Oodge.com – Your Caribbean and African Restaurant Guide

So while I was minding everyone’s business on Facebook as usual, I saw this group with a weird name and it had to do with food and Caribbean Food at that. So on further investigation and a few emails later, I got to the bottom of it all. Here’s the email interview I did with this startup called Oodge.

SC: When did you launch oodge.com? 
Oodge was launched in July 2008

SC: How did you come up with the name oodge.com? 
Oodge means “the Food”, “the Gastronomy” in a Bantu Language from Central Africa.

SC: What prompted you to launch such a site anyway? 
We have noticed that in the UK and in France, there are numerous African and Caribbean restaurants, but very few of them are well known of the public. We are big fans of this cuisine and we really want to make people discover how rich and original it is, we want to encourage African and Caribbean restaurant owners to work towards making this Food more popular. 

SC: What makes this a viable business? 
Oodge is more than a business; it is a network of restaurants, a community of African Caribbean food-lovers. It offers restaurants economies of scales in terms of Marketing and advertisement, especially in theses times of financial crisis, and it offers the ones we call we call the “Goers” discounts and a cheaper way to discover this fabulous cuisine.

SC: What’s been the uptake so far? 
So far we are in the process of building Oodge’s exposure, visibility, as well as its network of restaurants.

SC: What are your plans for the next 3 months? In terms of increasing visibility, users. 
Oodge is using and will continue to use all the networking tools (Viadeo, Oodge website, Oodge’s blog, facebook…) to increase its visibility and exposure to the restaurants in the UK and in France. We are also in contact with various restaurants owners in both countries.

SC: Who’s on your team and what their Caribbean heritage and Internet backgrounds 
Oodge team:
Francis: Managing Director and founder of Oodge Limited. Of Central African Origins
Sabrina: Marketing Director. West African origins

SC: Where is the company based? 
The company is based in Liverpool, United Kingdom

SC: What are your 2009 expectations regarding the Global Caribbean Web since you’ve hitched your site and business on it?
2009 is the year for Oodge. We expect to gain increasing notoriety and to make Oodge the number one website for African and Caribbean restaurants in the UK; not only as a listing site for Afro-Caribbean restaurants but as a restaurants’ partner, marketer; an Online Society of African and Caribbean restaurants, and food lovers. As Francis would say “All for one and one for all”.

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