The new crown epidemic has brought a huge impact on the global catering industry. According to foreign media statistics, about 110,000 restaurants in the United States have permanently closed, and the restaurants that are still open are also precarious after a sharp drop in revenue. Against this backdrop, two American chefs, Tom Colicchio and Spike Mendelsohn, decided to explore some new ways to connect with diners, and NFT became the chosen vehicle.
On March 25, two chefs released the CHFTY Pizzas series of NFTs. This set of NFTs consists of anthropomorphic pizza slices, with a total of 2,777 pieces. Their goal is to build a Web3 community of chefs and explore new business models for the restaurant industry.
Unlike most NFT projects that only stay in the virtual world, the creators of CHFTY Pizzas try to connect with real life. Next month, they will launch an NFT holder-only streaming class and live event, and they also plan to open Pop-up pizza restaurants across the U.S., with NFT holders deciding how.
The bigger goal of Colicchio and Mendelsohn is to refer to the Ethereum art NFT generation platform Art Blocks, to establish an extended community exclusive to the chef industry, and to help chefs, gourmets and brands integrate into Web3 by providing technical and experience support.
At a time when art paintings are the mainstream form of expression in the NFT field, more vertical industry practitioners are in line with NFTs and begin to make NFTs more grounded.
The epidemic affects the famous chefs in the catering industry to test the water NFT
At the moment when NFTs are popular, the types and numbers of NFTs are experiencing explosive growth every day. Most NFTs have unique IP attributes. Their creators are usually natives and artists in the field of encryption, and some NFT series are created by entertainment stars. , commercial companies and internet celebrities.
While it’s easy to feel that the field is sufficiently diverse with the overwhelming amount of NFTs, there seems to be something missing from these virtual offerings. I have to admit that a large number of "JEPG-style" NFTs are still far from people's real life. Just like the infancy of the Internet, in the face of those virtual interfaces that can be seen but cannot be touched, people have been exploring how to use it to give It was possible to live in real life, and then there was web streaming and e-commerce.
How NFT is more closely integrated with real life is still in a vacuum stage. Recently, the story of two chefs who were somewhat lost due to the impact of the epidemic tried to use NFT to change the status quo, which may bring some inspiration to the NFT industry.
On March 25, American chefs Tom Colicchio and Spike Mendelsohn announced the launch of the NFT project CHFTY Pizzas, which aims to build a Web3 community around culinary creators and their fans. This series of NFTs has been launched as a public offering, covering 2,777 profile pictures. Each NFT is a cartoonish, anthropomorphic pizza slice. The official blind box price is 0.07 ETH, or about $210.
CHFTY Pizzas NFT Series
These two chefs have a lot of backgrounds. Tom Colicchio is the chief judge and executive producer of Bravo's long-running "Top Chef" program, and is behind restaurants such as Craft; Mendelsohn is the head chef of restaurants such as We, The Pizza and PLNT Burger. A contestant on the "Top Chef" show.
The reason why these two well-known chefs moved to issue NFTs is mainly directly related to the huge impact of the new crown epidemic on the catering industry. According to foreign media statistics, about 110,000 restaurants in the United States have permanently closed, and the restaurants that are still open are also precarious after a sharp drop in revenue.
The slump in the catering industry has made these two famous chefs quite distressed. "Because people can't go to restaurants anymore, the restaurant industry is looking at how to reach consumers at home." Mendelsohn felt that the Web2 world was a little behind, and they began to think about different ways to use technology to connect with customers and fans.
It was at this time that NFTs began to appear more and more in media reports, catching their attention. To get a quick overview of NFTs, they took a social media dive to check out NFT-related content, during which the two chefs saw similarities between artists and cooks in creating products. They believe that not only artists can issue NFTs, but chefs can also issue their own catering NFTs.
As soon as the idea came into being, it sprouted quickly. After about 9 months of design, CHFTY Pizzas was finally announced recently.
NFTs link the real world through communities
On March 25th, the subscribed CHFTY Pizzas series blind boxes were listed on OpenSea, of which 829 people held 1,900 blind boxes. The floor price was 0.088ETH, a slight increase from the issue price.
The official introduction to the series of NFTs reads: "Build the largest community of chefs and foodies with our 2,777 delicious pizzas baked on Ethereum!"
Compared with other NFT projects targeting a wider audience, CHFTY Pizzas has narrowed its audience because of the special occupation of the project sponsor. Mendelsohn said he hopes to attract more chefs over time.
So, how does CHFTY Pizzas affect the real-world restaurant industry?
In the plan of the two founders, they will first use this series of NFTs as a medium to create a Web3 chef community. It has been revealed that each CHFTY Pizzas NFT acts as an access pass, allowing holders to join an exclusive Discord community featuring other famous chefs such as Rocco DiSpirito, Cat Cora, and Top Chef winner Kristen Kish, among others.
Bringing chefs together will form a "club" concept, where chefs can exchange culinary experiences and explore more business models. With this community, the creators of the project plan to launch streaming classes and live events for chefs over the next month, and they also plan to open Pop-up pizza restaurants across the United States, which is up to NFT holders to decide how.
CHFTY Pizzas plans offline events
In addition, a portion of the royalties from the first sale and second sale of CHFTY Pizzas NFT will be used for charity, and these funds will be given to the Big Green DAO created by Elon Musk's younger brother Kimbal Musk for food safety, environmental protection and other aspects.
The larger goal of Colicchio and Mendelsohn is to build an extended community. They believe that under the influence of the epidemic, the catering community must adapt and develop in many ways. To reimagine how the industry survives and thrives, a new community of forward-thinking thinkers must form. The positioning of the CHFTY community will be an ecosystem, which is equivalent to the "Art Blocks" of the chef industry (Ethereum art NFT casting platform), helping chefs, gourmets and brands to integrate into Web3.
In addition to these plans, the two founders have an idea for the Metaverse Restaurant, which envisions a digital entertainment restaurant. After delivering physical meal kits to customers offline, customers can wear VR or AR glasses and enjoy meals with other customers. Of course, to do this, it will take longer to explore.
During the period of the rise of the NFT trend, we have seen many NFT series with their own characteristics. Impressive ones include Indonesian brother selfie NFT, beauty internet celebrity photo NFT and music work NFT. However, the audience of these NFTs is not a specific professional group. In addition to viewing, the connection with the real world is also limited. .
The CHFTY Pizzas NFT, issued by two lost chefs, combines the real dilemma of the restaurant industry with this new means of technical expression. On the one hand, chefs can use this to build a vertical community; on the other hand, people It can also really explore how to use NFT to improve the real catering business model.
At a time when art paintings are the mainstream form of expression in the NFT field, more vertical industry practitioners are in line with NFT, which is expected to make virtual pictures more grounded and more practical. Perhaps in the near future, we can see that more occupations such as stylists, medical workers, and scientific researchers can also use the NFT medium to build a community of peers and export professional knowledge and experience.
When NFT goes from the field of art to all walks of life, the space where it can play its value will also expand infinitely.
(Disclaimer: Readers are requested to strictly abide by local laws and regulations, this article does not represent any investment advice)
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