New Startup Offers Meal Kits Created by Hapa Ramen, Alta CA, Dosa, More

Dining out versus cooking at home is an age-old dilemma for the hungry, but new SF-based startup Forage is attempting to give local eaters the best of both worlds. A meal-kit service in the vein of Blue Apron, Plated, and Tomato Sherpa, it comes with a twist: all the recipes are sourced from chefs at top local restaurants, including Alta CA, Dosa, Hapa Ramen, and Souvla. While Luke's Local and CUESA have occasionally offered chef-driven meal kits, this is the first time a company has based its business model entirely around them, with many of the ingredients delivered pre-cooked, like Hapa Ramen's broth and pork.

Forage comes from Emily and Rob LaFave, who founded gourmet-snack delivery service Foodzie, which was sold to Joyus in 2012. Along with co-founder and CTO Josh Fraser, they devised Forage to crack the more lucrative dinner market. Pre-measured ingredients arrive with dry ice to diners' doors; a subscription is $60/week, the equivalent of four meals (the minimum weekly order). The dishes are all intended to take 20 minutes or less to cook, and unused meals can "roll over" to the subsequent week if you're planning to be out of town or are just dining out a lot. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and a Whole Foods board member are early investors. Some of the early dishes available include pork ramen from Hapa and corn pierogies from Alta CA; they deliver within SF by courier, and ship to California and Nevada, with plans to expand nationwide.

· New Delivery Box Service Recreates Actual Chef Recipes [~ EN ~]
· Forage [Official website]