I first encountered SideChef’s CEO Kevin Yu at a rooftop party during CES in March 2015. At the time, SideChef was in its early stages, having been founded just a couple of months prior, and I was beginning to explore kitchen technology. The first Smart Kitchen Summit would take place only eight months after our meeting.
In November, Yu traveled to Seattle to participate in the inaugural Summit and subsequently became a regular attendee at SKS events. After some time had passed since our last catch-up, I invited Yu onto the podcast to discuss his company’s recent funding and inquire about his vision for its future.
I first encountered SideChef’s CEO Kevin Yu at a rooftop party during CES in March 2015. At the time, SideChef was in its early stages, having been founded just a couple of months prior, and I was beginning to explore kitchen technology. The first Smart Kitchen Summit would take place only eight months after our meeting.
In November, Yu traveled to Seattle to participate in the inaugural Summit and subsequently became a regular attendee at SKS events. After some time had passed since our last catch-up, I invited Yu onto the podcast to discuss his company’s recent funding and inquire about his vision for its future.
Originally, SideChef was a recipe app designed to assist users with cooking. In those initial years, SideChef and similar companies like Innit and Drop/Fresco concentrated on connecting various appliances and developing a tech-driven guidance system for kitchen use.
“We started as just a recipe app to teach a person how to cook,” said Yu. “But then that grew out, and it was like, ‘Hey, wait for a second’, we can help you with not just how to cook, but we can also help you with meal planning, we can help you get your groceries, we can connect that into a smart kitchen device and make that automatic as well, too.”
As SideChef formed partnerships with appliance brands, retailers and CPG brands also expressed interest in connecting and digitizing the shopping experience. This interest intensified with the onset of the pandemic. Consequently, Yu and SideChef focused on shoppable recipes, as it was a more straightforward revenue generation method.
“I think shoppable recipes themselves are just the tip of the iceberg,” Yu commented. “We sent out over 3 million online orders to our retail partners last year through this experience.”
The company plans to use its new funding to leverage the infrastructure it has developed over the past decade. Image recognition technology is one area that could help them do this, as it has potential applications across the entire food ecosystem, from inventory management to automating cooking settings on smart kitchen appliances.
“We believe image recognition is a catalyst-type technology that we hope to continuously build upon the partnerships that we have,” Yu stated.
I’ve been somewhat down on the smart kitchen recently, as it seems companies—especially big brands—have not been innovative. When I asked Yu his thoughts about this, he acknowledged the issue but attributed it to a normal stage in market evolution.
“I think part of the plateau you’ve observed is because some companies, after taking their first swing, have felt that it’s not worth it to try again right now,” said Yu. “Maybe they don’t want to be the leader in this area. Or maybe they don’t have a confident route or sometimes even a confident group to be able to leave those charges internally.”
Despite the obstacles encountered by some players in the smart kitchen industry, Yu remains optimistic about the future of smart kitchen innovation.
“This is about unlocking the value and entering the next chapter, which is where most of this additional investment funding will be directed,” Yu said.
You can hear my full conversation with Yu below.
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