Pooja Singhi (left) and Kelly Rooney, founders of Homemade.

New platform from Harvard Business School students makes private chef services accessible

Harvard Business School students Kelly Rooney and Pooja Singhi both grew up with working moms, watching the juggling act of career, kids, schedules and daily meals. Something had to give and for many families, including Rooney’s, that something was food.

Dinnertime was outsourced to pre-made, grab-and-go options to accommodate other priorities. To lighten that load, Rooney and Singhi launched Homemade, an online platform that connects busy folks with local cooks in their neighborhood.

While researching how to tackle the problem of fitting healthy, homemade meals into a busy schedule, Rooney says they heard the same thing from people repeatedly: “If you really want me to be able to eat healthy, homecooked food, somebody needs to be in my kitchen making it for me.”

That’s exactly what Homemade accomplishes. Clients can go on the platform and choose a local cook who will come to their home and prepare meals. This can be used for weekly meal prep, dinner parties, grab-and-go snack packs or whatever your food needs are. The cooks set their own hourly rates and provide menus and Homemade takes care of all the backend logistics including payments and marketing. It’s the benefit of a personal chef in a much more accessible price range.

Carly Callister was a mom of two and nine months pregnant with a third child when she learned about Homemade. She hired one of the Homemade cooks who specializes in Greek and Mexican cuisine to prepare dinners for her growing family, tuned to each member’s spice tolerance and ingredient preference.

“The experience was honestly life-changing,” said Callister. “I was exhausted every day, and having meals the whole family loved and already prepared (with leftovers!) gave me the time and energy to focus on getting ready for our new baby and spend meaningful time with my kids and husband before we became a family of five.”

The platform is in its infancy, but already hungry Bostonians can choose cooks who specialize in Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Peruvian, Haitian and Lao cuisines, among others. Some cooks specialize in vegetarian diets or in family meals that can be mixed and matched as needed throughout the week. Diners can choose from simple, homestyle meals or high-end menus from culinary school-trained chefs. Prices per serving range from $6.67 to $29.44.

For safety, both cooks and clients go through professional background checks before using the platform and each side reviews the other after a dining experience. Cooks are required to get a ServSafe food safety certification.

Homemade cook Aslin Santos runs Raíces Sofrito, a Caribbean food company that dishes out flavorful fusion meals through catering, pop-ups and farmers’ markets. By working with Homemade, Santos can connect with regular clients without worrying about logistics. That way she can focus on the parts of the process that she loves.

“Through Homemade I’ve had the opportunity to share dishes that represent my culture, my family and my roots,” said Santos. “For me, cooking has always been about more than just food. It’s about storytelling, tradition and bringing people together around the table.”

Practicality is a huge piece of this business model. Clients get healthy, homemade meals stocked in their fridge without having to set aside hours for meal prep and cooks have the opportunity to make money from their skills on their own terms. But there’s an element of human connection here that Rooney feels is important as well. After all, these cooks are inside the client’s home, meeting their kids, petting their dogs and breaking in their spatulas.

“With everything being digitized and automated these days, I feel very, very strongly that human to human contact, human-provided services and really entrenching yourself deeply in your local community has become astronomically more important and valuable,” she said.

ON THE WEB

Learn more at cookinghomemade.com