Social media recipes are replacing cookbooks, changing the way we shop

Do you remember cutting recipes out of magazines or copying them from a cookbook into a notebook

Well, I don't because if you're anything like me, most of your meal planning starts with a scroll

For a growing number of shoppers, especially younger ones, dinner starts on social media

You see a recipe that looks easy enough and suddenly you're adding ingredients to your online cart or notes app in real time

And that shift isn't just a trend. It's changing the way people shop

A 2024 report from the Food Industry Association found online grocery shopping hit a new high last year, with 67% of consumers surveyed saying they've done it

And among that group, millennials and Gen Zers are leading the charge

The goal for many younger consumers is simple, to make dinner with as little stress, planning, and waste as possible

And according to New York City-based commerce advertising platform chicory, 89% of consumers say they're doing this using digital

recipes often from social media. But social media cooking looks easy until it doesn't. One minute

you're watching a creamy pasta swirl in slow motion and the next, you're 30 comments deep

trying to figure out if they use heavy cream or Greek yogurt. I get most, if not all of my recipes

from TikTok. There's always that one influencer that's like gatekeeping. I'm like

how I'm supposed to find the whole recipe? Right. That's where an app like Sizzle comes in. The new app

scans food videos from TikTok, for example, and builds out a full grocery list, even if the

creator doesn't post the full recipe. It even gives you the option to add to your online

shopping cart. So Sizzle connects recipes to groceries. It is kind of like if TikTok shop and

Hello Fresh had a baby I like to also refer to it as the Uber eats of cooking But the idea for the app didn come from technical jargon It came from a real struggle the creators wanted to be met I was like you know wow I spent this week on food alone

I'm still ordering Uber Eats and I threw away half my food. So we see a lot of this kind of

accessible, convenient, like get something delivered to your door, but not in the way that we

need, which is through something like groceries, which really is the most affordable option

And these days, I think that a lot of other companies in food tech, you know, businesses and

industries, they really try to push you on like meal kits are the best way to save money or, you know

meal planning this way. But really, the best thing that you can do is find ways to grocery shop in the most convenient

affordable, and accessible way. And that's how we're trying to do it. Aside from creating an ease of finding social media recipes, the sizzle team uses a lot of

user feedback for their app update. One coming soon is a pantry option

suggesting meals that allow you to use what's already in your kitchen that can help with less waste

saving money, and hopefully fewer DoorDash orders. We're not trying to replace, you know, the grocery store system

We're trying to drive traffic to grocery stores in a way that makes sense for our generation

but also in a way that is so strategic that it would be impossible to not save money

So whether you're still team cookbook or just trying to figure out what to do with that bag of spinach you forgot you bought

convenience first cooking is here to stay and is changing the way people think about food entirely

I think now more than ever it is so, so important to know where our economy is going

what people actually want to purchase, and how can you make it so, so, so easy for them at the same time

And if you're wondering if I downloaded the app, yes, I did

And no, I haven't made the pasta I referenced earlier, but it is in my shopping cart

In the meantime, I'm Kennedy Felton with Stray Arrow News, and you can download our app for the latest news headlines