Baking during the coronavirus pandemic became so popular that flour was nearly impossible to find at grocery stores around the country, with flour sales increasing as much as 2,000% in March 2020. Overall sales of baking mixes and ingredients increased 25% last year, and cooking programs like The Great British Baking Show served as television therapy for millions during quarantine.
Baking had a moment in 2020. And now a new Chicago startup is betting it'll continue to rise.
BāKIT Box (pronounced "bake-kit box") was founded last year by Shelley Gupta and Carla Medina Jacobson and officially launched in February. Similar to a meal kit service like Blue Apron or Home Chef, BāKIT Box provides all the ingredients and step-by-step directions one needs to bake at home. The idea was born while Jacobson was baking during the pandemic and realized how hard it was to find good recipes and source the right amount of ingredients.
"One of the things I realized while I was baking during quarantine was that it was a really fun activity, but it definitely had its pain points," she said.
BāKIT Box delivers users all the pre-measured ingredients they need to make their items, like eggs, flour, butter and milk, along with simple instructions on how to bake them. The startup features around a half dozen recipes on its website, with a focus on culturally diverse recipes like empanadas and tres leches. It also features cupcakes, zucchini sweet potato bread and burger buns, with new recipes added each month.
BāKIT Box is working to lower the baking barrier to entry, Gupta said, by offering simple instructions and removing the mess that traditionally comes with baking at home.
"You don’t have to measure out any of the ingredients," Gupta said. "You don’t end up with flour all over your counter."
Gupta and Jacobson, two University of Chicago Booth School of Business grads, launched the company out of The Hatchery, a food incubator and production facility in Chicago. The two worked with Hatchery chefs to create their recipes, and have also incorporated recipes of their own. They've so far raised about $100,000 of a planned $500,000 pre-seed funding round, and this month received a grant from Tech Rise, a diversity initiative led by P33 that backs entrepreneurs of color.
BāKIT Box currently delivers to the Chicagoland area, but the startup expects to soon expand to more of the Midwest. It's also planning to launch a subscription service that allows customers to automatically receive boxes to their door every few months.
