Inside Tastemade Cooking

The newly released Tastemade Cooking app has several points of appeal.

First, every recipe comes with an accompanying video, which can be helpful for recipes that involve a specific technique. 

The app also has a virtual recipe box and the ability to create a consolidated grocery list for easy shopping. To make the recipes more accessible, the app also has features that convert imperial to metric units (and vice versa), servings to scale, nutritional information, and other helpful capabilities.

The library of recipes also features dishes created by food media personalities and Tastemade cooks, including Andrew Zimmern, Kristen Kish, Dale Talde, and Frankie Celenza. 

From a subscription perspective, the app will serve as another funnel for converting video viewers into Tastemade+ subscribers. 

Made for TV

Tastemade reaches consumers across a variety of distribution points, including streaming, FAST channels, YouTube, its app, and several MVPDs. With the exception of its FAST distribution points, which are free and monetized with ads, almost all of these distribution points require some kind of consumer payment. 

On YouTube, for instance, audiences can only watch trailers and teasers of Tastemade videos. To access full videos, they would have to subscribe to YouTube TV or pay $2.99 per month, according to Bregman.

The introduction of the app further provides Tastemade with a conversion pathway for its FAST viewers, who make up the bulk of its audience: 70% of Tastemade’s monthly viewership happens on streaming channels. 

Using Tastemade Cooking, the publisher can now funnel its free FAST viewers toward a paid product. And for existing Tastemade+ subscribers, the Cooking app acts as an entirely new ecosystem for deepening their relationship with the publisher and its content. 

The publisher still makes the bulk of its revenue through advertising, which includes custom content studio partnerships with brands like Kraft Heinz. It also signed a first-look deal with Amazon in January, which will see Tastemade produce 15 unscripted lifestyle shows that will air on Prime Video.

But like other publishers, Tastemade hopes to continue diversifying its business to be less reliant on advertising and more in step with its paying viewership. 

“Tastemade+ has had a great year,” Bregman said. “We’ve forged a lot of really good partnerships that speak to the value proposition of not only our recipes but also our high-end series. The membership itself has been really attractive.”