April 30, 2021

For a snack and 5 questions with... Harm-Jörg Heikens

What is “cooking in a new dimension” about? And which dish do you simply not dare to try? The answers to these questions (and many more) are available once a month in the Stories+ Snack, the Kitchen Stories business questionnaire.

  • This time, answer Harm-Jörg Heikens.
  • At Kitchen Stories, he is responsible for the Business development and our strategic partnerships with companies.
  • By the way, his favorite snack is vegan snack.

What does it mean to be part of the Kitchen Stories community?

As a user: Inspiration for new culinary projects — every day.

In the form of a partnership: Implement exciting projects that inspire our users and motivate them to cook daily. For me personally, it is important that we work even more to promote a healthy and sustainable diet as part of cooperation with brands and companies.

As a team member: Overcome exciting challenges together with friends — and talk shop a lot about cooking.

What motivates you in your work in business development?

The desire to develop Kitchen Stories into the number one food platform together with strong partnerships and to set the tone for greater sustainability in food consumption — not with a crowbar, but with countless (meatless) delicacies that leave nothing to be desired.

By the way, his favorite snack is vegan snack.

Together with Vodafone, we have created a whole new dimension of the cooking experience. What makes this cooperation so special and what do you derive from it for other brands and companies?

From a Kitchen Stories perspective, we've capitalized on many of our key strengths: We have great food content created, have involved our enthusiastic community and are technologically new paths gone. It's really cool that we are the first cooking platform that is now also available as an augmented reality app. We would not have been able to take the step without Vodafone and the ZDF Digital team.

Are there any other things that our (potential) partners don't know about us yet, but should absolutely know?

We are not a recipe platform. After all, the core of Kitchen Stories is the mix of successful recipes and excellent storytelling. These stories, which we also tell in cooperation with brands, drew my attention to Kitchen Stories just over a year ago. Back then I had a video from the “To Market We Go” series by Kitchen Stories & Next125 watched it on YouTube and was impressed by the campaign and by our editor Ruby.

Which dish have you always wanted to prepare but have not yet dared to try?

I dare to do anything, but there are many projects that clearly show me that reading his books doesn't immediately make me Gordon Ramsay. But I'm ambitious and keep trying until it works. Current challenge: bake the perfect Canotto pizza at home.

Thank you so much for the interview.

Luise Linne
Corporate Communications

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