Food media company Tastemade announced today that it is acquiring dining and drinking guide platform ChefsFeed. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Tastemade is the company behind a number of food, travel and home design-related video shows including Broken Bread with Roy Choi, Make This Tonight and Thirsty For.
ChefsFeed uses culinary experts to create a variety of different types of food- and drink-related content, including restaurant and bar guides for cities around the world, video recipes, mini-documentaries and live-streamed cooking classes.
In a press statement emailed to The Spoon, Tastemade said this acquisition will give the 6,000-plus culinary experts (chefs, mixologists, sommeliers, etc.) a larger platform on which to share their work.
Food-related video content took on a new purpose this past year as the pandemic limited travel abroad and shut down much of the restaurant industry. Rather than being just aspirational (Maybe I’ll try to make a soufflé some day), food and cooking content became something more necessary. Cooped up in our houses, video was our only way to experience far off places or learn how to cook new types of food.
Online video was also one of ways restaurants themselves tried to pivot. With dining rooms shut down, some restaurants turned to live online cooking classes to generate revenue.
How our relationship with food video content will change as the pandemic recedes remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure: there is a lot pent up desire to travel in people right now. When they’re able to do so more freely again, having expert bar and restaurant guides like those from ChefsFeed for destination cities could prove to be a savvy play by Tastemade.
