The Greeks have been hit hard by austerity, and it looks like they have a few more years of hardship ahead of them. However, it’s not all doom and gloom and as you would expect out of hardship and difficulty come inspirational ideas and concepts to make things easier and better through even the most difficult of times. This tightening of the belt, so to speak, has given rise to ingenious recession busting ideas. One such idea has been ‘cooked’ up by Cookisto, a Greek startup with a simple concept that is now expanding rapidly and going global.

The solution to the problem

The idea is a simple one, as with almost every great idea, and one which benefits all those who get involved in it. Cookisto is a trusted community marketplace for homemade food. Aspiring chefs or those who simply love to cook now have access to a marketplace where they can sell their fresh, homemade food daily and local foodies can, through this same marketplace, access new and exciting, fresh food from local people at a much cheaper price than in restaurants and, being homemade, probably better in terms of nutrition and quality.

Imagine it's lunch time and you are an office worker in central London. Using the Cookisto app you can track and find local people serving up lunch on that day. You choose the dish that most takes your fancy and that’s your lunch for that day sorted! No long queues in the usual sandwich shop or hours waiting to be served in a busy restaurant. You get a fresh homemade dish served up by a local person which will save you money, time and mean you can also beat the lunchtime rush. If you are the aspiring chef, you get to cook as much as you like and be able to show off your food to other foodies and maybe even make a little profit too in the process. This community based sharing is something they call collaborative consumption, a similar concept to that of AirBnB and other resource sharing concepts and is becoming more and more popular, especially amongst the younger generation. Just goes to show out of problems come ideas and opportunities and how long will it be I wonder before we hear a story of a cook and a foodie meeting through Cookisto and falling in love? Not long I expect.