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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

food media

Dotdash Acquires Simply Recipes and Serious Eats from Fexy Media

Digital publisher Dotdash announced today that it has acquired the websites Simply Recipes and Serious Eats from Fexy Media. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Dotdash was already a sizeable player in the consumer content publishing space, owning such brands as The Spruce, Lifewire, TreeHugger and Liquor.com. This is the fifth acquisition for Dotdash since 2019. According to the press announcement, Simply Recipes and Serious Eats will keep using Fexy’s Relish shoppable recipe and menu-planning technology, and Relish will be added across The Spruce Eats.

Combined, Simply Recipes and Serious Eats reach more than 16 million people per month (comScore August 2020) the two companies reported in its press release. Dotdash is acquiring the 27 employees of Simply Recipe and Serious Eats, and plans to invest in both properties. Dotdash CEO Neil Vogel told Axios:

“To make a food site work now, you have to make GIFs. You have to have incredible video capabilities,” says Vogel. “You have to explore the cultural history of recipes and talk about nutrition. All these things you never had to do 5 years ago, but now you have to do them.”

Dotdash will continue to monetize the sites through advertising, though Vogel told Axios that the number and types of ads on both sites will be more optimized.

Fexy’s network of partner recipe sites also includes brands such as FoodieCrush, Recipe Girl and Macheesmo, which offers shoppable recipes via the Relish platform. Additionally, earlier this year at the height of pandemic panic-shopping, the company released an online tool that let you see if certain goods are in-stock at your local Target and Walmart. We reached out to Fexy Media to find out more about this deal from its end and will update this post as we hear back.

The pandemic has also provided an opportune time for Dotdash to bolster its recipe-related content. With COVID shutting down dine-in options at restaurants (and closing restaurants altogether), more people have been pushed into preparing more of their meals at home. Simply Recipes and Serious Eats are both big brand names in the world of food that should help Dotdash expand its reach.

UPDATE: an earlier version of this story listed recipe partner sites as being owned by Fexy.

To Video, and Beyond: The Future Recipe For Media, Food & Cooking

Question: What do you get when you take a celebrity chef, a video content creator, a food magazine legend, and a futurist, give them microphones, and put them on a stage?

Answer: This panel on the evolving food media space from the 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit.

Unlike a media room with a sofa and bean bag chair, the kitchen is a space for participatory media: guided cooking videos, voice assistants, or printed recipes. Former Editor in Chief of Food & Wine Dana Cowin sat down with Project Foodie’s Eli Holzman, chef Tyler Florence, and forward-thinking inventor/futurist Dhairya Dand to explore how new (and old) media can combine storytelling and utility to help people cook better, and have more fun doing it. Watch the video below to hear how these tastemakers, with very diverse entry points into the food world, see the role of media in the smart kitchen space.

Fusion Cooking: The Future Recipe For Media, Food & Cooking

Look out for more videos of the panels, solo talks, and fireside chats from SKS 2018! We’ll be bringing them to you hot and fresh out the (smart) kitchen over the next few weeks.

Podcast: The Future of (Food) Media Is Conversational & AI Driven

If you’re looking for someone who can build a media company with the future in mind, you could do a lot worse that Shelby Bonnie.

Bonnie first showed his ability to build forward leaning media properties with CNET, a company he cofounded that helped set the template for tech media for much of the past couple decades. For his next act, Bonnie cofounded Whiskey Media, a company that tapped into the power of passionate communities with brands like Tested, Screened and Giant Bomb just as social media platforms like Facebook were beginning to change the media landscape.

And Bonnie’s latest bet? A company called Pylon, which is leveraging AI-powered voice assistants and chatbots to create media properties that power content delivery in vertical interest areas such as food and cooking.

I caught up with Shelby to talk about those early days, how he sees media evolving over the next decade and how he thinks Pylon can help shape that new future.

If you are an appliance maker, food brand or any company that touches the consumer, you’ll want to listen to this podcast to get an understanding of the future of consumer media.

