Expert-powered food and drink experiences.
Authentic dining experiences
ChefsFeed is the inside connection to the best dishes and food culture, proudly presented by the world’s top chefs. Headquartered in San Francisco, it brings the chef's voice to the forefront of food discovery through dish recommendations and culinary content.
Xmartlabs was referred to ChefsFeed in early 2017 to provide support to its custom publishing platform and user-facing web app. Our successful initial collaboration turned into a strategic partnership with a significant impact on the company's products throughout different pivotal moments. Besides providing comprehensive product development services that resulted in several industry awards -most notably "Apple TV - App of the Year" by Apple- we became a trusted partner providing ongoing support and technical leadership across strategy, execution, and team building.
Services
UX/UI design
Mobile Development
Backend Development
Frontend Development
QA
Engagement
+3 years, ongoing development
Product Studio
Platform
iOS
AppleTV
Android
React
Ruby on Rails
Django
Your expert connection to authentic food and dining experiences
As a culinary media content provider, ChefsFeed envisioned a platform where you could discover places to eat, all curated by culinary experts and professionals. ChefsFeed provides end-users dining and drinking guides, inspiration, and unique experiences direct from experts. The platform also enables culinary pros and the world’s best brands to discover innovative ways to collaborate.
ChefsFeed provides iOS, Android, and Apple TV apps. It also offers a web platform apart from many OTT channels to reach their audience. We closely collaborated with them to implement, integrate, and maintain the technology stack that supports its media publishing and distribution platform.
In 2018, ChefsFeed expanded its value proposition by acquiring the former Feastly and started to offer offline culinary experiences within the app. Unfortunately, they were forced to pivot into interactive virtual cooking classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic lock-down and its critical impact in the restaurant industry.
A sneak peek into our kitchen
As a mainstream media platform, having a crispy, well-thought-out user experience is essential to optimize user engagement. This usually involves surfacing dynamic content and functionality while making it look simple. One of our main challenges on the frontend has been dealing with the inherent complexity of dealing with multiple layers of dynamic information per screen.
In addition to usability and aesthetic improvements, we kept introducing brand new mobile platform functionalities that directly enhance the app user experience such as Notification Extensions, Sign In with Apple, Apple Pay and Spotlight search.
In the last years, and following the fast evolution of iOS and Android development ecosystems (Swift and Kotlin takeoff), we faced the challenge of innovating and adding value while upgrading the app architecture. We recommended migrating the models and network layer which were loosely coupled to the app UI. That enabled us to develop new functionality in a modern stack while avoiding a full app migration, which was out of discussion considering the code base size and effort required.
Discover & Explore
Whether you are planning on a short trip or want to explore your neighborhood's hot spots, you can discover what's around with ChefsFeed! You can also watch unique multimedia content, from cooking classes and culinary city guides to interviews with expert chefs.
Did you know..? ChefsFeed Required Guides are prominently featured when looking at restaurants in the new Apple Maps in iOS 14.
ChefsFeed Experiences
Independent chefs are able to offer and host culinary experiences through ChefsFeed platform, enabled by the acquisition of a web-based culinary marketplace (Feastly). We were involved in the technical integration to ensure that the account migration process was as smooth as it can get—unifying users from both platforms into one with no downtime! In addition to that, we were in charge of introducing the marketplace and checkout flow functionality in iOS and Android apps.
Moving forward in dire times
2020 was a tough year for the restaurant industry since it was among the sectors that suffered the most. Thousands of venues shut their doors down because of widespread lockdowns, and went by with barely any income for months. Big players may survive, but what about small and independent ones?
As a result of the agile response of both ChefsFeed and Xmartlabs, in a matter of days we enabled live interactive experiences to provide chefs an alternative revenue stream. Through it, ChesFeed users are able to purchase tickets to attend online cooking classes and QA sessions. This way they can experience delightful dinners, learn from the best, and support their favorite professionals while staying safe at home.
ChefsFeed's support to independent chefs during the COVID-19 pandemic was featured by the App Store.
One team, two companies
ChefsFeed has been evolving throughout different stages towards its mission of empowering expert food and beverage professionals. It is currently available in 50+ cities and has inspired millions of consumers with curated content and experiences.
Xmartlabs has played a key role in their journey, by bringing to the table a wide range of technical capabilities along with design sensibility, and a strong sense of shared product ownership.
Our 3+ years collaboration went beyond a traditional client-vendor relationship, with both teams visiting each other for annual retreats and working closely to build not only a solid product but also a vibrant culture and in-house technical capabilities.
.png)
.png)
