Cookin Aims to Shake up Food Delivery Rut With Homemade Meals

With consumers’ restaurant aggregator orders becoming routine, homemade meal delivery app Cookin seeks to bring discovery back into the experience, adding a personal touch.

The app, which delivers meals from professional home cooks, launched in Toronto last year and came to the United States with its entry into Dallas, Texas, earlier this month, helped by a roughly $12.5 million funding haul announced in February.

In an interview with PYMNTS, Morley Ivers, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said this model meets consumers’ demand for novelty in home delivery.

“Food delivery has witnessed … exponential growth year over year,” he said. “What comes with that is a lot of people redoing the exact same order. They’re going onto XYZ app, and they’re ordering that same bowl of pad thai from [the same] restaurant. … When you’ve been doing that over and over again, it becomes tiring. The trend that we’re seeing right now … is consumers looking to explore and discover new sources of incredible food.”

While some consumers are interested in trying new options, PYMNTS research revealed that the majority of consumers look for consistency and familiarity in their food delivery experiences.

Findings from the study “Connected Dining: Third-Party Restaurant Aggregators Keep the Young and Affluent Engaged,” for which PYMNTS surveyed more than 2,200 U.S. consumers, found that 58% of aggregator users have made their restaurant choice before logging in to a platform most or all of the time. Still, that leaves 42% open to discovery.

Ivers said greater novelty comes from chefs working outside the restaurant context, preparing food in “their own kitchens or our commercial kitchens” because these makers are “able to explore variety and create really unique meals” with a degree of autonomy that traditional restaurants may not allow.

These meals come with handwritten notes from the chef, a touch that may be greatly appreciated now, with PYMNTS research finding that many consumers are indeed seeking more personal restaurant experiences. Data from PYMNTS’ study last year, “The Digital Divide: Technology, the Metaverse and the Future of Dining Out,” which drew from a survey of nearly 2,500 consumers, revealed that 13% of restaurant customers strongly agreed that restaurants are becoming increasingly less personal, and it affects their satisfaction. Plus, an additional 26% somewhat agreed.

For any food delivery company, the economics are a key concern, given the high cost of driver labor for transporting relatively low-value items. Ivers noted that cooks keep 80% of the revenue from every order, and Cookin receives a 10% cut. The company’s driver labor comes from integrations with existing delivery providers.

Looking ahead, the company aims to be in 17 major cities in the U.S. by the end of 2025. As the delivery service expands, it looks for areas with a significant presence of single-family homes, locations with sizable populations that are dense but that do not have too many high rises (since these pose challenges for delivery) and cities with existing robust delivery networks.

“Our aspiration is to bring Cookin to life in every major U.S. marketplace,” Ivers said.