All About the Cooks – the 'Etsy of home-cooked food' – launches in Bath

Published by

Peter Davison

All About the Cooks, an online marketplace that connects talented, trusted home-based cooks with customers in their neighbourhoods has launched in Bath, following successful trials in Bristol.

Supported by Innovate UK EDGE, the firm's expansion comes after a Crowdcube campaign raised £350,000.

Likened to the Etsy of home cooking, All About The Cooks empowers trained chefs and passionate cooks to share their authentic food with people locally.

“Whether you’re hosting a dinner party for friends, need wholesome meals prepared for your busy week ahead, or want to send a hotpot to a new homeowner, our platform allows you to access delicious, home-cooked food with a real story behind it,” says Claire Ladkin, founder of All About the Cooks.

“We create personal interactions within communities, neighbourhoods and cultures and enable talented cooks to make money from their own kitchen.”

Already, cooks in Bristol have taken 1,000+ orders and earned over £40,000 via the All About The Cooks Platform. Customers can expect the highest food safety standards with each cook achieving a 4* or 5* Hygiene Rating for their kitchens.

“Bath is the perfect next city for us,” says Claire. “It’s an area with a rich food culture, access to local produce nearby, and people who care about independence and community."

“As we expand into Bath, we’re on the lookout for talented home cooks, whether you’re an aspiring chef or the person who makes all the tasty treats for your colleagues and friends. We want to hear from you.”

All About the Cooks is now growing rapidly following support from Innovate UK EDGE Innovation and Growth Specialist, Megan Gibson-Jones, and aims to launch in 6 new cities in 2023.

“Megan's been a really valuable mentor,” says Claire, “she's very pragmatic, she asks good questions and she’s calm, organised and methodical.”

“With Megan’s support, we completed a successful Crowdcube campaign in July 2022, raising £350,000 – well beyond our target of £270,000.

“Together, we also identified the need to appoint a board of directors to reassure potential investors and help bring additional expertise and accountability to the company.”

All About the Cooks has since appointed Rimpei Iwata, CEO of Cookpad, the world’s largest recipe platform to its board. CookPad, which lead the recent investment round, reaches 100 million users in 74 countries and has its Global HQ in Bristol.

“Rimpei really sees the potential of our platform, his experience is extremely valuable to us and his endorsement sends a powerful message to investors,” says Claire.

Recruitment was identified as another key priority and Megan helped to define the required skills sets, develop attractive roles and create a strategy for finding the right candidates.

“Together, we identified who our perfect candidates would be, why they would want to work here and how we could get the most value out of them. That detailed preparation really paid off and we’re now growing the team successfully and expect to make three new hires over the next 12 months.”

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.