The P2P revolution is here! You’ve heard of sharing your house using Airbnb, you’ve heard of driving for people via Uber, but did you know that you can now make money cooking for people, right from your home?
That’s what a half dozen new startups are trying to bring to the sharing economy. I’m fascinated by the idea, and over the coming weeks I hope to explore the various new platforms both as a consumer and an entrepreneur.
Right now I’m aware of seven sites competing in this industry. They are:
SupperKing
Home Dine
At the start of this article, I know almost nothing about any of these. But I love eating, I love cooking and I love being an entrepreneur, so I’m excited to give them a try.
First off, I’m going to do a bit of research about each of them so I can try to determine their relative strengths and weaknesses, and which would be the best fit for me (or for you).
My guess is that a year or two from now, or at least at some point in the future, only one or two of these will still be in business. There’s just a lot out there at the moment since it’s a new concept.
I’m also curious to learn more about the legal aspects of these sites. My understanding has always been that there’s a lot of red tape related to starting a restaurant in the US, and I’m curious what loop hole these sites and entrepreneurs are using, or if they’re just going under the radar.
Remember that there has also historically been lots of taxes and regulation in the hotel business, and in some places there is still ongoing discussion about the legal implications of Airbnb.
After doing some research, I’d like to try the most promising sites out as a customer, and then as an entrepreneur. I’ll update this post with what I learn, in hopes that someone else may find it helpful.
If you know of another site, or have personal experience with any of the sites already on the list, please feel free to share what you know in the comments.
EatWith Review
I’m going to start by reviewing EatWith.com. Of the P2P food sites, EatWith is the one I’ve heard the most about, although, admittedly, I haven’t heard that much about any of them.
I’m going to start by poking around their site and seeing what I can find out.
Firstly, it’s a nice site graphically, especially coming from the more dated looking mock trial sites.
They are only available in select areas, but it’s a long list. 33 sites in the US and 30 additional countries now have EatWith. (View the full list here.) They are not, however, available in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where I am at the moment. So I’ll have to wait before trying them out in person.
Some of the sites seem to only have one person doing it, so my sense is you don’t have to live in one of those 33 sites to become a seller, those are just the places where people have happened to set up EatWith businesses. (Which explains why there’s some seemingly random places on the list.)
Since it appears you have to set it up in a particular place, it may be more difficult for people trying to make money on the road, but perhaps if you’re staying put for a few months. In any case, I’m going to keep exploring it because it’s an opportunity I’m personally excited about.
For comparing these different P2P food sites, I’m going to use New York city as a point of reference, because I’m assuming it’s a market they’ll all have, and that they’ll be enough listings there that I can get an accurate sense of what the market’s like, rather than just what one entrepreneur is doing.
There’re currently 64 listings in New York, ranging from $33-143 per meal, with $57 per meal being pretty typical for the top listings. As an entrepreneur, I’m pretty happy with those prices. I would expect New York prices to be a bit higher than other markets, but still, seems like it would be possible to turn a profit on the site. There is currently one meal in New York that is totally sold out (a Japanese Ajito tasting menu), and when I looked at the site the first time a few days ago, my memory is there were far more that were sold out.
Looking at the first few listings in New York, here’s my initial take aways: First, they’re all multi-course. They tend to be experiences, lasting 2.5-3 hours. “Ethnic” food appears to be popular. While the hosts often express a life long love of cooking, none that I’ve seen so far claim professional culinary training, as I thought might be the case.
(This is re-assuring to me since, though I’ve always loved cooking, I’ve never received any formal training in it.)
My guess is coming up with something a bit creative and original theme wise probably helps.
On the EatWith website, this is where you go to become a host.
To become a host on EatWith, there is an application process. The first step is to submit a written application on their website (in English, Spanish or Hebrew). They encourage creativity.
Then there is a demo event, where you host as a test run, “audition with the community” as they say, and I assume the community gives feedback.
After that they offer a training program for “select hosts.”
So it seems to be more of a process than signing up on, say, Airbnb, but that’s probably a good thing. As an entrepreneur, it means less competition, and as a customer, it means your less likely to get food poisoning (hopefully), which would in turn hurt the site as a whole. (And just suck.)
They say you can earn “up to $700 for hosting each event.”
I want to look at the other sites on the list before I start an application for EatWith, but it certainly seems like a cool site, and I look forward to exploring it more.
Meal Sharing Review
The next site on the list is Meal Sharing. Unlike EatWith, Meal Sharing has 4 listings in Chapel Hill. It also, of course, has a bunch in New York city. Immediately, I sense that Meal Sharing has a different culture from EatWith. If EatWith is the 5 star restaurant of the sharing economy, Meal Sharing is the hip local dive where cool college kids out.
