A new North Ayrshire food app which is putting locals first has reinvested in grass roots football.
North Ayrshire Eats has netted a girls football team in Kilwinning new kits with more clubs set to benefit.
Profits from the food ordering app are going straight towards helping to grow the game.
Saltcoats businessman Stuart Shepherd is the man behind the new platform which is out to tackle big guns Just Eat.
The owner of Tartan Camper company decided to jump into the new venture after noticing its success in neighbouring East Ayrshire with Kilmarnock Eats.
Stuart took the plunge and soft-launched the North Ayrshire edition in May last year before fully kicking off the app in October,
And after a winter of delivering tasty goods to residents' front doors, he’s now delivering for the community.
The dad of three daughters has invested in his girls’ football team Kilwinning Girls Under 16s.
The players now proudly sport North Ayrshire Eats on their brand new kits.
And Stuart hopes more youth teams can get on board.
Stuart, 44, told Ayrshire Live: “I had heard about Kilmarnock Eats and Paisley Eats before.
“I investigated it a wee bit further and I really liked the model and how it works.
“The more and more I started to read into it, I realised how expensive the likes of Just Eat were for takeaways.
“I thought I already run a successful camper van company and it does really well for us.
“I saw it as an opportunity to give something back. Help out local businesses and put some money back into the community.
“The plan is to reinvest it into youth youth football teams.
“One of my girls plays for Kilwinning under 16s and I’m a coach for them. So I got the first set of strips for them with the North Ayrshire Eats sponsor.
“As it continues to grow, we’ll invest in grass roots football more and more.
“It means if people use our app, they know that the profits will stay in the community, and will be reinvested back into good local causes.”
Stuart’s main focus is based in Irvine, Kilwinning, the Three Towns and surrounding villages, but he is keen to expand even further and branch out to places like Largs.
In total 50 food places have signed up to the app, with 100s of users downloading North Ayrshire Eats each week.
Stuart added: “We launched in May. It was a bit of a quiet start for us, we didn’t really get our teeth into it until October that’s when we really went for it.
“We’ve got 50 takeaways signed up, we offer everything from Chinese to Kebabs.
“I’m absolutely delighted with how it has went. Orders keep going up and we have about 100 new app users every week.
“The bigger and stronger we get the faster we can reinvest into youth teams. That’s what its all about for me.”
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