TikTok

TikTok Launches Food Delivery Service Inspired by Viral Cooking Videos (And We Thought TikTokers Were Only Hungry For Attention)

If you’re a fervent follower of #FoodTok, you’ve likely found yourself salivating over viral videos for edibles like Smash Burgers and Baked Feta Pasta. But we’d be willing to guess you’re also too lazy to actually replicate the recipes shown on these cooking videos. TikTok understands, and wants to bring the same food porn that keeps your eyes glued to the screen straight to your front door to quiet your grumbling stomach.

To that end, the social media platform is launching a food delivery service called TikTok Kitchen in March 2022. The food will be prepared in ghost kitchens in 300 locations, such as chain restaurants including Buca di Beppo and Bertucci’s, and can be ordered through GrubHub.

While #FoodTok has plenty of eyeballs – videos baring the hashtag have over 11.5 billion views – whether or not this will translate into food orders remains to be seen. But the higher-ups are pretty confident this concept will be a hit.

“Look, you have a platform with a billion viewers monthly who are constantly engaged, as the numbers show,” Virtual Dining Concepts President Robert Earl told Bloomberg. “It’s the first time there’s a brand like this out there — an audience of hundreds of millions of people.”

Proceeds from TikTok Kitchen will supposedly go back to the TikTokers who whipped up the popular recipes in the first place. But given the lag time from a recipe going viral to landing on the menu, which will be updated quarterly, it’s hard to say if anyone will still be interested in pasta chips and corn ribs months after they’ve disappeared from your “for you” page.

As avid consumers of restaurant food – much of which doesn’t stand up well to the delivery model – we suspect the probability of disappointment in TikTok Kitchen is high, but we might be willing to give it a try.

Cover Photo: Virtual Dining Concepts

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