EatWith’s three figure price tags are a stark contrast to Meal Sharing’s $30 to FREE range for the first page of New York city results. While EatWith had listings for obscure foreign cuisines I couldn’t even pronounce, Meal Sharing features fried chicken, mac-n-cheese and SNL watch parties, commonly priced $5-12.
It’s not clear to me yet that either is better or worse than the other, it’s just a different thing. Depends on what you’re looking for. I’d certainly love to try both.
As an entrepreneur, Meal Sharing seem like kind of an easier starting point, since it’s more chill, and people aren’t paying a small fortune to be there. Though, you probably make more money on EatWith (as long as you have customers).
It seems like I’d also be more likely to meet cool people my own age on Meal Sharing. But who knows, I’d still like to explore both.
Here is where you go to become a host on Meal Sharing.
In contrast to EatWith’s apparently involved application process, Meal Sharing starts the sign up process with “Let’s get started by creating a meal.”
You’re then asked to pick what kind of a meal you’d like to host. “Dinner” seems the most common, but you can also offer a cocktail party, tea party, brunch, wine tasting, dessert, pot luck or a wide variety of other things.
It also asks you to specify a city for that particular event, so this may be a better option for people hoping to make money on the road.
Seems like a cool site!
Josephine.com Review
Price wise Josephine.com is more towards the Meal Sharing end of the spectrum. Unlike Meal Sharing and EatWith, which tend to be dinner experiences, Josephine.com focuses on take out. So you cook meals and people swing by your house and pick it up. Seems to me this could be done in combination with the other two, since you’re cooking a bunch of food anyway.
Josephine.com is currently only in California, and as I mentioned I’m on the East coast right now, so I won’t be able to try it first hand just yet.
For those interested in using the site as an entrepreneur, the application process seems to be more involved than Meal Sharing. Josephine.com requires not only a taste test, as with EatWith, but also a kitchen inspection and a California food handler card.
It appears not to have the critical mass that Meal Sharing and EatWith have, but there also seems to be less competition, if you happen to be in one of the cities where Josephine.com is available.
Will be interesting to see where the site goes from here. Catch on? Or fizzle out?
I like the idea of a take out meal sharing site, so I wish them well.
Foodie Shares Review
Next up we have our review for California based Foodie Shares. First off, unlike the others, Foodie Shares seems to be primarily an app, rather than primarily a traditional website. It’s definitely available for iOS/iPhone (that’s me!), it’s not clear to me yet if it’s available for Droid and other devices. (EDIT: The platform is available for Android.)
It’s more like Josephine.com rather than Meal Sharing and EatWith in that it’s dine away rather than dine in. Unlike Josephine.com, which is only for take out, Foodie Shares sometimes has delivery available.
Having the marketplace as an app provides some unique benefits, such as the ability for customer’s to get notifications when chefs they like post new dishes.
Unlike the other sites I’ve visited so far, Foodie Shares has a section on the legal ramifications of food in the sharing economy. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, the legality is something I’ve been very interested in for this opportunity. The argument that Foodie Shares makes is that, because you have to become a member, agree to terms and conditions and download the app before you can purchase a meal, their meals are not publicly available, and therefore not held to the same legal requirements that a restaurant or food truck would be held to.
They also mention the California Homemade Food Act and the availability of shared commercial kitchens. Though it seems this would be something that would be on a chef by chef basis, since I assume the majority of chefs on food sharing websites don’t live in California and aren’t members of a shared commercial kitchen.
Foodie Shares also points out that they are a marketplace rather than a food facility, which kind of says to me “we’re not 100% sure if this is legal but if it isn’t, it’s the chefs fault, not ours.” (The chefs would almost certainly have much shallower pockets in the event of a lawsuit.)
Even with Airbnb and Uber, which are much better established than the food sharing sites, there’re still a lot of legal questions up in the air. Just this week Uber and Lyft pulled out of Austin over new legislation that was passed there. So it makes sense that there wouldn’t be completely clear legal precedents yet for what Foodie Shares and the others are doing.
Part of what the sharing economy, and Airbnb and Uber specifically, have done, is take industries that were very regulated, with high bars of entry, and made them democratic and free market again.
So it will be interesting to see how laws evolved to balance the need for safety in the food industry with the awesome possibilities that food sharing creates both for entrepreneurs and food lovers.
Moving right along, Foodie Shares says pointe blank that their chef application process is minimal, and that they instead rely on a “robust in-app review system” (the eBay model, as it is sometimes called). As an entrepreneur, I like that model, and I have heard minimal complaints about problem hosts on Airbnb which uses a similar model.
Chef’s can also review Eaters on Foodie Shares, or even make certain dishes only available to select customers.
Customers can also request refunds (up to $50) and chefs can be removed from the platform in such a case.
As a chef, you package the food yourself. They recommend packaging similar to what restaurants would use, and to make sure it’s environmentally friendly. In California, they collect sales tax, outside California, it’s on you.
