Young start-ups remodel China's food delivery market
- By Verena Menzel
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E-mail China Today, March 22, 2016
Home Cooking
Another delivery newcomer that counts on the human aspect for its success is the "Home-Cooked" start-up. What distinguishes it from traditional delivery orders is that it does not assign restaurant kitchens or professional cooks to meal preparations, but rather hobby chefs from your locality. As with "Mr. Food," users must order one day in advance, to ensure that these private cooks have time enough to buy fresh ingredients from the local market.
The application shows its users, via GPS, where all registered local amateur cooks live. Each one has their own profile page within the system, and an illustrated menu that includes personal recommendations and the ratings of other diners.
Upon scrolling through these hobby chefs you realize that they are mostly composed of middle-aged women whose children have moved out, and female seniors who want to share their cooking-skills. For the majority it isn't the pin money to be earned that makes "Home-Cooked" an attractive platform, but rather the chance to share their joy of cooking.
Initially the start-up's workers personally advertised the new application at local vegetable markets in Beijing and other big cities. However, the concept has since become a kind of self-runner. Thanks to major investments you can now see "Home-Cooked" ads even on the Beijing subway, and new hobby chefs can register directly through the official company website.
To ensure hygienic standards, every amateur chef takes part in a hygienic training course, for which they are awarded a special health certificate, before getting started. Furthermore, app staff members inspect applicants' private kitchens to make sure everything is as it should be, and to give some last minute tips. They also advise on how to create an appealing profile page. The last step is a test through a selected customer, who gives their evaluation of the meal.
Similar to the practice of the successful lodging-travel portal airbnb, "Home-Cooked" offers chefs registered with it the free services of a professional photographer to take shots of home-cooked dishes that appear on the cook's personal menu.
"Home-Cooked" is already available in several large cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou. And it is the hobby chefs themselves who deliver the food to nearby customers. This is one of the core ideas of the new start-up, and might also be one of its recipes for success as it gives the deal a personal touch. If you order from home, you will have the chance to meet new people in your neighborhood. A pleasant side effect is thus that the community becomes tighter knit.
In the past, before the time of small and single households, when several generations lived under one roof, the principle of "one cook, many diners" was normal. In that sense, "Home-Cooked," with the help of modern technologies and business structures, reunites human resources that were in the past organically connected. For many hobby chefs, this part-time job is like cooking an extra portion for another family member. The innovations of the Internet age, therefore, seem magically to complete the circle leading back to our home kitchen and to good, homemade food once more. And, in the words of Auguste Escoffiers, good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.
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