Seeking a fine dining experience with chef-quality meals in the comfort of your home? Look no further than CookUnity—a first-of-its-kind chef-to-eater marketplace. CookUnity is expanding its range of wholesome, comforting, plant-based dishes while encouraging leading chefs across the country to tap into the magic of plants for their meals. In this fascinating interview, VEGWORLD chatted with Andrea Folkerts, CookUnity’s Vice President of Portfolio, and contributing chefs—pastry extraordinaire–Chef Anne Thornton, and culinary creative–Chef Jose Garces. Each share their visions for the future of food and CookUnity’s role in revolutionizing a wholesome dining experience.
Andrea Folkerts, VP of Portfolio, CookUnity
VW: What sparked the idea for this innovative chef-to-customer marketplace model?
AF: CookUnity was founded on two ideas—to bring consumers an elevated, chef-prepared experience in their homes and encourage independent chefs to share their passion for cooking beyond the confines of a restaurant. CookUnity solves daily meal challenges for busy families or individuals who are looking for healthful cuisine with little time to prepare it. For chefs, we provide them with the tools and infrastructure they need to successfully build their reach and share their meals with an array of consumers in addition to an entirely new and alternative revenue stream. By managing the business end of things, chefs are empowered to focus on their craft and do what they love – create food. For eaters, it provides a solution for anyone looking for a daily, elevated, at-home eating experience without having to compromise between time, cost, taste, nutrition, and everyday access to a variety of different cuisines and chefs.
VW: Can you speak to the void in the market that you feel this novel platform fills?
AF: CookUnity is revolutionizing the food delivery category and how consumers experience elevated meals at home, while also being an ally and partner to chefs, offering business and career opportunities to culinary talents that have never existed. The company is a pioneer in the industry and was the very first direct Chef-to-Consumer meal subscription platform upon launching in 2018.
We are building a marketplace that supports both, the creative chef and enthusiasts foodies alike! Creators can bring their own unique flavors and diversity to the platform, while eaters have the opportunity to try something new every day due to the large variety of options available. At CookUnity, we can cross over multiple cuisine types, increase the variety of selections via seasonality and trends, and lean into more plant-forward meals, thereby benefiting our diverse customers and contributors.
VW: How did you curate a community of chefs? Should one have certain qualifications to join the CookUnity chef family?
AF: We pride ourselves on the diversity of chefs across their backgrounds, career paths, ages, gender, ethnicity, and culinary style. The platform is home to critically acclaimed and nationally recognized restaurateurs/chefs as well as up and comers with local/regional presence and backgrounds that include catering, private chef, and restaurant experience alike. We look for chefs who help us to best diversify our culinary offering, but who also see an exciting path in our unique model where they can scale beyond the geographical constraints of a restaurant.
VW: Based on your observations, what has the demand for plant-based food been like?
AF: Culturally there has been a rise in plant-based eating and we’ve certainly seen the same across the CookUnity platform. What we’ve been seeing so far in plant-based meals is higher demand as time goes on and a higher number of repeat customers choosing plant-based dishes. We know that our plant-based or plant-forward eaters are extremely loyal. When they find food that they feel good about, they stay! We’re also hearing from a lot of incredible plant-based brands that are interested in partnering with our kitchens.
VW: That’s incredible! Have you also received interest from more plant-based chefs who are dedicated to feeding people with nourishing, delicious, plant foods?
AF: Right now CookUnity has over 60 active chefs with plant-forward and vegetarian chefs combined representing 30% of the portfolio. When it comes to exclusively plant-based, the number is constantly growing because the demand isn’t going anywhere!
VW: Is there a concern that this model could take away from the conventional in-person dining experiences, or has there been pushback from restaurants?
