I was asked to send a 500-600 word response to the following question today: “How can technology and design be used to hack the future of dining?”. So I thought, “hey! here’s a great way to use @Medium for the first time.” I will just start writing a bunch of stuff and see what happens — it is so nice not be held to higher writing standards (thinking of you @AbbyTweets).
The first thing I am tempted to do with a question that is so open-ended, is put it into a more defined context. To me, if we can figure out how to make cooking at home as easy as ordering takeout, we would be attacking a very important painpoint that, if solved, can offer great advantages when it comes to dining.
So let’s start by defining the process one goes through in order to successfully prepare a meal at home. Then we’ll look at where the points of friction can come into play:
Typically, it is between actions 1 and 3 that someone looks at the other person (or the mirror) and and says: “what if we order takeout instead?” The friction of having to pick what to cook, and getting set up with the right ingredients, is just too big. This is why people end up with greasy takeout pad thai instead.
It is very rare that someone will get to action 4 and decide that instead he or she will order takeout. At that point, the benefits of finishing the home meal outweigh the drawbacks as most of the friction is perceived to be gone. So, in my opinion, the focus should be in recipe selection and ingredient sourcing. here is where technology and design can be used to most effectively hack dining.
Companies like Yummly and Allthecooks have done a terrific job at recipe curation and search; and others like Blue Apron and Plated help in ingredient sourcing by making it super easy to get to point 4 in our list. I’ve used and love all of these services.
However, according to a recent poll, four in five people like to cook with what they are familiar with and not necessarily with recipes. There is also the problem of personalization. With Blue Apron and Plated, your personalization options are limited (for obvious reasons).
At @TheOrangeChefCo we decided to start attacking one of the most desired outcomes of a home meal with Prep Pad: to be healthy and completely customizable. We are still experimenting and exploring solutions, but we have a clear roadmap that will eventually have products and services that will make actions 1 to 3 in our list easy and automated. This is where I think we should put our energy into developing new technologies and using design thinking to hack dining.
If you are interested in helping us find solutions to these problems, let us know. We would love to have you for lunch.
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