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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

DishDivvy

An Airbnb for Air Fryers? How the Sharing Economy is Slowly Coming to Home Appliances

Back in 2016, the CEO of Swedish appliance company Electrolux floated the idea of possibly using a sharing economy model for washing machines.

“We have a few fun ideas we are testing, like: how about a laundry Uber, where people share their unused laundry time?” Jonas Samuelson said at the time.

While Electrolux never did launch an Uber-for-laundry service, it did eventually launch a subscription vacuum-as-a-service business in Europe for its robotic vacuum. Even so, the idea of sharing economy meets home appliances really hasn’t gotten much traction.

Until now. Kinda.

That’s because Tulu, an Israel/NY startup is bringing a version of the appliance-as-a-service concept to apartments and condos in the United States, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Israel. The company, which just raised a $20 million Series A funding round, offers short-term rentals on everyday household items like air fryers, printers, micro-mobility products (e-scooters), and more. They also power small shops for consumables like food.

The company, which started its shops in 2019, sees its concept of household goods-as-a-service as being in line with the mindset of everyday consumers who have gotten accustomed to sharing economy models.

“So I think that the best way to capture what Tulu is is that we’re part of a fundamental shift in consumption paradigms that are moving from this equation of ‘I want something, so, I buy it,’ into the equation of ‘I need something, therefore, I use it,” Yishai Lehavi, CEO and co-founder of Tulu, told Techcrunch. “We’re accelerating this already existing mindset and saying that everything in our daily life can become such a service.”

While I do think he’s right and the idea of short-term rentals for home goods is a perfect fit for those living in multi-family housing, it’s worth noting that Tulu isn’t a true two-sided peer-to-peer marketplace like Uber or Airbnb. It’s closer to a Lime e-bike model, where the supplier of the goods is the platform owner, while the other side is the consumer. This might be a small distinction and ultimately one that doesn’t matter to customers of Tulu (and future services like it), since in the end they still get the benefit of temporary ownership & usage no matter if the appliance is rented from a company or a private owner.

Where we are seeing true peer-to-peer sharing economy models in kitchens is via home cook marketplaces like Dishdivvy and Shef. These platforms give those with a kitchen and a little cooking capability an opportunity to monetize their ability and appliances, while also giving buyers a faster way to get what they want: finished meals.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see companies like Tulu, cottage food marketplaces, and even surplus food sharing services like Olio continue to gain traction in coming years. Inflation, increased urban density, and acceptance of new sharing models will continue to push many consumers to reject ownership as the default model when it comes to home appliances.

DishDivvy Partners with DoorDash to Deliver Home-Cooked Meals

Today DishDivvy, an online marketplace for home-cooked meals, officially announced its integration with DoorDash to facilitate food deliveries. Previously, hungry folks who had purchased a meal from a home cook over DishDivvy’s platform had to go and pick up their homemade lasagna/spanikopita/pad thai themselves. Now they have the option to pay a mileage-based delivery fee to have it delivered directly to their door.

DishDivvy may have just officially announced the news, but CEO Ani Torosyan wrote to me today that the startup had been making deliveries with DoorDash since 2019. “We held off on announcing because we wanted to test the integration and really understand delivery when it comes to home kitchen operations,” she wrote. Since then she said that they have iterated on their integration, but wouldn’t reveal exact details.

The official news comes just a couple weeks after DishDivvy announced it would be expanding from its home state of California into Utah. Torosyan said that they hadn’t tested DoorDash delivery in all of Utah yet, but that as of now there is some coverage in the state. She added that third-party delivery of home-cooked food is completely legal in both California and Utah.

DoorDash’s costs for the home-cooked food are a bit pricey: $6 for delivery within a 3-mile radius. That might seem excessive when you could just zip over and pick it up for free. However, adding the delivery option allows DoorDash to reach a wider audience: those extremely strapped for time, people without access to a car, anyone who is mobility-challenged, or doesn’t want to leave the house, etc. etc.

It may seem like a relatively small step, but integrating with delivery shows that DishDivvy is serious about making the cottage food marketplace a legitimate food option available to all — not just a niche audience. Well, at least in those states that allow the sale of home-cooked food.

DishDivvy to Expand Homemade Food Marketplace to Utah

Talented cooking hobbyists of Utah, you’ve got a new potential side hustle. Yesterday DishDivvy, a marketplace which connects home cooks with hungry neighbors, announced that it had begun operations across Utah.

