November 9, 2015

Ran into an interesting piece by Robin Sloan in The Atlantic delving into two contrasting approaches to experiencing food in San Francisco. I’m not sure we need to choose between “warmth and inefficiency” vs. “cold and efficient”. 

An interesting alternative might be the following: 

– A Josephine-like ecosystem of home cooks that are “discovered” by curators/taste-makers within the community. These are either people on the payroll of the startup or people in the community willing to experience the occasional bad meal in the quest for a few truly exceptional ones. 

– The exceptional meals are the “promoted” to get featured by the startup to their community. Promoted meals require the buy-in of the home-cook… in exchange for a cut of the proceeds, the home-cook provides the recipe/technique… Future “re-promotions” may result in a smaller royalty for the home-cook, but incentive all the same to share the “secrets”.

– For a majority of the proceeds, the startup provides a scaled up kitchen, raw materials, a pro-chef who strategizes with the home-cook and scales up the recipe where applicable. 

– With this model, we get the consistency/convenience of a Sprig, but the community connection and diversity of flavors of a Josephine. 

– Aspirational home cooks get to cook for hundreds of folks, be potential stars, and make “real” money along the way (plus they don’t have to do the dishes). 

– The startup gets to learn and perfect unique recipes and keep them on the rotation, delivering a wide range of community-centric flavors and options throughout the year and through different seasons. 

Food for thought.

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