MYWORLDCHEF: P2P MEETS AUTOMATED COOKING DEVICE
The concept: Peer-to-peer cooking services using a cooking machine that executes recipe instructions. It's the IPod + iTunes business model for the home cooking market.
Inspiration: Cooking is seen as a chore throughout the world. Overall, women in western countries spend about 170 minutes a day on housework. In the developing world, even more time is spent on cooking, cleaning, etc. One of the few ways in which to experience world cuisine is through ethnic restaurants. In the Internet age, it should be possible to transfer multi-cultural cooking expertise to kitchens around the world regardless of geography. The WorldChef system provides a housewife with exotic options from around the world at the point of use. It brings creativity and excitement to routine cooking activities.
How it would work: The wide majority of world cooking uses three main operations: mixing, heating, and adding measured ingredients. In addition, other operations such as baking, grilling, chopping, grating and others also occur. The MyWorldChef system involves an automated Internet-enabled cooking device which is digitally controlled and is programmable with respect to the three main operations in any arbitrary sequence. The device consists of a slow moving stirring mechanism, multiple hopper feeding mechanism, a heating mechanism, and a controller that would execute recipe commands as needed. Parts of the recipe could include manual interruptions with a person using the system to cook. The system can be hooked up to the Internet and download executable "iRecipes." The system includes the cooking device and downloadable recipes from MyWorldChef.com. Additional inputs are possible with keypads, USB flash devices and mobile devices.
The Market: The food service business is the third largest industry in the United States. It accounts for $240 billion annually in sales. The average American spends an average of about 2 days a week eating outside. That leaves 5 days a week when home cooked food is consumed. Similar figures hold for many countries around the world. Bringing variety to home cooking presents an tremendous opportunity in an increasingly global world. The product and service is aimed at housewives all over the world, providing cooking "know-how" and expertise of cuisines around the world, with partially or fully automated processes. Another segment that would be interested in this product and service are bachelors and college students, since it provides an easy way to mix concepts of social networking and cooking in one comprehensive system. The worldwide market for Rice cookers in 2010 is estimated at 50 million units worth $1.24 billion. Almost 90% of the market lies in the Asia-Pacific region. The MyWorldChef target market should be easily 5 times that size, with a more distributed appeal. The variety of recipes that can be processed using the system include: Chinese Peking Shrimp, Brazilian Stroganoff, Danish Chicken With Cucumber Horseradish Sauce, Moroccan Braised Beef, Lebanese Burghul with Tomato, Australian Raised Pigeon Pie, German Bamberger Krautbraten, and Indian Chicken Korma.
Unique Selling Points: Removes monotony from cooking for housewives, readily available knowledge of world cuisine at point of use, semi-automation of cooking workflow, fresh ingredients under control of user, multiple streams of income possible from system, democratize cooking knowledge and increase sense of satisfaction.
