I see 'dougs' is in the news today!

[thesaintv12]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18630628

Well done Doug, let us know how it goes. 

[hungrygoose]

I was surprised by how few people got his idea and how they forgot about the popularity of cooking shows, food fairs, farmers markets, cookbooks.  I'm always printing out recipes and buying the ingredients in a shop.  I think Sugar missed out on a great opp here.
How long until Jamie Oliver says you can "whisk" the recipe from the site?  Until I go to a dinner party and the host says they just "whisked" it.

[Adam C]

this should be a simple integration for supermarket sites.

I know Waitrose already have a load of recipes online.  How difficult should it be for them to integrate these with their ecommerce site.

Maybe Doug can sell them the technology in a couple of months time 

[Chunkford]

Doug, I like discounts and all but I swear I never signed up for your emails

I hope it works out. I know for sure the misses would love something like this, especially if she could do it for the weight watchers meals she keeps force feeding me and the kids ;p

[edo]

I would take Doug's view on online matters over "Lord" Sugar's every day of the week.

I think it could be a very good idea simply because people think in terms of recipes and not individual food items. I never say to myself, "Ooh, I fancy a breast of chicken, and a drizzling of lemon, some spices and green vegetables tonight." Instead I say to myself, "I fancy lemon chicken tonight."

One question though. If I wanted to buy a recipe for lemon chicken, would I be prepared to pay a delivery charge of £6.75 (Sainsburys) for a recipe that costs £10? Or is there a way around that, or perhaps I've misunderstood some of the concept.

Ed

[hungrygoose]

My view was you'd order your 7 main meals at the same time, plus all the normal shopping items such as soap etc

[Gurtie]

I've always been surprised this doesn't exist and I would back it as an idea but for me there are issues if there's not enough thought behind it  - I don't know how everyone else shops but I can't remember the last time I needed to buy *all* the ingredients for any recipe? Surely if you're the type of person who has nothing in the storecupboard you're probably not going to be cooking several meals a week from scratch?. 

I think in most cases I would spend as much time removing things I already had or wanted to buy elsewhere from my basket as I would just adding things from scratch. There are also issues around brand preferences, if you like organic where possible etc. All solvable with a few tickboxes and preference settings, but I wouldn't use it without them.

Backwards integration would be very cool though - if I'm shopping online I trawl the offers section first for inspiration, it would be nice to say 'what can I cook with Talapia' and get some suggestions and ingredient lists!

[grnidone]

I absolutely concur with Denise.  Usability testing is going to be KEY to if this makes or breaks.  You've gotta get real people testing this to see what the issues are.  It has to be right the first time and SUPER EASY. 

But if you do that...if you get it right hte first time, you've got a gold mine...

_{And why oh why did they have such an unfortunate picture of you on this article?}

[Chunkford]

That's not him, but if you think thats bad then you should see him dressed up as Santa



Say no more!

[grnidone]

Thank you for introducing that image into my life. 

And who the hell is Lord Sugar?  You'd think he, of all people, woudl want a food site...

[edo]

And who the hell is Lord Sugar?  You'd think he, of all people, woudl want a food site...

British entrepreneur, who does the UK version of The Apprentice. Basically a poor man's version of Donald Trump.

Also:

- borderline con man (see Amstrad shares debacle in the 80s)
- up his own arse (gets everyone to call him Lord Sugar)
- less talent than he thinks (emailer etc)
- no taste in friends (best mates with Piers Moron; see Twitter)

[Chunkford]

lol, sorry the temptation was too great.

Here's Sir Lord Alan Sugar's Wiki page if it helps get a bit of background on him - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sugar
Bascially he's now a 'celebrity business' man who got rich ages ago selling computers called Amstrads and is now trying to milk it on TV

[grnidone]

Is this the one Dougs was in?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yfKyKhf8Lw

[Chunkford]

Not sure but it wouldn't be Doug, it would be the guy who's he's investing into - Nick Holzherr - http://youtu.be/3375xXaD6Rc

[hungrygoose]

Good point Gurtie.  If perhaps you could scan your discarded spice packets etc then the system would know you need to buy that next time its needed for a recipe. 
For years they've been talking about rdf/rfi/rfd (what am I trying to say) in food packaging to replace bar codes, if this happened then we could have "smart" cupboards, fridges, bins etc so the system knows what you have in stock and what you need to order.

It will probably lead to more wastage but the supermarkets only pretend to care about that