Marieke Hart is the founder of Shareyourmeal (together with Jan Thij Bakker), a neighbourhood based marketplace for meal sharing from the Netherlands but currently spreading across Europe.
What inspired you to start Shareyourmeal and how did you do it?
A personal experience inspired us to start Shareyourmeal. While seated in our garden, we could often smell when our neighbour was cooking. We were curious about her cookery and about her. When we took the bold step of asking her if we could try her food one day, she immediately got excited. That same weekend we walked over to her place with a few euro’s and returned with three delicious servings of pumpkin soup. This is when we realized that sharing food is a great way to get to know your neighbours. Other neighbours also started to participate. Everyone was really enthusiastic. We decided to take a leap of faith and to build an online platform which allows everyone in the Netherlands to share meals with neighbours. This is how Shareyourmeal got started. Community management is crucial to us. We involve our community in the development of our platform and use word of mouth marketing to grow.
What has happened since then?
We launched in the Netherlands in March 2012 and since then expanded to eight other countries. Our Dutch community has grown to 7.000 ‘homecooks’ and 52.000 foodies. So far, over 112.000 meals were shared in the Netherlands. Every day, around 400 ‘strangers’ stand in the kitchen of one of their neighbours to share food. We expanded our service with local activities, like cooking workshops, running dinners and food festivals. Everyone can organise such activities through our platform.
From all the overwhelming reactions we have learned that sharing makes you happy. The mere act of sharing can really brighten your day. In the case of our home cooks: being able to do something meaningful for someone else by sharing their passion for cooking; the satisfaction they get from all the gratitude, and the unexpected meetings with new people. And for our foodies, of course, there is also that cheap and delicious meal on your plate that you could not have prepared yourself. One of our home cooks, Kim, sent me an e-mail. She says, “Sharing food guarantees a positive day. I cook for my neighbours once a week and I know even beforehand that I will go to bed that evening feeling happy.”
You have recently launched a catering service, what does that mean?
Besides cooking for neighbours, it is also possible to cater through Shareyourmeal. If you enjoy cooking for large groups and for special occasions, you can extend your profile with a catering profile. Or if you have a birthday party or business lunch soon and you don’t want to cook yourself, you can find a personal caterer through Shareyourmeal. That means good food, prepared with love by one of your neighbours. We launched our catering service in November 2013 and now have over 175 caterers on the website.
What are Shareyourmeal’s challenges in 2014?
In 2014 we will focus more on vulnerable people. These are elderly, chronically ill, disabled people for whom we can facilitate an informal meal service. But also unemployed, socially isolated people who can enrich their lives by cooking for neighbours. The added value of our platform is even more powerful for these people. A challenge we are looking forward to!
Our continuing challenge is finding a sustainable business model. Since transactions are low (4 € on average for a meal), collecting transaction fees only covers a part of our costs. We are working on different payment models like subscriptions and a premium model.
You are very enthusiastic about sharing and even gave a TED talk about its power. Do you feel like you have a role in the sharing economy besides being the founder of Shareyourmeal?
I am very passionate to stimulate sharing, also besides my role at Shareyourmeal. The sharing economy makes our society more social and more sustainable. A trend worth being part of! I often give lectures or workshops on the power of sharing. And together with other sharing platforms we launched ShareNL, to stimulate the sharing economy in the Netherlands.
Do you want to hear more about Shareyourmeal? Watch the talk Marieke gave at LeWeb London 2013.
Hey – i am finding the idea of sharing economies and collaborative consumption really interesting, particularly if it could be applied to a social issue or development context. I work for Nike Foundation and UK Aid looking at how we empower teenage girls and lift them out of poverty and think there could be something really interesting in applying some of these models or ideas to our context. Would you be great to chat this through or share any case studies you think might be relevant? Mark
Dear Mark, Sounds really interesting and I am definitely willing to chat about this. Since I am based in the Netherlands, maybe a Skype call is a good starting point? Maybe you can send me an e-mail on [email protected] and propose a date and time? Marieke