*By Amanda Weston* Food pickup app Ritual has big expansion plans. But its founder says the company's rapid growth can actually be traced back to a slower start. "Ritual's about your neighborhood, and I think what a lot of other companies did differently was they tried to go too broad too quickly, and they just lack the depth and coverage that Ritual has," Ray Reddy, co-founder and CEO of Ritual, told Cheddar Wednesday. "And we still approach the world neighborhood by neighborhood, and ensure that it's actually compelling." "There's enough coffee and lunch assortment in every neighborhood, and I think we've really just gotten the model right over the last few years, and so now that that's baked, we're able to move really, really fast." Ritual bills itself as an app that connects restaurants with customers, offering a simple, time-saving tool to arrange lunch orders for both individuals and workplace teams. The company announced Wednesday it has expanded into the U.K. and Australia, with more plans for European growth. It is also set to be in more than 40 North American cities and have more than triple its merchant count by the end of 2019. The food app space is growing increasingly more crowded, but Reddy isn't fazed by the competition. "It makes sense to have a first party app to focus on maybe your top five to 10 percent of your customers, but the remaining 80 percent are likely going to be on apps like Ritual or other types of third parties," Reddy said. "As a brand, your choice is do you want to still have a conversation with those customers? Do you want to still market to them even if you can't through the app directly? And I think the answer for the most part is yes." For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/food-app-ritual-is-cooking-up-big-growth-for-2019).

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