Grocery delivery brand Voly just reemerged from the ashes of its collapse

The Voly brand returned to public life this week under its new owners, the NSW meat subscription service Our Cow.

The company bought Voly’s database app and brand from the administrators for an undisclosed sum on Christmas eve hoping to expand its customer base into Sydney, where the delivery service operated.

Voly collapsed in November after failing to attract additional capital and was placed in voluntary administration. It raised $18 million in Seed capital in December 2020, but posted a net loss of $13.6. million in FY22.

A chirpy email to Voly customers with the subject line “We’re back!” began landing in inboxes this week announcing plans for an online farmers market selling produce directly from farm gate

“We’re a little different than we were before, and we have some big plans for this year that we’ll keep you updated on over the coming weeks,” the email reads.

“We can’t wait to be delivering to you again and be back, bigger and better than ever.”

Farmers Bianca Tarrant and Dave McGiveron launched Our Cow in Northern NSW in 2019 after nearly losing their farm in droughts and then the Black Summer bushfires, going on to launch their meat subscription service in April 2021.

The business now turns over around $20 million annually and employs 53 people, with a processing plant in Casino, 80km west of Byron Bay, and works with a network of 150 farms.

It also recently added seafood to its product mix and plan to take the Voly brand to all capital cities.

They’re also currently hoping to raise $2.6 million in a crowdfunding campaign as part of their expansion plans to create “the ultimate online farmers market in Australia”.

The duo introduced themselves to Voly customers in the email announcing the brand’s return.

“We’ll be helping farmers all across Australia sell their goods, direct from their farms, and giving you the opportunity to not only support Australia’s core industry, but know what real, top quality, great food tastes like – and with our usual fast delivery!” the Voly 2.0 email said.

As an incentive to get people to try the revived Voly, they’re offering 500g of beef mince, worth $11, for free to customers who spend $199 on a meat order.

But the challenge for Our Cow will be getting Voly users to spend up, having up until now, mostly used the service for small impulse purchases.

Earlier this week, grocery delivery Milkrun announced it was cutting staffing by 20% in a drive to put the business in the black, and preserve capital. It’s taken the company 11 months to grow its shopping basket – the Average Order Value (AOV) – from $34 to $50 after adding alcohol to the mix. That figure is just a quarter of Our Cow’s $200+ meat subscription boxes.

Our Cow has around 50,000 customers on its books and 4,000 regular subscribers.

Around 80,000 Sydneysiders used Voly 1.0.