DishDivvy is a mobile app that lets preapproved home cooks sell food to local consumers. The startup helps home cooks get certified and onboarded onto their platform. They also handle all ordering and payment internally, and can even help arrange for home delivery. Utah will be the second territory for Glendale, CA-based DishDivvy, the first being its home state of California.

DishDivvy wasn’t the first company to try and create a cottage food marketplace. Josephine was an early entrant in the food sharing economy, similarly connecting home cooks with hungry consumers. Due to regulatory issues they were forced to suspend operations at the end of 2017. However, with the passage of California law AB-626 (which was pushed forward by Josephine’s team), DishDivvy was able to commence operations in California at the end of 2018.

Utah has just passed a similar law with H.B. 181, The Home Consumption and Homemade Food Act. Under the law, home cooks in Utah are “exempt from any state, county, or city licensing, permitting, certification, inspection, packaging, and labeling requirements,” provided they comply with certain requirements set in the law. Therefore Utah residents, like Californians, are now able to sell homemade food directly from their home — as long as they have the proper permits to do so and follow some basic rules (food must be for home consumption, sold directly to consumer, etc).

We at the Spoon have been intrigued by the idea of a home cook marketplace for awhile. It’s an interesting way to give people a supplementary revenue source, keep money within a community, and connect neighbors, all while cutting down on food waste. That’s why we named DishDivvy one of our FoodTech 25 for 2019.

Last June, when Mike Wolf wrote about AB 626, he noted that “California often leads the country when it comes to forward-leaning legislation” and that the new law “could open the door for nationwide legalization and give a framework for home food entrepreneurs.” It seems like California has indeed opened that door for Utah — and I’m guessing we’ll see some more states pass laws to welcome cottage food industry in 2020.

91 Year Old Grandma is a Hit on FoodCloud’s Home Chef Marketplace in India

When it comes to cooking, grandmas might just be the killer app. At least, that’s what FoodCloud has potentially uncovered.

Based and operating in New Delhi, India, FoodCloud is an online marketplace where home chefs can sell food they prepare in their kitchen. Customers order from menus from more than 3,000 home cooks on the FoodCloud platform, and meals are then delivered via different third-party delivery services. Founded in 2015, FoodCloud has served 450,000 meals to date.

“Homemade food is held in great esteem in India,” FoodCloud Co-Founder and CEO, Vendant Kanoi told me by phone, “It is looked at as healthier.”

To participate, Chefs go through a rigorous on-boarding process, according to Kanoi. First, each home chef must be registered with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), which is the country’s equivalent of the USDA, for kitchen inspection and hygiene regulation. After that, a home cook’s food is taste-tested by not just FoodCloud employees, but also local food bloggers and critics.

“It’s not just employees tasting food,” Kanoi said, “It’s not just about what we like, it’s about getting independent views from knowledgeable people.”

Kanoi said that 80 percent of the home cooks on the platform are stay-at-home moms. Among the most popular is a 91-year-old who sells gujurati-style “Nani’s Nasta,” which translates as “grandmother’s snacks.” Customers are pretty evenly split between busy families ordering a homemade meal for delivery and corporate customers getting food for meetings and events.

FoodCloud generates revenue by taking a 20 – 35 percent commission on the total value of an order placed. Taking up to a third seems pretty steep, but then FoodCloud is delivering the audience and facilitating the transactions and delivery. DishDivvy, a similar service in California, charges just 15 percent, but things like cost of living are different in India so the economics play out differently.

Kanoi said that roughly 15 home cooks on FoodCloud make $20,000 USD per year, and roughly 100 make $2,000 USD. That too, doesn’t sound like a lot (California’s AB-626 law caps the yearly income generated by home cooking at $50,000). But consider that the average per capita income in Delhi is just a little over $5,300.

FoodCloud is also diversifying both its product line and its geography. Last year the company introduced its own line of homemade CPG snacks, and FoodCloud is expanding its marketplace to both Calcutta and Mumbai.

Kanoi said FoodCloud is not profitable yet, but is “close” to being breaking even operationally. FoodCloud has sixteen employees and has raised roughly $500,000 in angel funding as part of the FoodX accelerator.

The concept of home-chef-as-a-business is just taking off here in the U.S., and is at the beginning of its regulatory journey. I asked Kanoi if there were any cultural differences between the U.S. and India when it comes to buying food from someone else’s kitchen. He didn’t think so, saying “It’s global trend now. People are moving towards healthier food and people view homemade food as a better option. And you get something while supporting an entrepreneur.”

While home cooking as a business is just taking off here in the U.S., a positive outlook like that may be enough to convert skeptics, and make any grandmother proud.

We’re Taking Our Food Tech Meetups on the Road to Los Angeles!

