Home cooks have recently become a huge trend in the wake of popular shows like Master Chef. So it only makes sense that there are a number of developers and researchers trying to bridge the gap between cooking and technology. The number of cooking apps is growing fast, but the majority of them fail to ever garner the attention that their developers had hoped for.
The most popular ones are those who already had a huge fan base to be begin with - A single chef or baker, like Dorie Greenspan who created a video-based app to go with her book or a large site like Epicurious or The Food Network. Most that don’t fall into one of these two categories simply offer recipes that have all been rewritten or previously published and never gain much traction in the app stores. They often have features like timers and a way to save your recipes, but not much beyond that. You can set a time here or many other places without having to download anything and, at least for me, bookmarks seem to save recipes just fine for me (or Pinterest).
But that may soon change.
The Prep Pad
Soon, technology will transofrm the way we prepare food at home. A prime example of this is the Bluetooth enabled device called The Prep Pad. It links to an app on your tablet to give you real-time information about the food you’re preparing. For instance, it can tell you about the calories, the fat or the protein of ingredients you’ve chosen so far. So you can make a change right then and there to give the dish the profile you want, whether that’s low fat, low carb or whatever it else it may be.
Yummly and Instacart
Yummly’s app takes notice of what you like and recommends new recipes based off of that. But the coolest thing about this app is its recent integration with Instacart. Now when you find a recipe you want to make, simply put them into your (Insta)cart and the ingredients will be at your door within an hour. Yes, ONE HOUR. Sadly it isn’t available everywhere yet though.
The Kitchen Stories
But it’s not just new devices and new kitchen technology toys. Even apps themselves are improving. Not all of them, of course, but there are people and developers out there who recognize the need for better, more streamlined apps that don’t just clutter up your phone and your time.
Nearly $2 million was recently raised in a seed funding round for The Kitchen Stories. It’s already off to a good start with more then three million downloads across 150 countries in less than a year. In fact, Apple named it one of the best apps of 2014.
They compare using most recipe and cooking apps to using Amazon to shop. You’re sure to find whatever it is you’re looking for, but you'll find it tons of times in different variations offered by different people... and you can easily get confused and overwhelmed. They want to change that.
They’re developing their app to offer only the best short recipes with easy to follow photo instructions and short, concise directions that won’t leave you confused. They’re also excited to make The Kitchen Stories Family available to everyone around the world, so users can share and connect and submit their own recipes. But it won’t get cluttered and confusing, as they'll choose the best user-submitted recipes, create and photo shoot them in-house to add to the app.
As high-tech, smart kitchen tools and appliances find their way into more kitchens there’s bound to be an enormous growth in demand for more advanced kitchen apps. Especially if you factor in the shift in mentality towards food and more people trying to live healthier.
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