Another Way to Think of Boxed Food
Chiara Rota, a 30-year old engineer, doesn't like to waste time neither in a kitchen, nor in business, and just a few months after her entrance into the Speed MI Up incubator, her idea to market "a stylish box containing a recipe for an Italian dish with all the ingredients needed to prepare it, in the right quantities" is a reality. A reality, though, partly different from what she had anticipated, as the result of a transformation journey she faced with the help of her Speed MI Up tutor, Cinzia Parolini.
The red-and-white My Cooking Box packages, with all the ingredients to cook two portions of trofiette with Genoan pesto and pine-nuts or five portions of Tumminia busiate with cherry tomato, capers and olives, are already present in ca. 30 outlets in Northern Italy, including one in the Orio al Serio international airport. A cooperation with Narratè, furthermore, translated into Narrabox, Milan's Food Souvenir, a limited edition Christmas box containing a small panettone baked by the renowned Pasticceria Cortinovis, a booklet telling Milan's history and spirit and a black tea bag with cinnamon and saffron.
Chiara's idea (and that of the two people who partnered with her) remains the same: providing the consumer with the recipe and the ingredients for a typical, healthy, top-quality dish. Some stages of the journey turned out to be tougher than expected. "I couldn't have guessed", Rota says, "the time and resources we had to devote to restructure the place where we assemble the boxes, which must comply with all the regulations on food plants".
Suppliers' selection has not been easy. "Top quality is not enough", the entrepreneur explains. "They must also be willing to package the ingredients in very small quantities. If pasta, with the 200-gram trofiette and 500-gram busiate is not a problem, packaging the handful of salt to be thrown into the boiling water is something alien to salt producers' culture".
The idea to involve popular chefs to sign off the recipes wasn't in the original plans and has been realized thanks to a partnership with Accademia del gusto, a cooking school located in the Bergamo area. The trofiette recipe is signed by Francesca Marsetti (on Italian TV with La prova del cuoco), busiate is signed by Fabio Potenzano (on TV with Detto fatto). The next recipe will be signed by Mirko Ronzoni, the winner of 2015 Hell's Kitchen Italia (with Chiara in the picture).
Up to now the three My Cooking Box partners could finance their enterprise with their money and a bank loan ("much less difficult to obtain than commonly thought") and are currently in search of investors to sustain their growth.
The months since February 2015, when My Cooking Box entered Speed MI Up, have been frantic. "We've been one of the startup hosted by Vivaio delle idee, the space that EXPO's Palazzo Italia devoted to new food and beverage enterprises, and we could present our business to consumers, investors and public decision makers. We are trying to implement some suggestions Eataly's Oscar Farinetti gave us there".
Most importantly, Rota has realized that My Cooking Box packages can be retailed through innovative channels. "We register strong interest from Italian cuisine restaurants abroad and high-end hospitality chains, that could offer the boxes to their guests as farewell presents or, in the case of aparthotels, sell them for immediate use. Furthermore, there are local governments eager to promote their areas using typical products as an argument, and they are asking us for special-event boxes". And Rota is already thinking of enlarging the product range with play-and-cook boxes for children. You know, Chiara doesn't like to waste time.