Type of site Online shopping Website www.foodie.fm Registration Yes | Available in English Commercial Yes | |
Launched 2009; 8 years ago (2009) | ||
Foodie.fm is an online shopping service that incorporates grocery shopping and recipe discovery into a social context. The service is available on the web and for a mobile device and can be downloaded for IPhone, Nokia, Android (operating system) or as a Facebook application. Foodie.fm has been referred to as the Facebook for groceries, and described as enabling smart grocery shopping since users personalize their information. to receive product and recipe recommendations. Referred to as 'social eatworking' and forecasted as a trend for 2012, users post and share shopping ideas, recipes and recommendations with other users on the service.
Contents
Content
The application functions by recommending recipes and suggesting groceries for the user to buy based on specified preferences. Users can also connect to other users and family members to plan cooking and grocery shopping together by sharing shopping lists. The service is connected to all of the stores in a given grocery chain and connects users to their local store and product inventory. In the United Kingdom, the Foodie.fm product assortment is linked to Tesco through public Tesco API where users can check-out with Tesco.com. In Finland, the company has a cooperation with S Group which is one of the largest retail chains of the Nordic countries with reportedly 44% market share in Finland.
History
Founded by Kalle Koutajoki, Samuli Mattila, Lauri Arte and Arto Lukkarila in 2009, the service is available in Finland and the United Kingdom as Beta. The company is based in Finland but formally launched internationally at Le Web conference in December 2011. As a business model, the company provides a one-to-one channel (personalized marketing) between the retailer and the consumer.
In an interview with CEO Kalle Koutajoki, he emphasizes that Foodie.fm has been created with internationalization in mind, and that the UK service will have more features such as crowdsourcing and revised commenting to make the service even more personal.
Technology
Foodie.fm’s recommendation system relies on a patent-pending technology which learns from a user’s eating and buying habits and suggests groceries and recipes accordingly. The system also takes into account user profile settings which specifies food allergies, personal budget and dietary restrictions.