{"id":37691,"date":"2023-10-20T14:51:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/dating-site-for-food-wins-hackathon-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:51:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:51:46","slug":"dating-site-for-food-wins-hackathon-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/dating-site-for-food-wins-hackathon-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Dating site for food\u2019 wins hackathon – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tech-savvy foodies descended on Sydney this weekend for a two-day hackathon dedicated to all things edible, with an app described as the food baby of Uber and Tinder taking the top prize.<\/p>\n

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HackFood<\/a>, organised by Food Tech Australia<\/a> and held at Sydney startup hub Fishburners, saw eleven finalists pitch their ideas to judges that included Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie and Oz Harvest\u2019s Gopi Krishnan.<\/p>\n

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The winning pitch, an app called Chewsr<\/a>, proposes taking high quality photos of restaurant food which users could then swipe through, like they might do with potential suitors on dating apps.<\/p>\n

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Sam Polgar, who was one of seven people on the Chewsr team, says it\u2019s all about \u201cfinding food by feeling\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFood is emotive. We constantly ask ourselves, \u2018What do we feel like?\u2019 Reading a menu doesn\u2019t do it justice,\u201d Polgar tells StartupSmart<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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Polgar has worked in kitchens since he was a teenager and says food\u2019s visual appeal cannot be underestimated.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPeople eat with their eyes first,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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He also says consumers are creatures of habit and can be overwhelmed by the amount of choice available.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere are so many decisions to make that we get stuck making the same decisions,\u201d Polgar says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen it comes to takeaway, we end up having pad thai and pizza again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Hackathon mentor Anne-Marie Elias says she was most impressed by the participants\u2019 agility.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPeople came in with a clear idea, but when they tested them with peers and market, they were willing to be agile,\u201d Elias says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s how you keep a business moving and ahead of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

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She says Chewsr has a clear value proposition – improving upon pre-existing food apps like Menulog by cutting down the amount of reading the user has to do.<\/p>\n

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The Chewsr team is confident the public will agree after successfully trialling their app during the hackathon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe found there was a need for caffeine after a couple of days of hard work. We put up lots of pictures of coffee and tea, then took the payments,\u201d Polgar says.<\/p>\n

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They took over $300 worth of orders from the participants alone.<\/p>\n

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HackFood comes at a time when the food tech industry is burgeoning. Liz Kaelin, who founded Food Tech Australia with MasterChef<\/i> alum Kevin Perry, says food is the world\u2019s biggest market, and their organisation is committed to growing startups in Australia.<\/p>\n

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“We feel like it’s time for people to sit up and take notice of the food tech industry because within the next 12 months I guarantee you that it’s going to be a very different landscape,” Ms Kaelin told AAP last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a landscape Polgar and his team want to join.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re definitely going ahead with it \u2026 I\u2019ve had a couple of discussions with some venture capitalists,\u201d says Polger.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut it\u2019s a game of speed and work ethic. When we put [our plans] into action, it\u2019s got to be quick and good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? Let us know. Follow StartupSmart on <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a>, and <\/i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tech-savvy foodies descended on Sydney this weekend for a two-day hackathon dedicated to all things edible, with an app described<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}