CookUnity redistributes more than 1.4 million pounds of food through a nationwide rescue network. The company combines prevention with redistribution of meals through more than 30 partners, including chef-led nonprofit Rethink Food, to reduce the climate impact of wasted food NEW YORK-(BUSINESS WIRE)-CookUnity, the first chef-led marketplace and meal delivery service, announced today that it has redistributed more than 1.4 million pounds of edible surplus food through a nationwide network of more than 30 partners since launching its food rescue program in 2021. This marks a significant milestone in the 10-year-old company's mission to empower chefs to feed and nourish the world and its core belief that great food belongs on people's plates, not in landfills. CookUnity's entire production model prioritizes preventing surplus from the outset to redistribute eligible food to its communities. Since 2022, CookUnity has maintained a cumulative food waste rate of 1.86% of its total meal production. This is compared to the estimate that commercial kitchens typically waste 5% to 15% of the food they purchase (according to Leanpath). CookUnity estimates that its total food donations represent the equivalent footprint of saving 160.6 million gallons of water and avoiding 2,700 metric tons of CO[2]e emissions released into the atmosphere. To reduce surplus, the company focuses on a mix of demand forecasting, real-time tracking, and digital tools and training for chefs and their teams - ensuring each kitchen is appropriately equipped to reduce unnecessary waste. In the kitchens, chefs play a vital role in identifying edible surplus food that meets food safety and donation requirements. Over the past year, CookUnity has nearly quadrupled its in-facility Sustainability Operations and food recovery staffing, growing from four team members to 15, led by María Bengochea, Director of Sustainability, Nutrition & Standards. "To accomplish our mission, everything we do centers on building a more equitable, sustainable food system. Over the last five years, we've worked closely with our chefs and a network of local and national organizations across the U.S. to address food insecurity and expand access to great, nourishing food," said Bengochea. "Today's milestone reflects that work: actionable programs that reduce and divert food surplus from the start, and more than a million pounds of food that reaches people instead of going to waste." CookUnity launched its food rescue program five years ago with the goal of providing nutritious meals to neighbors and local communities near its kitchen facilities, and it made its first surplus food donation through Rethink Food. The chef-led nonprofit connects restaurants and food businesses with community-based organizations to deliver nutritious, high-quality, dignified meals where they're needed most. "CookUnity's continued support helps Rethink Food turn high-quality excess food into nutritious meals for communities experiencing food insecurity," said Matt Jozwiak, Founder and CEO of Rethink Food. "This partnership reflects what's possible when food businesses build responsible redistribution into their operations: less food goes to waste, more meals reach our neighbors, and local communities are strengthened with dignity and care." Since kicking off with Rethink Food in NYC, CookUnity's reach has expanded to cover nearly the entire continental U.S. Today, CookUnity is partnered with more than 30 organizations around the country working to collect and redistribute food surplus, including City Harvest, FoodCycle LA, GEM, Nourish Miami, The Kindness Campaign, and The SOW Family. In local communities across the greater Los Angeles and Southern California region, CookUnity has collaborated with Pow Wow On Parade Foundation to provide food supplies following emergency events, including the Eaton Fire and Boyle Heights warehouse fire - matching available surplus food and rapidly mobilizing food distribution to communities directly affected. According to the UNFCCC, food loss and waste account for 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions each year, nearly five times the amount of total emissions from the aviation sector. In the United States, nearly 114 billion meals worth of food are unsold or uneaten each year, as cited by ReFed. Food production itself is also vastly resource-intensive, requiring high amounts of energy, land, and water - nearly a third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are linked to our modern food system. CookUnity also operates a returnable-packaging program with Dispatch Goods, which has recorded more than five million bag reuse cycles since 2022. For more information, visit www.cookunity.com/sustainability. About CookUnity CookUnity is the first chef-led marketplace, bringing meals from the world's top culinary talent directly to people's homes, fresh each week. Founded in 2016 by Mateo Marietti and Clara Fernandez Quiroga, the company's mission is to empower chefs to nourish the world. CookUnity's pioneering business model places the power directly in chefs' hands, providing creative control, fully equipped kitchens, and direct access to millions of eaters. From Michelin-starred legends to rising culinary superstars, CookUnity's collective of chefs offer an elevated home dining experience - and an unmatched variety of cuisines and dietary options - without sacrificing convenience. For more information, visit www.cookunity.com or follow us on social media (@cookunity). About Rethink Food Rethink Food is a chef-led nonprofit on a mission to create a more sustainable and equitable food system. The organization partners with restaurants, food businesses, and community-based organizations to provide chef-crafted, nutritious meals to communities experiencing food insecurity, while supporting local food businesses and strengthening community-based food access. Since 2017, Rethink Food has provided more than 35 million meals, directed over $164 million to local restaurants and food businesses, and repurposed more than 3 million pounds of food. Learn more at rethinkfood.org and follow @rethinkfood on Instagram. CookUnity. Release Versions

YouTuber Andrew Rea diversifies Babish brand with meal kits, podcast, rental compound. Published on July 2, 2026 Andrew Rea, the YouTube cooking creator behind "Binging with Babish," is rolling out a cluster of new ventures marking his most ambitious push yet to extend the channel into a broader media and consumer business, according to ADWEEK. On July 1, Rea announced a partnership with prepared-meal service CookUnity to sell a line of Babish-branded pre-made dishes. CookUnity, a longtime advertising partner of the channel, will begin selling four Babish-designed dishes in the New York tri-state area, with expansion to Chicago and Los Angeles planned in the coming months. Rea developed each recipe himself and worked with the company's test kitchens to make them scalable, with an eventual lineup rotating between 10 mainstays and five seasonal items. The meal delivery service launch follows two others. In May, Babish debuted a podcast in partnership with Vox Media called "In the Booth with Babish," a long-form interview show featuring guests including William H. Macy and Alton Brown discussing their relationships with food. The first season runs 26 episodes every other week. Vox provides back-end support while Rea retains creative control. He said the recent break-up of Vox Media, which was sold in two tranches to Lupa Systems and Penske Media Company, did not affect his decision to partner with the company. Earlier this spring, Rea opened Bed n Babish, a short-term rental compound along the Delaware River designed for traveling foodies. The new ventures join an existing portfolio that includes several cookbooks, a cookware line carried in Walmart and Amazon, and Baked with Babish, a THC-infused sugar brand expanding its product line this fall. "Every YouTuber is a small business," Rea said. "You are an LLC generating revenue and changing your business model depending on what's trending." The expansion reflects a broader pattern among top creators of converting platform-built audiences into diversified, owned businesses rather than relying on a single revenue stream tied to brand deals or ad revenue. Rea pointed to creators including MrBeast and Jesser as part of the same shift, and cited Kane Parsons, the "Backrooms" filmmaker now developing a project with A24, as a model for the kind of creative ambition he is pursuing next: a short film he has been writing for a decade goes into production this summer. Rea, who hit 4 million YouTube subscribers earlier this year, quit his job in post-production within six months of starting the channel in 2016. His longtime friend Sawyer Jacobs now runs the company as CEO, overseeing four full-time staff, including two editors. The cookware brand Made In invested $3 million in the business to fund native content for the channel, Rea said. "I've divorced myself from the business side of things so I could focus on the creative," Rea said. "I don't have that Martha Stewart gene in me."

