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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

cooking classes

Amazon to Make Food Network Kitchen’s Video Cooking Classes Free on Fire Devices

If you’ve been stuck in a quarantine meal rut and want to learn how to cook something fresh and exciting, Amazon has some good news for you. Variety reports Amazon announced today that it is giving Food Network Kitchen to all Fire TV and Fire Tablet users in the U.S..

Launched last fall, Food Network Kitchen features live and on-demand cooking classes from its roster of celebrity chefs including Bobby Flay, Rachel Ray and Guy Fieri. A subscription to the service normally runs $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year.

If you’re among the more than 40 million active Fire TV or Tablet users however, Amazon is footing that bill — for a year, anyway. The e-commerce behemoth is paying Discovery, which owns Food Network, for all the subscriptions.

Food Network Kitchen has more than 2,300 on-demand cooking classes, but had to halt production of its live offerings because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Variety writes that the live shows will return at the beginning of May, though they will be shot in the home kitchens of its celebrity chefs, rather than in a studio.

In addition to cooking content, Food Network Kitchen also has shoppable recipes for an e-commerce component and will be launching a meal planning feature soon. Ingredients for meals can be purchased directly through the app via Amazon Fresh, Peapod or Instacart. Though given how sheltering in place has caused a national surge in grocery e-commerce (Amazon now waitlists new Fresh customers and Instacart is adding another 250,000 of its shoppers to keep up with demand), this feature may not be useful to consumers until things settle out.

One curious bit about today’s news is that reports only mention that the deal covers Fire TV and Fire Tablet users. Food Network Kitchen is also available on Amazon’s Alexa devices that feature a screen, like the Echo Show. Are those devices not included? We reached out to Discover to find out more. UPDATE: A Discovery rep told us that the offer will be extended to Echo Show customers later this year.

A Food Network exec told Variety that its app has been downloaded more than 5 million times since launch, and that both viewtime and subscriptions are up 50 percent each during this coronavirus lockdown. Free access to Food Network’s celebrity chefs combined with Amazon’s massive promotional capabilities should be a huge shot in the arm for the service.

If Discovery wanted to make even more of an impact, it would fast track a show about making bread.

FanWide Pivots to Offer Livestreamed Cooking Classes from Your Local Restaurant

FanWide had a pretty good idea for a business. The Seattle-based startup’s platform connected fans of various sports teams to create game watching parties at more than 800 local sports bars across the country. But in this pandemic world there is no sports and sports bars are closed, so…. yeah. Time to pivot.

Like so many other food–related companies during this outbreak, FanWide quickly adapted its product offering and business model to change with the times. Instead of connecting fans in front of TVs to watch a game together in real life, it is focusing its efforts on virtually connecting people with the chefs at their local restaurants to buy meals and learn how to cook them at home.

Here’s how it works. Once onboarded to FanWide’s platform, restaurants select a meal they want to offer (typically something built around a protein that isn’t too complex). Restaurants direct interested consumers to its dedicated section on FanWide, where they can order the meal ingredients directly from the restaurant as well as any add-ons like wine and select a time slot for the live video cooking demonstration.

The restaurant preps all the ingredients and assembles them into a meal kit that participants pick up at the restaurant (presumably in a contactless fashion). When it’s time, people log into FanWide and get livestreamed instructions showing them how to prepare their meal. The chef walks people through all the pre-heating, searing, flipping and plating and a sommelier can talk about the wine pairing. According to FanWide, classes typically last 45 minutes.

FanWide is targeting higher-end restaurants who have a more dedicated clientele, and anticipates meals costing consumers roughly $50 per serving (so a family of four would pay ~$200). FanWide makes its money by charging a 17.5 percent commission on the total bill (before tax) . Fifty bones per serving ain’t cheap for a dinner, but if the classes are good, that price becomes more palatable because FanWide is offering more of an experience rather than just grabbing a straight takeout meal.

FanWide is offering customers trapped in their homes another means of mixing things up in the kitchen. While services like Food Network’s Kitchen app offers live cooking instruction from celebrity chefs, FanWide offers a deeper connection to local chef’s in people’s hometown. Not only do you learn from your neighbor, but you also support that restaurant during a time when they need it most. These types of local connections could make Fanwide more appealing for community-minded folks.

But at the end of the day, how good the virtual classes are is what will make or break the FanWide experience for people. It’s also the thing that’s almost entirely out of FanWide’s control. The company provides restaurants with a guide for proper video setup, but it’s still up to the restaurant to have a decent camera, placed in proper position with good lighting, and a solid mic, etc. Chefs cook good food, they don’t do video production, and with social distancing measures, it’s not really advisable to have a film crew coming through a kitchen on a regular basis.

I don’t think FanWide’s pivot into livestreaming cooking classes is a bad idea. It’s certainly better than holding out hope that sports and sports bars will come back anytime soon. But as a parent, I don’t imagine this is something I would do to make dinner with/for my 9-year-old. If we didn’t have a kid, it might be something fun and different to try while cooped up with a significant other once in a while, but again, it would depend on the quality of the presentation.

