| Though I personally like the idea I don't really see the value in the long term. In general, food services are in 5 categories. 1. Make it yourself, e.g. go to the grocery store, buy ingredients and prepare it yourself. 2. Buy prepared food, e.g. snacks, microwave meals, etc. 3. Buy service in which they prepare the food for you, e.g. restaurants. Two new categories have been tried and failed throughout the years. 4. Buy service in which someone makes the food, at a specified location (2) + (3). 5. Buy unprepared and prepared food and make it yourself with instructions (1) + (2). Generally (4) only makes sense and is cost effective in the catering context. (5) has failed spectacularly multiple times, most recently with Blue Apron. Unless this is somehow more cost effective than going to a restaurant (3) of similar quality because the chef doesn't have the overhead of a restaurant and passes the savings over I can't see this being successful long term or anything other than a very, very small niche. I can't imagine this ever being cheaper than a restaurant of the same quality (traveling is time that the chef will have to charge for or otherwise make up for in lower quality foods, it's a no-win situation). The other issue is that something like this is going to be popular in an urban area, but urban areas are the same areas in which prospective customers will not have space, limiting the number of people they can host (+ the chef) meaning they would gravitate more and more towards just going to a restaurant inherently (the dining experience generally is more fun with more participants, to a point). Personally, though (5) has never been done successfully, I think that's the next big thing. If someone can figure out the food distribution and partner with grocery stores and get some famous chefs at pre-scheduled times to cook food with people live (the same foods that have been distributed to the customers) it could work. |
Taste is 'precooked and de-constructed' so all the condiments, and crunchy stuff is separate. Finishing instructions include oven for 3-5 mins and plating. We found this hits the quality vs. effort tradeoffs best for busy people just outside of cities.