Portrait of a Bonn company The success story behind chefkoch.de
Bonn · The Bonn-based platform Chefkoch has become Germany's largest kitchen community, with six million users exchanging tips and tricks on the cooker and oven. It all started with a joke. A visit to the Bonner Bogen.
If you type the terms "casserole" and "recipes" into Google, you get over five million search results. At the top: A photo of "Strasbourg casserole", which links to the Chefkoch.de site. Almost 20,000 casserole recipes can be found on the platform, so there should be something for every taste. Other searches reveal a similar picture. It doesn't matter whether you are looking for cooking instructions for spaghetti sauces or for cabbage rolls. The search engine algorithms, which always favour the most clicked pages, put Chefkoch.de at the top.
A visit to the site at the Bonner Bogen: Of all the kitchens in Germany, the Chefkoch experimental kitchen offers one of the best views: The Post Tower on the other side of the Rhine, the Drachenfels to the south, Bonn Cathedral to the north. There's hardly any cooking going on here at the moment, though, because of Corona. The headquarters of Chefkoch is located in one of the chic office complexes, even if there is little to indicate this apart from the stylised chef's hat, the trademark of the largest cooking community in the German-speaking world. Nevertheless, it is from here that Germany is supplied with everyday food ideas for every day and for every ability, seven days a week. What used to be mother's recipe collection in a loose-leaf binder is now supplied by the net.
The basic principle? As unspectacular as it is simple: anyone who registers as a member of the Chefkoch community can publish their favourite recipe on the platform, along with photos of the finished dish. Anyone who finds it on the Chefkoch channels with the right keyword can then cook it. And as a member, they can leave their opinion in the comments column. In this way, amateur cooks can chat about the best recipes and variations, about eating habits and accessories. Only not with one or two friends over steaming pots with a glass of wine, but on the worldwide web. Anyone who wants to can join in the conversation, just like in social media.
Over 350,000 recipes on Chefkoch
There are forums for cooking, baking and drinks, a lifestyle corner and a chat corner. "Our vision is that you don't need any other place than Chefkoch for recipes in Germany, simply because everything can be found here," says Chefkoch CEO Christine Nieland.
And for free. A few weeks ago, the number of registered users passed the six million mark, according to the company. Up to 22 million people visit the site and the Chefkoch apps every month, and they can access more than 350,000 recipes. Under the keyword lasagne alone, there are more than 1,500 entries. No surprise: according to a representative survey by the company, Germans prefer to eat Italian.
"Many recipes have a quasi guarantee of success: because they have been cooked thousands of times and are thus proven to work, it is likely that they will also succeed the thousandth and one time," says Nieland, citing one of the secrets of success. Another: unlike magazines like "Essen und Trinken" or "Feinschmecker", Chefkoch is not aimed at gourmets. "Our focus is on everyday cooking, where things have to be a bit quicker and where not quite so extraordinary ingredients are used," Nieland emphasises.
How did the success story of the platform from Bonn begin?
The Chefkoch founding story sounds like something out of a Silicon Valley poetry album. At the end of the 1990s, Alexander Meis, Martin Sarosiek and Martin Wojtaszek, operators of the Internet service agency Pixelhouse in Sinzig, Rhineland, wanted to demonstrate to customers what a database-driven Internet site could look like. For this purpose they chose cooking recipes, although they are actually software developers by training. A coincidence, then. The first instruction was for the Pangalactic Thunder Gurgler, supposedly the strongest drink in space and known from the sci-fi novels "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". A joke the three of them allowed themselves. In 1998 they put the site they called Chefkoch.de online.
It is the start of a success story. A site where cooking enthusiasts could find recipes instead of having to leaf through cookbooks did not yet exist. The idea struck a nerve, also because Germans suddenly discovered their passion for cooking. Chefs became nationally known media stars, cooking itself became a lifestyle activity.
Today, the Chefkoch company employs 130 people in Bonn and Hamburg, but increasingly throughout Germany. "We are a remote company," says Nieland, "the employees can also work from home with their computers." The whole effort is financed mainly by advertising revenue and partnerships with companies.
The chef-inventors from Sinzig have not been on board for a long time. Their success attracted nationwide attention, and in 2007 the major Hamburg publisher Gruner & Jahr ("Brigitte", "Stern"), which was itself swallowed up by the Cologne-based RTL broadcasting group last summer, took over the platform completely. The strong growth required several relocations. First within Sinzig, from where Chefkoch moved to Bad Neuenahr in 2008, and then to Bonn in 2011. The staff moved into the spacious new premises at Bonner Bogen almost seven years ago. There are no plans to relocate again, especially since most are currently working at home due to the pandemic.
"We do not presume to judge whether a dish is good or bad"
Other providers have long since smelled a lucrative rat and started cooking recipe sites. There is even a site on the internet called "Worst of Chefkoch", whose operators collect and comment on bizarre to strange user recipes such as Café au Nutella, Brigitte's tea sausage sauce or banana steaks with croquettes. Because what tastes good or not is left up to those who publish recipes, cook them and comment on them. The platform's employees merely check dishes and ingredient lists for plausibility. "We don't presume to judge whether a dish is good or bad," says Nieland. "That's for the cooks to decide at home." The spacious experimental kitchen in the Bonner Bogen, which still has a counterpart at the second location in Hamburg, is mainly used for video productions and for the company's own employees, who can prepare their lunch or celebrate kitchen parties here.
While collecting, publishing cooking recipes and the kitchen chats of Chefkoch users remains the core of the platform the pandemic has caused user numbers to "skyrocket dramatically in the meantime, especially during the first lockdown", as CEO Nieland says. But other formats have long since settled around this core. Kitchen professionals like the Black Forest chef Viktoria Fuchs ("Spielweg Hotel & Restaurant") or Fabio Haebel from Hamburg teach tips and tricks on the cooker and oven in learning videos. Videos and recipes are also played out on much-used platforms such as Pinterest or Instagram. A "Chef's Weekly Plan" gives stressed parents recipe suggestions for every day. Chefkoch is available for purchase as a printed glossy magazine on newsstands. And just last Wednesday, the parent company RTL announced the launch of "Chefkoch TV" - the cooking show with celebrity chef Alexander Herrmann is to run every weekday in the late morning. "There is no standing still, our plans are enough for several years," says Chef Chef Christine Nieland confidently.
Original text: Kai Pfundt
Translation: Mareike Graepel