As an urban melting pot of nationalities, New York City is home to a mega-diverse and extensive restaurant scene. There are approximately 8,000 restaurants in the city, where cuisines vary from French-Japanese fusion to the best pizza in the world. With so many options, one can eat their way around the globe simply by traversing the island of Manhattan (as my colleague is currently attempting to do), or one could opt for a more on-demand approach.
Enter Try The World, a subscription box service and a foodie’s dream. The company sources an array of food from different countries, which it then assembles into boxes curated by celebrity chefs.
The company was founded in 2013 by Columbia graduates, Kat Vorotova and David Foult, who grew the company out of an incubator in Google’s NYC office.
“Millennials are open minded and curious about international cuisines,” said Try The World cofounder and co-CEO, Kat Vorotova. “Try The World partners with expert celebrity chefs and sources authentic gourmet foods and snacks from all over the world to bring a delicious culinary and social experience right to your doorstep.”
This month, Try The World has shipped out a Portugal-themed box, curated by Lupulo’s chef and owner, George Mendes. The box features a myriad of Portuguese dining staples, including fine sea salt, canned seafood, olive oil, lemon cookies, Piri Piri hot sauce and black tea. Within the box, customers also receive a culture guide that provides ingredient information and recipes.
These parcels will currently run you as little as $33 per box. On April 1, the company will roll out a monthly plan that will allow customers to subscribe to the service for $29 per box. You can also subscribe to the company’s snack box for $15 per month, which ships you 5 snacks from 5 different countries. If you like an item in any of these boxes, you can easily restock your pantry from the company’s online shop.
To date, the company has raised $3 million over 2 rounds of funding and seen exponential growth over the past year.
“The company grew from 1,000 to 50,000 subscribers last year, and our goal is to keep improving the quality of our selection and to become a global brand that customers trust,” said Vorotova.
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