Cooking-platform pioneer brings home the bacon
While other entrepreneurs are grappling with a sharp slump that has shown little sign of abating as the novel coronavirus rampages across the globe, Norma Chu is seeing significant growth in her business.
The Hong Kong entrepreneur, who founded DayDayCook in 2012 — an online platform that teaches viewers by video how to cook recipes — has seen the number of new users triple in February compared with the previous month, as millions of people confined to their homes by the outbreak tried their hand in the kitchen.
According to a recent survey by the Hong Kong startup, 90 percent of its fans cooked at home in the first week of March; 6 percent relied on food delivery; and 4 percent chose to dine out. By comparison, only 45 percent of the respondents cooked at home in the last week of December, when the pathogen had yet to rear its head.
“The coronavirus outbreak has helped expand our market,” Chu said. “Previously, many young people knew little about cooking. But due to the outbreak, they’ve got to understand it better. The market penetration of cooking among people has, therefore, gone up.”
DayDayCook has 600 million views per month, Chu claimed.
To turn the large internet flow into real money, the company took to e-commerce, selling cooking-related products to its viewers, which, she said, accounts for a major part of the company’s revenue.
“We put a lot of effort into maintaining close contact with our suppliers in February as no one knew when factory production could resume. Now, the issue we need to address is a shortage of supply. We need to strengthen our supply chain as demand is growing.”
DayDayCook is not the only online cooking content producer that is embracing fresh opportunities.
Xiachufang, a mainland popular recipe-sharing app, saw its active users surge by 62 percent in less than a month, with more than 4 million people using it on Feb 19, compared with roughly 2.5 million recorded on Jan 25.
Its founder, Wang Xusheng, said the company had expanded the capacity of its servers to deal with the spike in the number of new users.
‘Food community’
According to a recent report by consultancy Analysys Qianfan, the number of active users on the online “food community” reached about 22.7 million in January this year — up 5.1 percent on a monthly basis. The average time that users stayed on the platforms rose 23.1 percent.
Jin Lu, a 32-year-old foreign-trade saleswoman in Shenzhen, said she’s willing to spend more on learning cooking online even after the pandemic is over.
“Online platforms offer comprehensive information on various types of cuisine. People can also share their works with others. It’s no longer just about eating, but also a social networking thing,” she said.
But Chu isn’t putting all her eggs in one basket. She expanded her business offline on the mainland, setting up physical brick-and-mortar stores in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu, where cooking fans buy packages to learn preparing various types of cuisine.
She’s keeping her powder dry, citing the uncertainties arising from the Sino-US trade row, among others. “We didn’t open any new shop last year, but Beijing and Shenzhen are the two cities we plan to explore.”
Born in Hong Kong and raised in the United States, Chu made a big career transformation in 2012, quitting her job as a banking director at HSBC and tapping into the cooking industry.
Further growth expected
“Cooking has been my favorite interest since childhood,” she said. She initially shared her recipes on social media, and her fan base grew rapidly. She then turned her hobby into a career — the startup has now grown into an enterprise with more than 200 employees.
The company’s business grew by leaps and bounds — an average of 80 percent annually in the past five years. Chu expects the sales volume to double this year, driven mainly by the growth from livestreaming and new-product launches.
“Livestreaming will be one of our major focuses this year. We’ve set up a team focusing on producing livestreaming content on various platforms, including TMall, Pinduoduo and JD. Another focus will be on sales of cooking-related products. So far, we’ve been selling mainly ready-to-eat products. We’re going the extra mile, promoting sales of kitchen gadgets,” Chu said.
Ma Shicong, a senior analyst at Analysys, said besides providing recipes, online “food community” platforms also bring other benefits to users, such as helping them to cultivate a scientific dietary habit, and easing their worries during the pandemic by promoting online interactions.
“This is essential for the players’ long-term development. They should strive to create diversified scenarios for their services by taking advantage of the content they provide and the social networking feature of the platforms to win over more users,” Ma said.
Livestreaming will be one of our major focuses this year. We’ve set up a team focusing on producing livestreaming content on various platforms, including TMall, Pinduoduo and JD.’’ Norma Chu, founder of Daydaycook