AF: Over the past four years, we’ve seen that there is no such thing as “too many cooks” in the kitchen. There’s room for all, evidenced by so many of our successful restaurant chefs who joined during the pandemic and have continued to grow exponentially even when they’ve reopened their doors and increased capacity at their restaurants. We’re seeing incredible culinary success stories with some chefs who are doubling down and prioritizing national expansion with CookUnity, a change from the traditional path of opening more brick and mortar restaurants. In fact, many of our chefs have expanded their presence and teams into additional markets in just the last six months (we have 7 kitchens servicing much of the US) and since 2020, CookUnity has more than quadrupled its chef talent pool!
VW: It appears that chefs have the freedom to expand their culinary showcase beyond the set menus at their restaurants. That being said, are the current CookUnity chefs open to creating more plant-based meals?
AF: We’ve heard a lot of chefs talk about how amazing the challenge is to scale outside a restaurant – they’re all having fun adapting to this model and, due to the rising demand, plant-based and vegetarian combined represent 30% of the CookUnity portfolio. Lately, we’ve seen chefs taking a menu and flipping it on its head with plants becoming the center star. Some even do a “this and that” where they will offer a plant-based version of an otherwise meat-forward dish and get creative with ingredients like king oyster mushrooms, jackfruit, legumes, nuts, and seeds. One of my favorite new dishes is a Raw Sunflower Nori Roll!
VW: Are there any “dream celebrity chefs” you hope to feature on your platform?
AF: Come one come all! We have national chefs with name brand recognition and acclaimed restaurants, we welcome all of them. We also have a soft spot for the undiscovered gems; those doing incredible things in their hometowns, who have written books, have done brick and mortar or catering, and more. One of our most successful chefs on the platform, Chef Andy Mendez came up through the ranks without any formal training. He’s self-taught, a fan favorite, and has over 100 recipes available on the platform.
VW: Given that your mission is to feed the masses with healthy, sustainable meals, do you have plans to start a program for home cooks to feed their immediate communities?
AF: CookUnity is a place for everyone, whether you’re a private chef in a small town with minimal training or critically acclaimed. Many of our chefs are home cooks with unique backgrounds and they bring in the local talent they’ve worked with before. Sustainability is also a big factor for us, our chefs, and our eaters. Our chefs prefer using local, seasonal produce vendors in the areas where we have kitchens, which fosters their communities on an even deeper level. CookUnity sees tremendous value in keeping the experience with our menu as local as possible. We now have seven kitchens throughout the US to help service the immediate communities and surrounding regions to ensure the best food quality experience. Where we have a kitchen, our chefs build up and employ local teams. The platform also prioritizes sustainable packaging solutions. Fully prepared meals are packaged in industrially compostable trays with recyclable components and delivered in reusable insulated bags or recyclable boxes.
VW: Do you think there is space to incorporate tackling food waste in the CookUnity platform?
AF: As a subscription-based platform, we can uniquely control the full cycle of procurement and only buy and use ingredients we know we will sell at any given time. With our model, we will always aim toward minimizing food waste. Our goal is to reduce food waste by 50% and our long-term vision is to go to zero food waste, but we are not there yet. We also have a food donation program associated with our kitchens and partner with non-profit organizations in every market we launch. CookUnity is Rethink certified. Rethink certified is a partnership program with restaurants and food establishments nationwide to create delicious, culturally- celebrated meals for communities impacted by food insecurity – all while supporting economic development and utilizing excess food.
Chefs Anne Thornton and Jose Garces
VW: What inspired you to join CookUnity and what do you hope to accomplish on this platform?
Chef Thornton: I joined CookUnity because I wanted to be able to share the nutrient-rich, whole-food, gluten-free, plant-based foods that I create with as many people as possible—vegans, omnivores, and everyone in between! I hope the pleasure and satisfaction they get from my meals motivates them to incorporate more plant power into their daily diet.
Chef Garces: During the pandemic, people weren’t able to enjoy a nice night out, dining at restaurants. I noticed that their desire for chef-quality food was returning more quickly than restaurants could safely serve them. When the opportunity to join CookUnity was presented to me, it seemed like a natural solution to a problem that nobody could have anticipated a few years ago.