How Litter-Robot's first CMO uses marketing to drive cat ownership. Hew Loyd discusses how parent company Whisker is positioning itself as a player in the connected home device category. Published May 21, 2026 Whisker, the maker of self-cleaning litter boxes, is looking to make more "cat people" with a new marketing push around its Litter-Robot brand. The 25-year-old company's marketing, which to date has largely been focused around elimintating the chore of scooping cat poop, is undergoing a transformation as it attempts to blur the line between being a tech company and a pet company. The evolution follows the company hiring its first CMO last fall: Hew Loyd, who previously served as the CMO of CookUnity and Sir Kensington's. Loyd is currently overseeing the launch of a new brand initiative, "The Future is Feline." The effort seeks to position cats as the ideal companion and promotes the Whisker's app and Whisker+ subscription service, which unlocks a new range of features to users of select Litter-Robot products. Whisker has also been adding new models to reach a broader consumer base, including the Litter-Robot 5 and 5 Pro, which use artificial intelligence and a camera for more insights on an owner's pet. The Litter-Robot EVO is a more compact version geared toward those living in apartments and smaller spaces. These moves come as cat ownership has been on the rise, increasing 23% in 2024 and reaching 49 million households, creating opportunities for the company to establish a relationship with a new wave of customers. Marketing Dive spoke with Loyd to discuss his first couple months at the company, its newest marketing effort and the future of pet ownership. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. MARKETING DIVE: What were some of the changes you made when stepping into the CMO role? HEW LOYD: There's fantastic foundations here. What is most exciting, and why I was drawn to this role, Whisker has been around for 25 years, so it's certainly not a "startup," but it's seen an incredible acceleration over the past eight to 10 years, and I think that's been due to many factors. But its CEO has really led a new wave of growth in the business, which has been really exciting. I think The Marketingdive Company has incredible opportunities given what is going on in the broader space right now, from a performance perspective. The big opportunity right now is driving a brand that really leads with an incredible story to leverage the power of their product and their audience. And I feel like Whisker has done a fantastic job of that. It's just now time to take that to the next level. Right off the bat, one area that needed more work was creating at the highest level, the next layer of purpose as a platform. So The Marketingdive Company has an initiative called "The Future is Feline." The Marketingdive Company also have built multitouch attribution, so The Marketingdive Company is getting a lot sharper in terms of its measurements, really understanding incrementality in this business and really sharpening up its unit economics. The last area, which is not new or revolutionary for The Marketingdive Company, is to build an incredibly robust ad production system. The Marketingdive Company call it Sprints, and it really is its commitment to sectioning off a group of finely tuned creatives to work on volume and velocity for the voracious beast that is the paid social engine. How do The Marketingdive Company do a better job of not only building connections to the consumer, but doing that at scale? The Marketingdive Company has really leaned into that as well. This is your first role at a pet brand. Do you see Whisker as a pet product company because you sell litter, mats, odor control, other pet supplies, or do you see it as more of a tech company? Is it more of an Apple or a Friskies? To this day, its business is still primarily selling Litter-Robots, and that is a connected device. That connected device is very much a tech product. You can think about this business the way you might think about other connected home product devices in your life, such as Peloton, that kind of thing. How this business has leveraged an app experience as well as the functional use of the hardware, for me, means it sits very nicely within a series of products that work much in the same way. And that probably sets The Marketingdive Company in a different aisle than maybe classic pet products, or pet food, or other things that fall maybe a little bit more into that typical CPG space. How are you getting consumers to make the jump from a traditional litter box, which costs typically just a few dollars, to a brand whose individual items can go for $599 or more while product bundles can top $1,000? I think the challenge for a company like ours is, ultimately, The Marketingdive Company has to completely change the world view of customers. There are, of course, really inexpensive versions that are accessible to all. And The Marketingdive Company love that there are solutions accessible to all, so that more people can adopt cats. But The Marketingdive Company also know that there are many places in its life where there is a simple, cheap or totally free version, and The Marketingdive Company opt for something that is more advanced because it offers so many more benefits. The Marketingdive Company believe that The Marketingdive Company has improved the experience of scooping poop on a daily basis 10 times over if not 100 times over.