In Los Angeles, they have their own delivery carrier. Outside Los Angeles, it’s the chef’s responsibility to figure it out. They can deliver it themselves, or partner with a 3rd party delivery service. I think you can also do pickup only, though delivery presumably would make your offerings more popular.
Foodie Shares reminds us to be selective when choosing a 3rd party carrier, as sub-par service on their part would reflect badly on us.
You receive payments either to your PayPal account or direct deposit to your bank account, within 7 business days, which is quite good.
In regards to the commercial kitchen question, they say it depends on where you live and what you’re making. Basically, they don’t get involved. They’re just a marketplace and it’s on you to figure out the legal stuff.
They also recommend you review USDA Safe Food Handling Practices and information from your local health department.
Once you’re approved as a chef, you can list dishes which either show up as active (available to order at that moment) or coming soon, in which case people can reserve them. There is a limit on how many active dishes you can have at a time. (12 live and 5 active pre-order.) The idea behind this is to make sure chef’s are listing only their best dishes and customers have less clutter to weed through.
Here is where you go to sign up.
This page has information on best practices and how to take good photographs.
After downloading the app, I figured out there’re different types of dishes. Limited, for which there’re only a set number available. Pre-orders, which tend to be special and are requested in advance.
Like a lot of these platforms, Foodie Shares hasn’t quite reached critical mass in Chapel Hill where I am now. And by “hasn’t quite,” I mean the nearest available listing is in Indiana, a good three states away. But the good news is, it is possible to set it up here.
Definitely something I look forward to exploring on the road. If I’m in areas where people are already using the app (probably California) I’ll see how it works there, and if I’m in areas where it hasn’t caught on yet, I may give it a try anyway, and promote other ways.
Feastly Review
Now we come to Feastly: Food with a Story (their tagline). They’re more in line with the EatWith/Meal Sharing model of eating the meal at the chef’s home (or a pop up location) along with other users of the site. Price wise, they seem to be a little higher end than Meal Sharing, more towards the EatWith end of the spectrum, but perhaps just a little cheaper.
They’re currently in five US cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago and New York. So I’ll have to wait to give them a try. They do however invite “supper club hosts” outside those five cities to contact them about bringing Feastly to their city.
As with EatWith, meals on Feastly tend to be multi-course.
Beastly uses the word “supper club,” which implies private, and fits in with the legal approach Foodie Shares took. They also offer up to $1,000,000 in protection for chefs.
Head here to learn more about being a chef on Feastly. They claim to put chefs through an “extensive vetting process,” though it’s not yet clear to me exactly what that entails. It seems they speak directly to each chef before they become active on the platform. As with Foodie Shares, and I assume most of the others, Feastly also has a rating and review system.
For eaters, they have an interesting “loyalty program” where by 10% of your meal ticket over $15 is credited towards your next meal. Seems like a cool idea, and potentially a good way to keep being invested and coming back for more.
They also have “private” events that require a passcode from the cook to sign up.
Most meals are “BYOW” (bring your own wine), and the average number of guests allowed is 7-10. Beastly asks that you offer at least 4 spaces for the sake of “good social dynamic.”
SupperKing and Home Dine
Regrettably, SupperKing and Home Dine seem to no longer be with us. While they were early players in this innovative new frontier of food in the collaborative economy, they seem not to have made it.
Getting a Taste for Meal Sharing
Before I jump into the P2P food economy as an entrepreneur, I want to first get an idea of what it’s like as a customer. What better way to see what works and what doesn’t, what jumps out to customers and what seems important than by going to meals myself? Plus it just sounds like fun!
For my first foray into eating socially, I’m going to try Meal Sharing, mostly because they’re the only one on the list that already has an active presence in Chapel Hill where I am at the moment, but also because they seem to have a cool, fun culture, and are a bit more affordable than some of the others on the list.
I don’t have a whole lot to choose from. There’re currently only four meals available in my area. None are actually in Chapel Hill, but they’re nearby. They range in price from $8-15.
Two of the four are from the same person, so there’s only three people in this area doing it.
My impression on other sites was that you as the chef pick a day, and people sign up, where as for the Meal Sharing meals in my area, they’re more open ended. You just “request” a meal for a particular day and the chef says yes or no.
Conclusion
This post is getting pretty long, so I’m going to wrap it up now. I’ll add links to this article for additional posts and reviews of specific sites as I continue to explore them.
So far, there seem to be five significant sharing economy food sites out there. Each have their own merits (and geographic availability). Josephine.com and Foodie Shares are for take out/delivery, where as the others are for dine in. EatWith seems to be the highest end, Meal Sharing the more easy going. And Feastly has their loyalty program for regular diners.
It’s an exciting new economy and I look forward to learning more and seeing where it all ends up!