VW: Do you see a demand for plant-based options in your communities?
Chef Thornton: Absolutely! In fact, my fully plant-based, gluten-free, refined sugar-free menu was the highest-selling launch on the platform! Undoubtedly, there is an obvious demand for delicious, healthy, plant-based food in California—where I’m based—and beyond.
Chef Garces: Funny you should ask. In Philadelphia, one of my best-known dishes is the roast suckling pig presentation at Amada, my first restaurant. That said, in recent years, I’ve started to see a huge value in exploring plant-based cooking. I’ve been inspired by my daughter’s journey to a plant-based lifestyle and influenced by concerns about the unsustainability of meat-centric eating. It has motivated me to use my platform and expertise to explore several plant-based solutions. Recently, I worked on a line of plant-based, “ready-to-heat-and-eat” meals called Casa Verde, centering the vibrant Latin flavors in each dish. In 2021, I opened Livy’s Plant-Based Foods—a ‘burger and fries’ comfort food concept that operates as a ghost kitchen.
VW: Are there specific advantages of this platform over the traditional restaurant model that you have personally experienced?
Chef Thornton: Yes, there are countless advantages, but one of my favorites is the drastic minimizing of food waste. In a restaurant, we can’t predict exactly how many of each menu item we are going to sell every day. The best we can do is to make informed guesses based on sales trends. With CookUnity, we know EXACTLY how many of each meal to make well in advance so that we can prepare our portions accordingly. It’s a brilliant model and a dream come true for me, to finally be fully aligned with my food ethics.
Chef Garces: The feedback is invaluable, both from our guests and on the analytics side from CookUnity. Their recently implemented portfolio review helped us drill down and make some shifts in production to take advantage of the ordering practices of the guests in various markets.
VW: What is your favorite thing about being a CookUnity chef?
Chef Thornton: The opportunity to share my food with so many different people, all across Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and eventually more cities! I wouldn’t have access to these customers without CookUnity.
Chef Garces: We become chefs so that we can share our love of food and our culinary vision with people. CookUnity affords the opportunity to serve thousands of people per week, all across the country.
VW: How do you envision this platform aiding in debunking common stereotypes of plant-based eating?
Chef Thornton: CookUnity gives conventional eaters the opportunity to incorporate more plant-based meals deliciously and painlessly into their lifestyle. They also have a variety of creative, and delicious plant-based options from several renowned chefs! There’s no getting bored with the delicious dishes that are powered by plants on this platform.
VW: As the demand for and the awareness around plant-based foods increases, we see that more non-vegan chefs are catering to this shift. Does that make you hopeful for a plant-based future of food or make you feel concerned about competition?
Chef Thornton: I think it’s fantastic that CookUnity encourages all the chefs to have some plant-based menu items. It’s fantastic for the customers, the planet, and the animals. I don’t feel competitive with my fellow chefs, I am honored to be in their company. We have so many talented chefs on the platform. I am delighted by their creativity and inspired by the work they do. Not only am I a CookUnity chef, but I’m also a subscriber! I love trying my fellow chefs’ vegan creations. It’s one of my favorite things about being on the platform.
VW: How has the growing demand and awareness around plant-based eating evolved your outlook on food?
Chef Garces: I’m lucky in that I’ve been leaning towards embracing more plant-based options, both at my restaurants and in my personal life for a while now, so I feel like I’m a little ahead of the curve in a lot of respects. Philadelphia, where I’m based, has had a large vegan and vegetarian food scene for a long time.
VW: By working on centering plants in your meals for CookUnity, have you faced any noteworthy challenges?
Chef Garces: Not really, to be honest. I think that my recent experience with creating the Casa Verde line of meals helped shift my thinking to be more creative and open to ways of creating satisfying meals without the use of animal products. Some of my best-selling CookUnity items are plant-based— my quinoa and veggie enchiladas and my butternut squash Relleno!
VW: How has your traditional culinary training helped you transform plants into a hearty, wholesome meal?
