All About the Cooks vs delivery apps

Can you tell me about the history of All About the Cooks and how did you come up with the concept?

My background is in marketing and advertising, and after having children, I worked as a consultant. Eating real meals prepared by real people rather than factory-produced goods has always interested me. My kids eventually became tired of hearing me tell them to eat an egg if they wanted fast food. It’s kind of my life mantra in terms of fast food.

Back in 2018, I was chatting with a friend, and we sort of thought it would be great if we could order takeaways from home cooks, and that really resonated with me. I believe that home cooks’ takeaways are comparable to the experience of being in your kitchen. As we started working on this idea, I saw there was a great need for people who wanted to work in the food industry but didn’t want to work nights and weekends or in those kinds of hierarchical environments in restaurants. None of it had anything to do with their abilities. And I am aware that I would have been interested in this as a cook when my children were little.

What factors contributed to the expansion of the brand from Bristol to Bath?

Right from the outset, All About the Cooks has been “go big or go home”. So in essence, we are a software company with a website that is similar to Etsy, and what we do is accept numerous little fees from several orders. The first location picked for our pilot test was Bristol.

I was interested in proving three things with the Bristol launch of All About the Cooks: that people want to buy home-cooked food, that people want to cook and sell through the platform, and lastly, attracting investors to the concept. If they didn’t think it was worth investing in, then it wasn’t going to be a go.

Unfortunately, we had to prove the concept through orders and cook recruitment. So we launched at the very end of 2020, and our first year was quite difficult. But when we were fully ready and had some investment, Bath felt like the next city. People from Bath were also starting to hear about All About the Cooks because we’re close to Bristol.

In the spring of 2022, we raised more than £350,000 through crowdfunding with the help of Cookpad, a recipe platform with 100 million users across 70 nations, and launched All About the Cooks in Bath.

How many chefs are available on the platform currently and how can home cooks register?

So currently, we have more than 50 chefs taking orders, and there are more cooks registered than you’ll see on the platform.

Chefs that are interested in using our platform must visit the website and select “become a cook.” There, people can find all the information they require. All cooks who sell food through the platform must register with their local council. They must receive a minimum rating of four stars after being inspected. They also have to complete the Level 2 food hygiene certification exam and fill out a few forms. Currently, we offer insurance to all of our cooks. So, that actually removes a barrier for them.

One thing we’ve also learned is that the cooks need good photos if they want to sell successfully. We also provide them with a photographer. If not, we instructed them to prepare the item they intend to sell, create it, and take some pictures of it.

We want people to sign up who are relatively devoted, so there is some time and effort involved, and I don’t mind them having to put in a little work for that. We also offer insurance to cooks and give individuals two commission-free months to test if it will work for them. The barriers were kept to a minimum, certainly in terms of cost, because we wanted this platform to be as accessible as possible.

How can customers place orders for their food and how is it delivered?

If you’re on the website, you put in your postcode, and you’ll be presented with a list of cooks in order of their proximity to your house. Following that, you can simply go through and peruse people’s menus or use the filters feature to look for a particular cook or dish.

Beyond that, placing an order is similar to buying anything else online. You choose what you want, whether you want it delivered or picked up, and you choose a time slot for that. After you’ve placed your order, the cook will get in touch with you, giving you details about the house. If the cook wants to deliver the food themselves, they can do so through the platform.

Considering All About the Cooks launched in 2020, which was during the pandemic, how did it affect the growth of the business as most restaurants were closed?

We were just about ready to launch in March 2020. However, we thought it wasn’t going to be a fair test. Launching during the pandemic, when all restaurants were closed, wouldn’t stack up for an investor. So the launch of All About the Cooks got extremely complicated.

When we did launch at the end of 2020, we still faced other challenges, like having furloughed chefs who were selling on the platform, and many of our home cooks had children attending school from home and didn’t have time to cook. Overall, the first year was quite chaotic and full of upheaval. It was only by the middle of 2022 that we were able to get some proper traction during a fairly stable period. It served as a sign that the idea had merit from both the perspective of the chefs and the customers.

How does the performance fare in areas with a strong traditional restaurant scene?

I believe dining out will always be an exciting experience. So, I don’t believe we actually compete with restaurants. With the launch of All About the Cooks, we are making it simpler to locate a home-cooked dinner that you kind of wish you had prepared yourself. On the other hand, I have also questioned whether we would be impacted by the current restaurant industry challenges. But I can confirm that it does appear like the restaurants are still pretty busy on the weekends and other times after trying to make reservations over the previous weekend.

However, we are starting to view the suburbs differently as a result. We pick up in rural and suburban areas delivery apps like Deliveroo and UberEATS aren’t so popular in these regions. Hence, in addition to cities, I’m also interested in the areas between cities.

How is All About the Cooks different from delivery services like Deliveroo and UberEats?

I believe that, when compared to Deliveroo and UberEats, we don’t touch the food and the food is pre-ordered. You’re not saying, “Well, I’m hungry; I don’t want to go out; I’ll just order a pizza.” The main distinction is that this isn’t spur-of-the-moment food, and we don’t operate as a delivery service or a logistics company. We only provide a platform for local chefs.

As a result, our commissions are substantially smaller. Our cooks don’t get enough orders coming in for them to afford to give out a lot of commission. The phrase “all about the cooks” refers to the value and authenticity of the food prepared by our home cooks. You’re not merely purchasing a pizza from a restaurant. It’s considerably more intimate and personal when you purchase meals that a home cook has prepared specifically for you from their menu.

One of the things that our feedback surprised us with was how much people loved the doorstep interaction as a part of the whole experience. Thanks to the pandemic, individuals could sort of pop around and have a conversation over the wall when they heard their neighbours cooking pizza or having a BBQ in their backyards. We’re attempting to capture a sense of community and familiarity that comes from knowing where people with particular skills can be found within their area. The idea of purchasing food from the platform is certainly a little more familiar to people, which may seem like a tiny overlap.

What is the brand’s plan in terms of expanding its presence in the UK?

From the beginning, we wanted to paint a pretty clear picture of what success looks like in Bristol and were determined that, in order to launch elsewhere, we definitely needed to acquire more investment. We have picked up quite a lot of inquiries from other places, but what I want to say to people is that if you’re interested and you’re in Birmingham, or Brighton, or in any other city in the UK, then do go ahead and sign up on our website because that will inform where we launch next.

At some point, we will be generally available, but we need the cooks before we can get the customers. As far as our technology goes, you could be selling food anywhere in the country; we’re limited only by UK postcodes and currency. So the platform that we have at the moment could be used to sell food in Aberdeen, Norwich, or Cornwall. In fact, we have a cook who was in Bristol and then moved to Devon, where she’s still selling food. She sells her foods to local people in Devon by sending them a link to her page on the website. The idea that you could click on anything from an Instagram picture of some food that looked delicious and really put it in your basket is a powerful one. And I believe that will be crucial to how we operate moving forward.

Do you have any plans to launch an app?

This is something that crops up a lot, but there are a couple of things that need to be taken into consideration. We already have a lot of content on our website, and we’re learning all the time about what people want from our technology. We would want that demand to indicate an app. So it was a very deliberate decision to launch a website first. It’s interesting, though—75% to 80% of website visits are generated from the mobile version, and the site is mainly formatted first and foremost for mobile. Launching an app is a great thing, and yes, further down the line, we would like to have one. But it’s not imminent. For now, the idea of doing both feels like a very expensive luxury.