You can listen to the podcast below, download it here or subscribe to the Smart Kitchen Show on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Lisa McManus Wants To Prevent Buyer’s Remorse In The Smart Kitchen

The Smart Kitchen Summit is the first event to tackle the future of food, cooking and the kitchen with leaders across food, tech, commerce, design, delivery and appliances. This series will highlight panelists and partners for the 2017 event, being held on October 10-11 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. 

America’s Test Kitchen has been helping people learn to cook better food at home long before the word “smart” was attached to the kitchen or home. Originally a TV series started in 2001 by famous chef and editor-in-chief of Cook’s Illustrated Christopher Kimball, the brand has grown to include a digital empire of TV and web shows, online recipe content, cooking classes and kitchen equipment reviews.

Lisa McManus is the executive editor of equipment testing and ingredient tasting and the on-air “gadget guru” for ATK – which means her mission includes testing various types of kitchen tech and determine its worthiness as a tool for the home chef. As gear in the kitchen becomes more high-tech and connected, McManus and her team test “smart” cooking equipment alongside traditional versions. “It adds an extra challenge to assess how the technology enhances – or doesn’t – the experience of using that product,” she says.

McManus herself is a self-proclaimed obsessive researcher and hates the feeling of buyer’s remorse. When she bought her first car, she read exhaustively about the auto industry, studied different models and designs, watched crash-test dummy videos and even joined Zipcar for a year to be able to drive different cars without a salesperson sitting next to her. That dedication to finding the best solution spills over into her job at America’s Test Kitchen every day.

“I try to stand in for the home cook, and prevent other consumers from feeling stuck with sub-par products. I design and conduct tests, and share what I’ve learned, to help people find the most practical, functional gear.”

Interestingly, America’s Test Kitchen, which is owned by Boston Common Press, has built a powerful model for food media without resorting to heavy advertisements. There are no ads in the brand’s magazines and they have over a million paid subscribers between Cook’s Illustrated and Cook Country. McManus says the lack of advertisers allows the company to freely discuss products – the good, bad and the ugly – and be the strongest possible advocates for consumers, only recommending devices and gadgets that will really make cooking easier and food taste better.

As more startups look to capitalize on the digital craze around food videos and recipes, America’s Test Kitchen seems to have built a brand that’s adaptive to changing consumer demands and interests. Turning their eye to how technology is impacting the consumer kitchen is one way to do that.

“I’m really excited about the direction of the smart kitchen; right now I see a lot of creativity and energy in this field as it develops, not all of it practical, but that will happen over time,” McManus adds. “I’m sure tech is going to change how we all use our kitchens and prepare our meals, and what looks very futuristic and exclusive right now will become commonplace.”

The America’s Test Kitchen team might be excited about tech playing a bigger role in the kitchen, but there’s also a healthy dose of skepticism mixed in. McManus says she’s constantly looking how connectivity is going to solve a real problem instead of becoming a useless feature that renders the product more expensive but not more functional. Often, she says, things like the app might have been worked on for a while, but the actual cooking device is sub-par, or the database of recipes is limited and an afterthought. “How long before this product is no longer useful? Has the practical day-to-day usage been fully considered or does it make more work? Bottom line: Is the connectedness offering a real benefit that will become second nature, or is it just frills, bells and whistles?” 

Don’t miss Lisa McManus, executive editor at America’s Test Kitchen at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit. Check out the full list of speakers and to register for the Summit, use code ATK to get 25% off ticket prices.

The Smart Kitchen Summit takes place thanks to our sponsors; if you’re interested in sponsorship opportunities, reach out to the SKS team to discuss options. 

If you’d like to attend the Smart Kitchen Summit, you can still buy early bird tickets and get an additional 25% off by using the discount code SPOON here. 

Scripps Networks Buys Online Food Content Startup Spoon University

The world of food content can easily be divided into two camps: the traditional media houses who have access to warehouses of recipe-based content and the digital media startups using social and video to help a new generation of home chefs. Today, Scripps Network, parent company of Food Network, HGTV and the Cooking Channel has acquired digital food media startup Spoon University.

