How Samsung and Mindful Chef are building the efficient kitchen

Mindful Chef’s mission is to make healthy eating with less waste. A fast-growing food box company, Mindful Chef delivers recipes along with the exact amount of fresh ingredients that you need to cook the perfect meals. 

As part of that mission, Mindful Chef develops its recipes in its high-tech kitchen, using the kit provided by its technology partner, Samsung. We sat down with Myles Hopper, founder of Mindful Chef, and Dan Harvie, VP of home appliances at Samsung to find out how the two companies work together.

A flexible kitchen

As Hopper explains, the Mindful Chef kitchen sits at the heart of the company and is where the chefs develop more than 40 new recipes per week. It was key to partner with a company that produced innovative and flexible cooking appliances. Mindful Chef found Samsung to be a “forward-thinking and innovative platform”.

Samsung saw an opportunity to work with Mindful Chef. As Harvie explains, they’re “two brands that pride themselves on being future-facing, and are a really good fit of product and technology”.

As part of the partnership, Samsung provides appliances for Mindful Chef’s development kitchen.

“We support the development of their recipes with Dual Cook Flex ovens, microwaves and hobs,” explains Harvie.

Dual Cook Flex is Samsung’s smart technology that lets you run a single oven at two different temperatures, effectively giving you dual ovens without needing more space.

Sustainability

The pandemic has seen a different approach to home cooking, with people now spending more time cooking, while wanting better and more impressive results. Mindful Chef has “grown exponentially” during the pandemic and continues to grow.

Samsung has also seen changes in consumer demand, too.

“Undoubtedly, there’s a greater demand for technology,” says Harvie. “Consumers are broadening their minds for their families. Certainly, there’s a greater level of creativity in cooking and the kitchen.”

Along with more creativity, there’s a growing demand for sustainability, something that sits at the heart of Mindful Chef. According to the company, its recipe boxes create 30% fewer emissions than supermarket meals.

Hopper explained that rather than having everyone drive to a supermarket, Mindful Chef can use existing delivery companies and routes, reducing the number of vehicle miles. 

“A van can do 200 drops, rather than 200 people visiting a supermarket,” says Hopper.

The company also addresses food waste: according to figures provided by Mindful Chef, 3.6 million tons of food is thrown out by the food industry in the UK every year.

At Mindful Chef, the company can plan and predict demand for ingredients, ordering and supplying what’s actually needed.

According to Hopper, “We can pre-plan, as customers purchase up to 12 weeks in advance, and order with the farms. We pick up trends, and pride ourselves on very minimum wastage.”

Sustainability and efficiency shouldn’t just stop with the ingredients but should carry on into the kitchen and how we cook. That’s Samsung’s goal with Dual Cook Flex.

“Using Dual Cook Flex you can have different temperatures, so you’ve got the flexibility to cater for all different cooking modes for different numbers of people,” says Harvie. “Part of that experience is the best in cooking and cuisine but also the efficiency: you only have to heat and cook that one part of the oven.”

Hopper agrees and sees Dual Cook Flex as an efficient way to cook better.

“The ability to cook different ingredients, at different temps and times is far more efficient than cooking one item than another,” explains Hopper.

Better technology

Mindful Chef also sees a need for the kinds of technologies that Samsung includes in its cooking appliances, using them to help produce better results at home. One of the tools that professionals at Mindful Chef like are the temperature probes in Samsung ovens.

“A normal chef trying to cook a joint of lamb might dry it out,” explains Hopper. “Samsung has made it really easy to create the best possible experience every time. It makes recipes easy to replicate at home, getting the best out of them, which is the whole goal.”

Samsung is also continuing to develop smart cooking via its Smart Things platform. This lets you do things like pre-heat your oven from your phone, and get a ping when it’s time to turn the heat down. And, the Samsung Family Hub smart fridge freezer can even take you through recipes live, even sending the right settings to the oven.

It’s not unreasonable to expect that Mindful Chef recipes could, in the future, be integrated in a similar way.

The company is developing ovens with cameras in them, so you can see what’s going on without having to open the door: perfect for getting Yorkshire puddings done without the risk of them sagging.

You can order your choice of recipe boxes, including healthy, vegan and family choices, from the Mindful Chef’s website.