Description
Gigamunch is a lot Etsy, a little Uber, and zero singin’ for your dinner. With both food prep and delivery apps, plus the decentralization of all goods on the rise, Gigamunch hopes to distinguish itself from the pack by giving both independent chefs and hungry consumers jonesing for some Filipino lumpia direct, instant access to one another.
The Gigamunch app, set to launch soon for beta testing in Nashville, invites local cooks to open “online stores” of daily snacks and meals. App users can then browse and order the food for pickup or delivery. If Gigamunch can grow like its artisan jewelry / craft counterpart, the app will eventually translate to hundreds of cooks dishing up hundreds of unique, restaurant-quality (or just-like-Mom-used-to-make) meals for anyone to enjoy at home.
And if you don’t see something you like on the Gigamunch app, or you’ve been salivating in your dreams over a Chicken Korma you had last weekend? Gigamunch can also go into Uber Mode. Instead of tapping, “Hey, can someone come get me from Dirty Nelly’s Pub & Grub?” to a bunch of drivers, you’ll tap, “Hey, can someone make me some Chicken Korma like I had at Amber India?” to a bunch of chefs. If one of them is up to the challenge, he or she will accept your open call.
The app hopes to appeal to everyone from foodies to stoners, and people who hate to cook to people who just don’t have time. One of its biggest audiences could also be people with allergies and food restrictions, who will be able to Gigamunch requests for x-y-and-z-free foods, or narrow their searches to exclude ingredients they don’t eat.
Before basking in the joy of food sharing, Gigamunch will certainly have to machete through some thick brambles of logistics and legality to make the app viable for both cooks and eaters. Gaining the trust of both parties to participate in and use the service may be tough. Safety, quality assurance, and dispute resolution all become a lot more important when you’re talking about something you’re ingesting rather than wearing or hanging on your wall. They also become a lot more complex when there is no “manager on duty” to talk to face-to-face when things go wrong.
And, uh, is people cooking stuff in their home kitchens and selling it to the world even legal? Since Gigamunch is launching in Nashville, the company has researched laws in Tennessee and determined that as long as cooks do not have any paid employees, make only occasional sales, and do not have any paid advertising, the answer is yes.
Gigamunch plans to require its cooks to have a Food Handler Card, and will conduct background checks on all of them prior to approval. They’ll also visit the cooks’ kitchens to inspect for food health and safety provisions. All cooks will be required to show current photos of their kitchens to potential app users, and the Uber system of review (with comments) will be in place.
Interested in Gigamunching? Back the app on Kickstarter through March 12, 2016. If funding efforts are successful, the company hopes to hit Nashville in May, and then expand to other cities in October 2016.
