CFI Podcast

CFI Podcast: The Data Science of Food and Taste

Ooshma Garg

Posted November 25, 2015

 

The best cooks know cooking a meal is all about having a plan (and a back-up plan if things go south); get the cooking out of the way, and then you can enjoy your family and friends — the most important part.

But now try doing it for thousands. Ooshma Garg, founder of fresh 10-minute dinner kits service Gobble, has to make sure the highest of high-stakes meals are ready, on-time, and home-cooked delicious for thousands of families. How does Gobble do it?

How can one company be the de facto sous chef for so many? Turns out there’s a lot of data science behind it, in everything from procurement to forecasts to logistics: what to cook, what people will like, what ingredients are required, what to produce at scale. In this segment of the CFI Podcast, Garg suggests that every modern food company is really a tech company (or should be). Is there a science to taste?