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1. Leverage Automation: Jacques advises E-Commerce leaders to automate non-value administrative tasks – this allows the company to focus on both meaningful, human-centered customer service and product development.
2. Consider the Entire CX Journey: Jacques believes that great CX isn’t just about having an excellent product – it’s about managing every step of the customer journey. If any single touchpoint fails, the entire experience (and the customer’s trust) can be lost.
3. Define Innovation for Your Company: Jacques urges E-Commerce leaders to focus on innovations that deliver greatest value to their company. True innovation at Délidoor isn’t about chasing food trends – it’s about scaling responsibly while preserving quality, improving operations, and making the customer experience easier and more personalized.
4. Product Variety Drives Retention: Jacques maintains that in the food business especially, product variety drives retention. To prevent menu fatigue and keep customers returning, Délidoor offers enough variety so it’s become a reliable “go-to” brand, not just an occasional purchase.
5. Build Business around Demand and Quality: Offering a product or service with proven demand is essential when starting an E-Commerce business. Jacques emphasizes the importance of focusing on quality, because repeat purchases — not just first-time sales — are what truly drive growth and lifetime value.
When Délidoor launched in 2021 during the pandemic, Co-Founders Jacques Lépron and Mathieu Thomas were driving a van around Sydney, delivering orders to customers sheltering at home. Since then, the company has doubled in size every year, and Délidoor is now aiming to become Australia’s leading premium frozen food brand. Along the way, they have focused on scaling thoughtfully while staying true to the company’s artisanal roots and French culinary tradition.
Meet Jacques Lépron, Co-Founder of Délidoor!
Délidoor is a frozen food company founded in 2021 by two French dads who recognized quality meals at home often fall victim to busy schedules. The belief is simple: a hectic lifestyle shouldn’t mean sacrificing delicious, wholesome food. Délidoor is dedicated to bringing thoughtfully prepared, home-style dishes to your table, making great meals accessible even on your busiest days.
When COVID forced restaurants in Sydney, Australia, to close, Jacques’s business partner Mathieu Thomas, decided to transform the central kitchen he had been using to make takeaway into an operation focused on producing frozen meals for delivery. “People were asking for that kind of service,” Jacques recalls. “They wanted better food delivery options with more variety, because at the time the selection and quality were limited.” In 2021, Jacques, and Mathieu Thomas – two French men who share a passion for creating memorable experiences through food and tradition – co-founded Délidoor.
“What excited me most about starting an E-Commerce food business is scale – as long as you’re online, you can deliver anywhere within your area,” Jacques shares. E-Commerce also offers opportunities to be creative with branding and product development at a lower risk than brick-and-mortar. “It’s a far greater challenge to launch a new brand in retail – more money and testing are required,” he notes.
Délidoor’s team structure is dynamic, with two-thirds of employees, led by Sebastian, responsible for cooking and preparing the food. Heading the management team, Jacques and Mathieu work with contractors across Australia with the support of virtual assistants in the Philippines. Jacques believes this blend of in-house, partially remote, and fully remote work has been ideal for an E-Commerce food business, offering adaptability during periods of growth and change.
In the prepared frozen meals business, there’s always a risk of menu fatigue. Jacques credits the company’s success to consistently offering customers a wide variety of options. “You need an extended range so people have a reason to keep coming back—whether they’re craving a classic dish or lasagna,” he says. “You then become a destination for people to use a couple nights a week or for a backup as needed throughout the month.”
Délidoor’s busiest season arrives during the holidays, when families and friends gather around the table for comforting, home-cooked-style meals. Careful planning and organization are essential to ensuring the company continues delivering high-quality frozen food at a time when expectations and stress levels are highest. “We create a seasonal menu and work to balance production with sales forecasts,” Jacques explains.
Jacques says his main challenge is scaling the company without adding excessive resources to the business model. He’s currently exploring strategies to automate non-value-add backend administrative tasks. “This way, we can spend the time needed to focus on customer-facing work – humans talking to humans in customer service is very important,” he emphasizes.
“The CX philosophy at Délidoor is very simple: everything has to serve the product,” Jacques says, adding that “it’s all about the experience and making sure the food is great.” While quality and taste are critical, Jacque understands that the CX journey starts long before the first bite. “The journey has a sequence of touch points,” he explains, “from when the customer places an order to when they receive it, put the product in the freezer, and then reheat the meal. We need to make sure it’s easy and seamless until they actually sit down and eat the food.” Fall short on any of the touch points and the company is to blame. “You can have the best frozen food product available, but if the instructions are unclear on the defrosting method, and the customer overcooks it, chances are they won’t come back.”
Since day one, delivering nourishing, high-quality, easy-to-prepare food has been Délidoor’s driving mission. Jacques recalls the company’s earliest days during the pandemic, when the co-founders drove a van across Sydney to personally drop off orders. If an item was missing, they would return to the kitchen, collect what was needed, and drive back to the customer’s home. “Many of those customers from four and a half years ago are still with us,” Jacques shares. “I think that’s a testament to putting the customer first and going above and beyond what’s expected to ensure people are happy with our food and service.”
As a food company focused on artisanal, traditionally made cuisine, Délidoor is not concerned with the latest culinary trends going viral on social media. “For us, innovation is more about how we can scale while managing to preserve our craft,” Jacques says. Improving the freezing process, streamlining logistics to ensure on-time delivery, simplifying the reordering process for busy customers, and customizing products for households with different dietary requirements are top priorities.
“Our vision is to become Australia’s leading frozen food brand. We think there is a lot of opportunity there,” Jacques says, looking toward the future. The company appears well on its way – Délidoor has doubled in size every year since launching in 2021 – and plans to move to a larger production facility in 2026. “This will get us to the next milestone where we’ll be able to scale without losing the artisanal craft, while also focusing on retention and personalization,” he adds.
“Start with a product or service you already know people love or genuinely need,” Jacques advises, noting that when demand exists, customers naturally follow. He also emphasizes that in E-Commerce, high-quality products are what truly drive customer retention and lifetime value. “You really have to be making an impact,” he says, reflecting on his own experience with Délidoor. “Customers need to love your product on the second order just as much as they did on the first – that’s how you keep the momentum going.”
Can’t-live-without-tool? Now, it’s a combination between ChatGPT and Google Script. I am not a tech guy by trade. It helps me with any cooking content, reporting, customizing the voice for my clients – being able to learn about any of these things in a couple of days and ultimately do them yourself is very powerful.
Key hiring trait? Attitude. Skills can be trained. If you told me five years ago, I would be working in tech and E-Commerce, I wouldn’t have believed you. So you must have the right attitude to learn. With the right attitude, you can do whatever you want and be whoever you want.
Recent book or podcast? I typically read for leisure and listen to podcasts for professional development. The last one I listened to was a French podcast focused on E-Commerce called Le Panier. The host interviews founders of businesses from start-ups to those making $100k to $20 million in revenue. It’s always great to hear their stories and learn from their experiences.
#1 challenge as an E-Commerce leader? You always want to go faster, especially for us as a food manufacturer in E-Commerce. But you can’t really do that because we must make sure our product ships successfully and meets requirements for quality. It’s a challenge. The solution, I think, is to put everything back into perspective and make sure you have a roadmap of what you want to achieve. As a result, satisfaction derived from hitting those goals outweighs the need to move faster.
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