Fulle

The recent prominence of fast and processed food has resulting in new highs in American obesity rates. Much of the reason for this is due to the increasing number of people that lack the time and resources to cook homemade food. Perhaps even worse, those who are passionate about cooking face significant barriers to sell their homemade meals to the public.

Our platform is one that allows for chefs to connect to local kitchens and sell their creations through an "online restaurant." By doing this, we hope to not only increase the number of authentic homemade meals in the market, but also to make it much easier for cooks to share their food with others. When scaled we're looking at an large-scale increase in the prominence of healthier food items in the market, directly combating the unhealthy eating crisis America faces today.

America is dealing with an “unhealthy eating crisis”. In 2016, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the obesity rate among adults was 39.8%. That’s more than one in every three people. Not only that, but the number of obese kids and adolescents has risen by tenfold around the world over the past four decades as reported by the World Health Organization. People are not eating properly. It’s a very real issue, and it is causing a major strain on the US economy, with annual spending of $147 billion attributed to obesity-related complications.

This problem is further compounded by the barriers to entry that aspiring cooks face when trying to sell their healthier home-cooked meals. Many chefs are unable to find the capital required not only to build their own restaurant, but also to market it to local consumers. The restaurant industry is one that is extremely difficult to break out into. This severely limits the ability for locally cooked, homemade, and healthy items to gain prominence, especially in a market that is dominated by unhealthy packaged and processed alternatives.

As a two-sided platform our company directly offers a viable solution for both chefs and consumers. On the former, we are working with home, amateur, and aspiring chefs to make it easier to legally market and sell their food to the public. Having talked to many passionate cooks, it is quite evident that the biggest roadblocks to success revolve around finding the resources to either rent or build a community kitchen and marketing the product locally. Creating a streamlined platform that allows for chefs to easily locate places to cook out of and market their products significantly lowers the barriers for these cooks to be able to share their creations with the community.

With regards to the latter, our platform drastically increases the amount of healthy, locally made, and homemade options that are available for consumption. Such will make it a lot easier for health-conscious individuals to find healthier food items on-demand. Especially in a time when health and wellness is rising in prominence, our solution can make access to locally-made, healthy eats considerably simpler. 

Fulle is a platform that empowers home, amateur, aspiring, and already professional chefs to easily sell their creations to the public. In order to do this, we partner with local kitchens in institutions such as churches, restaurants, and halls to rent out their facilities when they are not in operation. Our website (currently in development) will allow chefs to locate a partner kitchen and access the times that they can use their facility. In return, the kitchen receives a commission on the sales as well as marketing leverage.

From there, our chefs create “online restaurants” from where they can directly interact with and sell their meals to local customers. Our website and app facilitate a network of local pages, allowing consumers to easily find and order locally-cooked foods and access any catering and meal subscription services that the chef may provide. Not only will this make it much easier for chefs to sell their food, it makes it equally easier for consumers to access it.

We are currently prototyping an MVP using a CSS-centered web platform in the metro Detroit area. Once we complete testing, we plan on developing an app using React, and launching our product full-scale.

Our business model is innovative in its ability to make locally-cooked and homemade meals abundant in an online marketplace. In a world where cooking is increasingly outsourced away from the home, it has become harder and harder to access meals that aren’t mass-produced and pre-packaged. More importantly, the traditional model of a brick and mortar restaurant is one that has largely gone unchallenged for decades. When this physical barrier is taken out of the equation, it opens ups avenues for an influx of locally-produced food in the market, while also for the first time creating a network of restaurants that does not rely on a physical façade.

Out business model relies on GIS technology that will connect chefs with kitchens, as well as a CSS-centered website paired with a React-based app that facilitates our network. While our technology already exists, our platform applies it to an industry in which it is largely absent. The business model we employ – one that enables the creation of an “online restaurant” – is where the innovation lies.

The activities involved in our solution consist of: (1) connecting aspiring chefs with local kitchens so as to make selling homemade creations simple and (2) providing a platform for chefs to sell their foods to make purchasing homemade creations simple.

On the former, from speaking to many with experience as a professional cook, we know that there already are many chefs that rent out commercial kitchens and sell their food from. However, one of their biggest complaints lies in the lack of marketing ability that exists without a storefront. We think that by consolidating a network of these “online restaurants” we have leverage to market the platform, which in turn drives more traffic to the individual pages. In a sense, we streamline the process for the cooks make profitability increasingly possible due to economies of scale.

