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Shef

December 7, 2020

Homemade Food Delivery Service WoodSpoon Raises $2M

WoodSpoon, an NYC-based service that delivers meals made by home chefs, announced today it has raised $2 million in seed funding. The round was led by World Trade Ventures with participation from Silvertech Ventures. 

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the funding round will help WoodSpoon expand both in the New York area and into other states in the future. The company’s platform connects home chefs — both professionals and hobbyists — with local customers who can purchase available meals in their area via a mobile app. WoodSpoon, which launched this year, says it now has about 100 chefs on its platform, including those who have worked at Nobu, Cipriani, The Modern, and other notable restaurants. 

The legality of meal services for home chefs varies from state to state in the U.S., largely due to safety concerns. Speaking to the safety issue, WoodSpoon CEO and cofounder Oren Saar told me earlier this year that his company conducts a rigorous vetting process that includes interviews, evaluation of the food itself, and kitchen inspections. All chefs also have to be in compliance with NYC’s regulations and permit requirements, which vary depending on the type of food the chef plans to make from their home. Saar said many of WoodSpoon’s chefs, which include a number of individuals out of work because of the pandemic, will often use their own commercial facilities to fulfill orders.

The business for homemade delivery meals isn’t widespread in the U.S. yet, for the aforementioned legality issues. California is another state where it’s possible to make money as a home chef. To that end, a company called Shef, based in the San Francisco area, also recently raised a seed round of funding. 

Back east, WoodSpoon is currently available in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island City, Hoboken, and Jersey City. The service will soon expand to Queens and The Bronx.

August 21, 2020

Home Food Marketplace Shef Raises $8.8M Seed Round

Homemade food marketplace Shef announced today it has raised $8.8 million in seed funding. The round included participation from Y Combinator, Craft Ventures, and M13 with participation from founders and executives from Instacart, TaskRabbit, StubHub, AngelList, Lyft, Airbnb, and Yelp.

Shef says that right now, it is focused on expanding its service, which is available in various regions around the U.S., to provide opportunities for chefs and other restaurant workers that are indefinitely out of a job because of COVID-19 and independent restaurant shutdowns. “Our mission has always been to help immigrants and refugees make a meaningful income. We’ve now expanded that mission to include feeding frontline healthcare workers and putting laid-off restaurant cooks back to work,” Shef cofounder Alvin Salehi said in a statement.

Salehi, a former White House tech advisor, and food entrepreneur Joey Grassia founded the service in 2018.

Via the Shef website, home chefs can post menus as well as designate which days of the week meals are available for delivery. All “shefs” undergo an application process as well as food safety certification training. 

Shef said in today’s press release that it has about 4,000 applicants on its waitlist at the moment, and that the popularity of the service has “skyrocketed” since the start of the pandemic.

Meal-sharing marketplaces are a relatively new concept in the U.S., where they’ve only recently become legal. In California, where Shef is based, AB626 was signed into law in 2018. Glendale, CA-based DishDivvy offers a similar service via its mobile app, and NYC-based WoodSpoon has a marketplace connecting home chefs with consumers on the East Coast.

However, in other states, the practice of selling meals out of your own kitchen remains illegal, which makes these services spotty in terms of availability. Whether the shutdown of many restaurant dining rooms and the accompanying loss of jobs changes that remains to be seen.

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