On November 27th we’re taking our food tech meetups on the road to the sunny Los Angeles area! We’re teaming up with hardware VC firm Make in L.A. for this a half-day event highlighting innovative makers, startups, and investors that are leveraging technology to shape our relationship with food. Here’s what we have in store:

  • Short talks and Q&A’s from the founders of Ordermark, Pathspot, and Kitchen United, plus a panel with all three companies on how they’re shaping the future of the restaurant.
  • The founder of Somabar will talk about how robots can help us live, eat, and drink better.
  • DishDivvy’s CEO will discuss how her company is democratizing home food businesses and bringing the sharing economy to dinner.
  • We’ll wrap things up with a VC panel on strategies for investing in companies disrupting food industries with leaders from Make in L.A., Upfront Ventures and Valley Oak Investments.

Oh, and there will be plenty of time for networking and lunch from a taco food truck, of course.

If you’re in the L.A. area and are interested in the food tech space we’d love to have you join us. The event will be from 10am-2pm  at MiLA’s innovation hub Toolbox LA in Chatsworth, CA. Registration is free thanks to our sponsors Fenwick & West and the Silicon Valley Bank. See you there!

DishDivvy Free to Connect Home Cooks and Customers with Passage of AB 626

DishDivvy has spent this year waiting. Waiting to see what would happen with California’s Homemade Food Operations Act (AB 626), which would make home based food businesses legal. With Governor Jerry Brown signing the bill into law this week, DishDivvy is no longer playing the waiting game and can fully launch its home cook marketplace.

Based in Glendale, CA, DishDivvy is a mobile app that connects hungry people with pre-approved home cooks selling food in their area. Right now, the app only works in certain parts of Southern California including Glendale and La Cañada.

Before cooks are allowed on to the platform, DishDivvy vets them with interviews and on-site inspections. Additionally, each cook must provide proof of food safety training and a California Food Handlers Card. There are additional health and safety regulations spelled out in AB 626 that home cooks must adhere to as well.

CEO & Founder Ani Torosyan told me she was inspired to start DishDivvy by her Armenian mom, who was always making food, and making way too much of it. For Torosyan, DishDivvy is a way to connect neighbors and communities through food, and to provide an authentic cultural alternative to many areas that only have generic chain restaurants as dining options.

Torosyan worked with COOK Alliance and was active in lobbying for the passage of AB 626. With the law in the books, DishDivvy is now free to scale up its operations.

DishDivvy currently has 45 cooks on its platform, which the company works with to help establish meal prices. When an order is placed, DishDivvy takes a 15 percent cut, leaving 85 percent for the home cook. The company also charges a five percent convenience fee to consumers on top of the order. Right now orders are only available for pickup from the cook’s home, but Torosyan told me that DishDivvy is partnering with DoorDash, which will soon facilitate delivery of home cooked meals to other homes.

As Spoon founder, Mike Wolf wrote in June:

“California often leads the country when it comes to forward-leaning legislation and if AB 626 passes it could open the door for nationwide legalization and give a framework for home food entrepreneurs (also known as the ‘cottage food’ industry), and b) I think home cooking is the next big micro-entrepreneur space to open up, much like home sharing and ride sharing did over the past decade.”

DishDivvy, which is currently hiring and closing its first seed round, has positioned itself nicely to ride any impending home cooking trend that AB 626 unleashes. And that was something worth waiting for.

Governor Brown Signs AB 626 Into Law, Opening Door to Home Based Food Businesses

After the California state senate unanimously passed the Homemade Food Operations Act (AB 626) at the end of August, the last step to making the bill into law was the signature of the state’s Governor, Jerry Brown.

Yesterday he provided just that.

With Brown’s signature, AB 626 makes it legal to start a home based food business in California. While it was always likely that Brown would sign the bill, it was not a foregone conclusion. The bill faced strong opposition from public health organizations who believe home based food businesses pose a potential health risk despite the safeguards built into the 626 in the form of home health inspections and permitting.

In the end, however, these voices of opposition weren’t enough to keep Brown from making AB 626 law.

The news is probably bittersweet for the founders of COOK Alliance, the advocacy organization which worked with lawmakers to shepherd 626 through the California state legislature.  The group was created by the founders of Josephine, which they shut down earlier this year in large part due to the difficulty of running a marketplace for home cooked meals in states like California where it wasn’t legal to do so.

And while it may be too late for Josephine, other entrepreneurs have been working on platforms to connect would-be home food entrepreneurs with hungry customers. One company, DishDivvy, launched their app this summer and is operating in California.