An on-demand meal delivery service linking local chefs with people craving home-cooked meals announced its expansion to New Jersey this week after a successful trial run in New York.
Woodspoon enables customers to order food delivery from home chefs that includes everything from family meals to Michelin-star worthy creations.
According to Woodspoon, the home chefs specialize in a variety of cuisines, and the company handles business logistics like payment, packaging materials and delivery service.
A meal for two typically costs between $20-$40, Woodspoon said. It is ultimately up to the home chefs to price their dishes, although Woodspoon recommends competitive prices. The chefs keep their earnings.
Customers must pay a service fee that goes to Woodspoon to help cover “payment transactions, packaging in eco-friendly containers, reusable bags and delivery,” according to the company.
In New York City, Woodspoon has a network of 250 chefs, who can create a profile on the website and app to help build their brand and customer base.
“As we’ve seen a huge demand in the home-cooked meal space, expanding into additional major cities and locations has been our main objective,” WoodSpoon CEO and Co-Founder Oren Saar told NJ Advance Media. “We look forward to bringing something new to these markets and providing more consumers with home-cooked meal options that they did not have before.”
The home chefs use a separate app from Woodspoon to manage their orders, name their meals, take pictures of the food and more.
The ordering and delivery process works “similarly to how an Uber driver accepts passengers,” the company said.
Once a chef accepts an order, an onscreen timer tells the chef how much time they have to make the order and pack it up. The company provides the chefs with packaging and delivery materials.
As the chef cooks the order, a third-party delivery services contracted out by Woodspoon gets notified.
All chefs must go through an application process that includes interviews, kitchen inspections and a tasting test, according to the company.
Each chef is also trained in food safety techniques that are in compliance with standards set forth by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Woodspoon’s ambitions to expand are not stopping in New Jersey. The company is also looking at expanding to other locations throughout the U.S.
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