A good deal of technology we see entering the kitchen involves helping us to be better at preparing food. Whether it’s guided cooking systems or pro-level tools that help average chefs make higher quality meals, the focus seems to be on helping people cook more, and more easily. But there’s another movement quietly taking shape – one we’ve talked about in the create your own beverage space, with products like PicoBrew’s at home brewing system – that involves DIYing food itself.
DIY food creation isn’t exactly a new concept; from things like cheese to yogurt and pasta to bread, purists and hobbyists alike have been making their own foods from raw ingredients since, well, the beginning of time. In fact, before the term DIY acronym existed, before we used artisanal to mean anything not made by a machine, there were people, without modern technology, churning butter and fermenting milk and rolling wheat and oil and water into dough.
But DIY food kits – easy-to-use and prepackaged kits that allow someone with little experience to create food from raw ingredients – are on the rise. Julie Feickert, CEO of DIY food kit company Cultures for Health, attributes the growth of mainstream attention on their products to the growing awareness and concern for healthy living. In an interview with Food Navigator, Feickert explained,
“More and more people have diet related conditions, gut health conditions that are pushing them to step back and say, ‘i need to control my food…I need to ultimately have a real handle on what my food is.”
The nostalgia for purer foods, ones that are less processed and locally sourced are often more appealing and the rise of things like farmer’s markets going digital with Amazon Fresh delivery and sales growth of DIY food kits are just a few examples that point to this growing consumer preference.
But raw materials, even when packaged together neatly with instructions to remove the guesswork, aren’t alone going to change consumer behavior when it comes to making foods from scratch. Today people are busier than ever and put a heavy value on convenience in addition to health and wellbeing. So while the DIY food kit market is experiencing a rise, the real magic will come when there’s technology to support it.
Read more about DIY food kits at Food Navigator.