Chef Thornton: I believe that my plant-based food resonates with vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike because I apply the traditional balance of macronutrients (protein, carbs, fat) found in satisfying conventional meals. I seek inspiration for my menu from international dishes that are already plant-based or plant-forward, like my coconut green curry, kale tofu paneer, burrito bowl, rainbow Pad Thai, and so much more! I like to add more nutrient-dense, seasonal produce to these dishes to make them even more nutritious and delicious.
Chef Garces: I was trained with classical French methods. While these techniques are generally used to prepare animal proteins, they can be modified to produce similar results with vegetables and plant proteins. It’s just a matter of recognizing the similarities between animal proteins and non-animal replacements.
VW: A novel model wherein chefs can serve their customers beyond the walls of their restaurants is an opportunity for endless creativity. How does that reflect on the meals you prepare so that your customers can have an experience that stands out from other meal prep and delivery concepts?
Chef Thornton: Our food is made with the freshest ingredients, and it ships out the day that it is made. The food isn’t being mass produced as is the case in some other platforms. It’s being hand-made and cooked with love by the chefs and their teams. We all have restaurant experience, but this business model forces us to think outside the boxes we’ve been working in to create dishes that transition well into home dining. They must travel well, maintain their integrity and flavor for a few days, and reheat well. There are lots of considerations, and we are always thinking about how to optimize the customers’ dining experience.
Chef Garces: One of the things I like is the ability to use the feedback from our customers to continually improve what we’re putting out. We started with a relatively small menu while we got started, and learned what worked. Now, as we ramp up, we’re looking to rotate our offerings between a wide array of meal options.
VW: How does the idea of a plant-rich future of food and hospitality make you feel?
Chef Thornton: I’m thrilled! Once I fully recognized the detrimental impact the conventional food system has on our health, the planet, and the animals, I dedicated my career to focus on sustainability so that every single bite of food I create helps to reduce our negative impacts on the climate, enhances health, and saves countless animals’ lives. I’m looking forward to more of the hospitality industry embracing this simple and delicious solution to this complex and unsavory problem.
Chef Garces: I think that it’s a natural progression if we are serious about creating a more sustainable future.
VW: What do you hope the next step of CookUnity will be?
Chef Thornton: I’m looking forward to launching more plant-based menus in cities across the country, possibly the world, and working with CookUnity to distribute some healing and delicious plant-based products.
Chef Garces: I’d like to see the program expand to areas of the country that are traditionally underserved by these types of services, as well as into international markets.
ABOUT THE CHEFS
Anne Thornton
Chef Thornton is an expert pastry chef, known for her decadent delights featured on Food Network’s Dessert First With Anne Thornton. Her passion for cooking stemmed from a young age during her travels in Europe and spending time in the kitchen with her grandmother. Pursuing a formal culinary education was inevitable!
Chef Thornton has worked as the Executive Pastry Chef at several esteemed establishments across the United States. She is dedicated to serving her customers wholesome, nourishing foods that heal our bodies and the planet. In her spare time, Anne volunteers for City Harvest’s Operation Frontline, a nutrition education and financial planning program, and also writes for LunchNYC, a project that brings nutritional information to families about their kid’s school lunches and how they can improve their diets. Besides cooking and baking, Anne enjoys sailing, writing, football, fashion, interior design, and visiting organic farms.
Jose Garces
Chef Garces is an Iron Chef, father, husband, James Beard Award-winner, entrepreneur, and food innovator, based in Philadelphia. His culinary creations pay homage to his Spanish and Latin roots, offering your tastebuds a spectacular fiesta!
His leadership in hospitality also intersects with his philanthropic missions. In 2011, he co-founded The Garces Foundation to support the local immigrant community by offering a variety of services including community health days, English language skills classes that target the restaurant industry, and most recently, an increased focus on procuring and providing food supplies to the food insecure.
He has also authored two cookbooks, Latin Evolution, and The Latin Road Home, published by Lake Isle Press.