Spoon University was started by Techstars alums Mackenzie Barth and Sarah Adler who founded the company as a magazine while undergrads at Northwestern. The two created a selective content platform that allowed college students to create, upload and share their food videos – after they applied and were accepted. Barth and Adler raised $2m in 2015, positioning themselves as the Food Network for millennials and were accepted to the popular Techstars accelerator program. Spoon University started with 3,000 volunteers contributing to the platform and has grown to support 4 million daily website visitors and “tens of millions” of viewers across social platforms. Every college chapter contributes original content to the site, including recipes, reviews of restaurants, news and events and tips to make cooking simple and fun.

The terms of the deal between Spoon University and Scripps Network were not disclosed, but the announcement indicates the Spoon team will continue daily operations and exist as a separate division, reporting to the company’s head of Scripps Lifestyle Studios. Reuters talked to a source who speculated the deal was worth around $10 million. “Food Network has always been a brand that we have looked up to, and over time we have seen that our teams share similar energy, curiosity and passion,” commented CEO and co-founder Mackenzie Barth.

The move by Scripps is a smart way for the powerhouse network to move faster into the digital food content space, an area where Spoon University competitors like Tastemade and Buzzfeed’s Tasty are battling be the go-to resource for home chefs. Stations like the Food Network and Cooking Channel have historically relied on TV programming to monetize content with advertising sales. With cable subscriptions declining and a huge uptick in the use of online recipes and crowdsourcing via social media to figure out “what’s for dinner?” companies like Scripps have to innovate in order to keep up with a new generation of cooks.

According to the announcement, Scripps Network’s efforts to move reach younger audiences and create revenue streams on digital platforms have been paying off. With the launch of their digital division, “Scripps Lifestyle Studios,” in late 2015, the network claims to have delivered 5 billion video views across all shows and content areas.

Kathleen Finch, Scripps Networks Interactive’s Chief Programming, Content & Brand Officer added, “Food Network has become a significant force in digital and social food storytelling over the course of the last year, and this acquisition will provide us with the opportunity to build content, community and brand as we seek to accelerate our strategy in the sector.”

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Want to hear about the future of food, cooking and the kitchen? Come to the Smart Kitchen Summit. 

Twitter Invites Chefs To Serve Up Meals In 140 Characters Or Less

The rise of shareable recipes and food videos has every social platform and publication looking at how to capitalize on the trend. Buzzfeed’s Tasty videos garner over one billion views a month, YouTube’s founder is launching a foodie cooking channel called Nom – and now Twitter will have its very own Food Council. The Twitter Food Council will be comprised of 17 famous chefs who will use Twitter as well as video sharing platforms Periscope and Vine to share original food content.

According to Twitter, “Anyone who wants to join the conversation and interact with Council members can simply Tweet with the official hashtag, #FoodFlock.” Participating council members include celebrity chef and council head Alex Guarnaschelli, CEO of Food52 Amanda Hesser and celebrity chef Michael Mina.

Our take: It’s not surprising that Twitter is looking for ways to get in on the food content game. With the rise of apps like SnapChat and Pokemon Go, Twitter’s stock prices have fallen almost 50% in the last year with a static monthly user base of around 310 million. They have attempted to hone their strategy, recategorizing themselves as a “News” app instead of “Social Media” on app stores and focusing on live event coverage and key partnerships. The Tasty videos have become some of the most shared content on Facebook, so it makes sense for Twitter to look at food to help reinvigorate its brand.

Read more on Twitter’s blog.

America’s Test Kitchen Explores Food Science With New Publication

America’s Test Kitchen, a popular cooking show turned publication house, has launched a new brand called Cook’s Science. Led by food journalist Molly Birnbaum and America’s Test Kitchen host Dan Souza, Cook’s Science will report on stories that delve into the science behind food, experimentations in the kitchen and publish unique recipes for consumers.

Our take: As the food industry diversifies and expands, there are more opportunities for publications to expand their coverage. From consumer-driven content like recipe videos and guided cooking to examining the ways that technology is changing the way we eat, buy and prepare our food (see – The Spoon!), there’s a lot to talk about. And the industries that are involved and interested in these topics span a huge range: food, commerce, technology, AI, Big Data, design, retail and more.

We look forward to reading Cook’s Science take on the science behind the things we eat and getting our food nerd on.

Read the full press release.