FanWide’s livestream cooking classes are on a limited trial basis right now, testing with family and friends before rolling out more broadly. But the company is eager to add restaurants to the platform from anywhere in the country.

Regardless of how well it works, kudos to FanWide for being so nimble and rolling with the pandemic punches. It’s one more example of tech startups pivoting to pitch in and help restaurants continue to earn revenue during this downturn. We’ve seen other companies like Territory Foods open up its platform so restaurants can sell pre-packaged meals to customers, and Impossible Foods allow restaurants to sell Impossible’s plant-based meat directly to consumers.

Now we’ll just need to see how far FanWide’s virtual cooking classes will be reach, and how soon sports will return, so it can reconnect with its original fanbase.

Cookly Raises “Pre-Series A” Round to Expand its Cooking Class Booking Platform

Cookly, the online service that lets you book cooking classes and culinary experiences in countries around the world, announced today that it has raised an undisclosed “Pre-Series A” round of funding to expand its platform. This round was led by Zcoin founder Paromin Insom, with participation from 500 TukTuks, which is part of 500 Startups.

The Bangkok-based Cookly connects travelers with 650 cooking classes in 65 destinations across 23 countries. Using their mobile app, users can book classes based on factors such as style, cuisine or dietary restrictions, all of which are offered by local professional chefs or cooking schools in that destination.

Cookly Co-Founder and CEO Benjamin Ozsanay told me by phone that the money will be used to expand into more destinations, and will act as a bridge to get the company to a proper Series A round.

While Zcoin’s Insom led the investment, this round was in all cash. However, Cookly plans to use Zcoin’s technology to facilitate “borderless payment transactions” at some point in the future, according to the press announcement.

Ozsanay said that in addition to expanding its global footprint, Cookly wants to evolve beyond just a booking platform. “Our goal is to create a proper community,” he said. Part of doing that will be broadening the audience beyond travelers and using cooking classes as a way for locals to engage with one another in different markets.

Cookly was launched in April of 2016 and had previously raised an undisclosed seed round from 500 TukTuks and dtac Accelerate.

The Chef and the Dish Delivers Private Video Cooking Lessons

Perhaps you’ve always wanted to take a cooking class but never followed through because of scheduling, fear of cooking in front of other people, or the plain fact that you didn’t want to leave the house.

In one fell swoop, Toronto-based The Chef and the Dish (C&D) eliminates all those excuses with its selection of video conference private cooking classes so you can learn on your own countertop.

The Chef and the Dish was launched two years ago by Jenn Nicken, a former Apple employee who wanted to bring that company’s seamless approach to technology and entertainment to the world of cooking.

“We video conference a chef into your home,” Nicken said, adding later “Our clients ask all the questions they want – and are given step-by-step coaching (and correcting!) – all without leaving their kitchen.”

The Chef and the Dish currently offers 35 cooking classes focusing on a range of cuisines (Italian, Japanese, American) and specific dishes (seafood pasta, gyoza, jambalaya). Each class is taught live by a qualified chef, runs anywhere from 2 to 3 hours. Classes are $299 for two people (in the same kitchen), and some classes go up to four people, with each additional person costing $50. Skype is the preferred method of delivery, but Nicken says that the service can use other technology if necessary.

Before the lesson actually happens, however, an assistant from The Chef and the Dish coordinates with the user to ensure that they have all the necessary ingredients and equipment. For more obscure ingredients, C&D will actually call around to local grocery stores to see who stocks them to help clients find what they need.

Paying almost $300 for a one-time cooking class is certainly a chunk of cheddar, but Nicken believes that the quality of instruction is a differentiator for her company. Instructors live where their dish originated, and there is a thorough vetting process to ensure that the chefs can teach as well as cook. Chefs on the C&D roster include Paul Then in Singapore, whose cooking has received two Michelin stars, as well as well-known Italian chef Daniela del Balzo.

And there is the combination of convenience and interaction. You don’t have to trudge out to a group cooking lesson, and unlike other online courses from famous chefs a la Masterclass, these aren’t just a library of static videos on demand.

In addition to the consumer product, The Chef and the Dish’s business model also includes branded content. For instance, the company recently partnered with Wüsthof to create an online class that helped promote the famous knife brand.

Right now, Nicken is the only employee of The Chef and the Dish, and the company has not taken any venture funding. She would not share any customer numbers with me, but said that people from across the globe have taken classes.

I asked Nicken if she was exploring partnerships with shoppable recipe companies such as Whisk to make the prep part a bit easier. While she said that was possible, she really wants their clients to venture out and explore their local grocery stores.

While cooking classes with real chefs could be a way to boost confidence for would-be chefs, the real question is whether they’ll be able to overcome the high sticker price.