ones. And we do this by delivering delicious, easy to cook food. So our fans (and we think of them as fans and friends, not customers) don’t need to shop or stand in queues or go to restaurants every night. They come home from the pistes and it is all there waiting for them. Flexible, easy, awesome and delicious.

Do you have many repeat customers?
Yes, we have 100% Facebook feedback and an incredibly loyal fanbase. The food is great, our service unbeatable and our relationship with COOK means 75% of our customers come back.

Can you explain the process of what you do, from client booking to final delivery?
Orders are placed on our website. You can choose from an array of individual dishes or menus – you then sit back and relax. Our team will be in touch by email in the weeks/days leading up to your stay. If there is a reception or we have a partnership with the accommodation provider, you don’t even need to be there to receive the order. Our team of drivers will fill the freezer for you and put the beer in the fridge.

And, in a worst-case scenario - what is your returns or refund policy?
Huski has a standard refund if the order is cancelled at least 7 days before delivery.

What would be a sample menu? How many choices do clients have?
Meat, veggie, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free. From one day to six, one course to three, there is no minimum or maximum.

And for kids? Do you cater for children?
Yes. COOK do a range of kid-friendly dishes and we have six of those. You can also order a kid's three-day or six-day menu.

I’ve seen the menus on the website – they’re diverse with a large range of meals available. Where did the inspiration come from and do you mainly provide French or English dishes?
We provide COOK's ready-made meals which range from British staples to Indian, Thai, Italian, French and Mexican classics. We also built our own kitchen and started making our premium Gourmet73 range, our own brand of Savoyard meals featuring the all-time-favourite tartiflette, beef Mondeuse, chicken Savoyard or soup, including their vegetarian versions.

With a kitchen in Bourg, does this mean most of the meals are prepared here locally?
The COOK dishes are made in the UK. The Gourmet73 dishes are made in our purpose-built kitchen in Bourg Saint Maurice.

Looking forward from here, what are the plans for the business through this year and into following winters?
The main goal for this season is to continue delivering great food to the four corners of the French Alps, no mean feat. After that, we will look to expand out of this corner of the Alps to Switzerland, Austria, America and beyond.

In terms of the business, are you mainly a winter supplier or are there any plans for summer expansion?
We are always looking at new and interesting ways to take our service and food to the summer seasons. We always have plans.

Finally, what for you makes a perfect day at work?
It’s a cliché but no day is the same, so there is no perfect day. That said, a morning of fresh powder in our local resort of Les Arcs followed by a sampling lunch in the kitchen with head chef Rob Davies explaining one of his latest creations, followed by 100 deliveries in the afternoon. Now that would be a busy, fun and tasty day at Huski.

If you’re interested in sampling the Huski service, you can find out more and browse the menus by following the link below. And remember to use code SEETHEWORLD10 for a 10% discount!

Order Food & Drink Delivery