Inspired by a conversation at the 2023 CES Food Tech Expo, today we discuss how one of the most traditional industries is being transformed through Culinary Creativity, with CEO and Founder of Hungry House, a platform for creative chefs, Kristen Barnett.
In creating Hungry House, Kristen shares how she puts the values of both the chef and the customer first, by focusing on food quality. Her platform allows the customer to add more meaning to the choices they make in how they explore and sustain through food, while the culinary creator, the chef, can ideate a full story around what they bring to the plate.
Stories are a critical path to the future of food, Kristen says, because food has always been about more than just what you eat but the stories around the farmer, the sourcing, the produce, the chef. “It’s always been about content,” she says, and through her direct to consumer platform, Kristen is able to nurture chefs to create compelling content and meaningful meals.
Kristen shares how she has always been a food lover, and wanted that to be part of her career, but experiencing lyme disease in her early 20's caused her to re-asses how what she ate and her lifestyle were part of the symptoms and solutions of her health. Her ‘early life crisis’ pushed her to make a hard pivot towards a career dedicated to food with a passion.
Both in the food industry, Jo and Kristen also discuss how the food ecosystem is being disrupted, and how behind the food tech fads and old-school brand of the white-hat chef, sit creative culinary minds who know how to integrate food ideas, with compelling social content and convert it to commerce.
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To look outside, Kristen goes to food pop ups anywhere she’s traveling but especially in her home city of New York. She says food pop ups showcase the new ways in which consumers can access food and chefs innovate in how to get their food to people, which yields different ways to think about things like a constant source of inventive thinking.
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Kristen Barnett is the founder & CEO of Hungry House, a NYC-based startup that partners with digitally-native chefs to bring their culinary ideas into reality through the Hungry House platform.
Kristen started her career in the New York City office of The Boston Consulting Group. She unfortunately soon began to struggle with her health after contracting Chronic Lyme disease and she became seriously ill. Desperate to feel better, she turned to dietary change to feel better and she had miraculous results. Determined to make a bigger impact, she left consulting to pursue a career in the food industry.
Since then, she’s worked at Dig (formerly Dig Inn) where she was Director of Strategic Operations and led supply chain strategy, menu development and their food delivery and ghost kitchen business. Kristen then went on to join Zuul, a ghost kitchen tech startup where she served as Chief Operating Officer and led product strategy to develop a proprietary tech platform and multiple virtual brands. Zuul was acquired by ghost kitchen competitor, Kitchen United in summer 2021, after which, she went on to found Hungry House.
Having borne witness to the explosive growth in the ghost kitchen industry, mainly with a commoditized and unhealthy product offering, she founded Hungry House in summer 2021 to create the first direct-to-consumer ghost kitchen company focusing on sustainability, diversity, quality & transparency.
Kristen graduated from Cornell University magna cum laude and is passionate about plant-based eating and supporting other women in the food industry through a semi-regular women-in-food dinner series.
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Looking Outside is a podcast dedicated to exploring fresh perspectives of familiar business topics. The show is hosted by its creator, Joanna Lepore, consumer goods innovator and futurist at McDonald's. Find out more at looking-outside.com.
Connect with Jo and join the Looking Outside community on LinkedIn.
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All views are that of the host and guests and don’t necessarily reflect those of their employers. Copyright 2023.
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