For a snack and 5 questions with... Mengting Gao

Which cooking trends from 2020 will remain in the long term? 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, Mengting Gao answers.
• As CEO and founder of Kitchen Stories, responsible for creative, tech, product and business intelligence.
• By the way, your favorite snack is Italian.

‍

When you and Verena Hubertz founded Kitchen Stories in 2013, there were already dozens of successful competitors on the market. What distinguishes your idea from those of others, then and now?

Recipes for every day

‍At Kitchen Stories, we focus on developing recipes that are truly made for everyday use. Whether you're looking for a quick dinner with 5 ingredients or a classic dish from home, we have the right choice. Our recipes have also been sample-cooked and tested several times by our editors and chefs, so that they are absolutely certain to succeed.

Intuitive technology

‍Our customers should immediately find their way around our platform and be able to use the functionalities easily, whether mobile, on the web, on SmartTV or via voice. We have already received several awards from Apple and Google for our design and have become the best app of the year.

International community

‍We are a truly global platform and promote communication far across language and country borders. After all, what is better than talking to people about food and food cultures? We not only receive recipes from all over the world, we also create our dishes with an international background. Our team alone consists of more than 15 nationalities.

‍

Keyword community: What are the benefits of an active community?

An active community is the absolute core of every cooking platform. For us, engagement and interaction with our content is the most valuable thing. We don't just want to play on viewers, but also have a true conversation and, above all, inspire people to take action themselves. For us, a recipe is only really successful if we can measure that our community is not only looking at it, but actually cooking it. In particular, the time that our users spend on our content is decisive in order to really deal with it in depth.

‍

The pandemic shows us a change in the cooking and eating habits of our users. Which three supposed trends do you think will be integrated into people's everyday lives in the long term?

1. Cook more vegetarian/vegan: We've been observing this trend for some time now, but especially in the last year, the topic has really picked up steam again. Our users want to cook more sustainably. Animal products are therefore much more likely to be avoided, especially during the week.
2. Bake your own bread: The pandemic has caused a real boom in home-baked bread. In particular, varieties such as sourdough bread or banana bread have stood out strongly. After all, yeast was difficult to obtain in Germany at times.
3. Try out international cuisine: Traveling physically is currently difficult, and culinary discovery trips are being made all the more in one's own kitchen. Interest in original international dishes, from Asian noodle dishes to Polish pastries and Spanish rice dishes, is unstoppable.

‍

In 2020, we had to adapt to the circumstances and were able to learn a lot. How would you describe the Kitchen Stories year 2021 in one sentence?

Everything now, nothing later.

‍

Which dish have you always wanted to prepare, but haven't dared to do it yet?

Bouillabaisse — I love it when it's a bit thicker and has a full flavor. Unfortunately I haven't tried it yet. But it's definitely on my list for 2021!

‍

Thank you so much for the interview.

‍