On the latter, the platform will naturally increase the number of “home” and locally made creations in the market. Multiple studies have shown that freshly cooked meals tend to be healthier, and so we’d expect in the long term that as additional communities buy into our model, our platform will make healthier eating a lot more accessible.

Currently we have two chefs signed on to our company, and plan on launching the service locally (accessing a city with a population of 80,000) over the next two months. That said, we are currently serving only 2 chefs.

Within the year we expect to expand from Troy, MI to Ann Arbor, MI, and expect to have at least 15 - 20 chefs serving the two cities. At the same time, we are accessing a combined population of 200,000 people. 40% of people (8,000) would be willing to pay 50% more for a healthier meal (as reported by the International Food Information Council), and we would directly serve the 20% of people (1,600) who dine out regularly (as reported by Statista)

In five years, we expect to be serving all of metro Detroit and to expand to Boston and New York City. We’d expect a total of at least 200 chefs serving the 2 million people in those areas who regularly dine out and would pay to eat healthier.

Over the next five years, our fundamental goal is to show the functionality of how an online restaurant model like ours can be successful. That said, our current model is quite complicated, and we sincerely think there could be a lot more potential for scale if we push legislative change within the food industry.

In January, California was the first state to pass a bill that effectively made selling food out of one’s own kitchen possible (provided there was a cap on annual revenue). We believe that if we can get similar bills passed in other states (including my home state of Michigan), we will be able to tap into a larger market of individuals who simply love to cook, but don’t want to take the hassle of going all the way to a community kitchen to cook. This is something that we are pushing for currently, and believe that if we can get a similar law passed in Michigan over the next five years, that our company has a much larger margin for growth.

In addition to this, we hope to begin building our own community kitchens once we have accumulated enough capital so as to create dedicated space for our cooks. This is another milestone that we hope to pass, and one that we believe will make cooking a lot easier for our chefs.

As mentioned previously, the biggest barrier we face is legal (and to some extent cultural). The food industry is webbed with regulations that make the law something inherently difficult to get around. For example, the liability issues that arise when renting or sharing a kitchen is one notable problem that makes it difficult to even find kitchens that are willing to offer space. This creates complications in terms of insurance costs as well as certification costs that may not be consistent across state lines.

Financial barriers also exist when trying to achieve our goal of providing our own dedicated commercial kitchens to our cooks, especially with the extremely high costs that come along with building/leasing and maintaining real estate.

With regards to the legal barriers, I think most of the major complications can be circumvented by employing a certified manager to erase any concern of liability issues. Other possibilities could include paying insurance for the rented kitchen until our trust is proven. In the end, once our company gains a certain level of reputation, it becomes much easier to combat these legal issues. In the longer term, another legal solution we are pursuing includes lobbying for a food law that permits the sale of food cooked out of home kitchens. This is something that we are pursuing through the help personal political connections, and are currently meeting with local state representatives and executives to see whether such a deal can be reached.

Financially, our resources come in the form of grants and investors (including MIT Solve!). We are also looking to see what resources the University of Michigan and local governmental organizations can offer in addition to the capital that might be available through personal connections to private investors.

There is currently one person working full-time (Founder), as well as one other person working part-time. We also have a graphic designer we contracted to do our logo and branding. We are currently finalizing adding on a technical lead and two individuals to help with our marketing.

As for myself, the founder: Having been an avid runner for over 5 years, I am a strong advocate of nutritious eating, and have firsthand experienced the problem I describe (especially being a college student who can’t cook for his life).

The idea was inspired when I recalled my family ordering an Indian delicacy from a family friend rather than going to a restaurant to do it. Such practice is actually quite commonplace within the Indian community, and I began to think how I could expand on it and make it applicable to the general populace. As such, I already have a strong network from where I can start my business.

Finally, on a more personal note, my current and past involvement in entrepreneurship has forced me to become an increasingly creative and out-of-the-box thinker as well as a very determined and eager-to-learn individual. I also have experience in computer science as well as in marketing and finance, (majoring in Business and CS Engineering) and have a very diversified core which allows me to bring a fresh perspective to the table.

William Zhang (part-time, working in web development and design) is a peer at the University of Michigan, currently majoring in Information and Computer Science. His expertise lies in web design and user experience (currently interning at Global LT), and he has helped our initiative grow in those areas.

While we aren’t currently in any partnerships, we are actively seeking them with local Churches and other Community Organizations. We plan on working with them to rent out kitchen facilities, and pay back a commission in sales. At the same time, the organization will get increased traffic from being associated with our brand.