Wonder has added streamer Tastemade to its asset mix, as part of the food delivery startup’s recipe to create a “super app” for mealtime and a multi-touchpoint advertising business. Financial details weren’t disclosed but the Wall Street Journal reported that Wonder is paying around $90 million for Tastemade.
Wonder itself offers multi-restaurant brand ordering, where customers can order from upwards of 30 restaurant brands in a single transaction and counts 38 central kitchen and cooking locations in the US that offer pickup, delivery and dine-in options, co-located for multiple food brands. In building out that main business, Wonder has been on the M&A move at it aims to take over the kitchen table. That includes acquiring meal kit company Blue Apron for a reported $103 million in 2023 and buying food ordering and delivery platform GrubHub for $650 million in a deal that closed in 2025.
Coinciding with the GrubHub acquisition, Wonder also announced an additional $250 million in capital raised from new investors to further its vision for a mealtime “super app” and delivery-first at-home dining options.
As for its latest purchase, Wonder said it plans to integrate Tastemade’s content studio as well as its extensive and engaged audience on social and streaming to build out its meal time super app. It’s also creating a media network that includes digital audiences via Tastemade alongside Wonder’s first-party data and delivery and retail capabilities to serve a “360-degree advertising business” for brands.
It wants to leverage digital audiences of Tastemade’s lifestyle media brand and network, which counts 160 million followers across social platforms and 13 million monthly viewers across free ad-supported streaming channels. In addition to the flagship food-focused Tastemade free streaming TV channel, Tastemade has three other FAST channels, including Tastemade en Espanol, Tastemade Travel and Tastemade Home.
Tastemade’s FAST channel is among the most widely distributed in the U.S., counting carriage across at least 12 platforms, per a May 2024 FASTMaster report by Gavin Bridge. The company also has a subscription app Tastemade+, which had more than 100,000 paid subscriptions as of December, and just last November launched its own cooking app featuring more than 12,000 recipes. A Tastemade Cooking app with recipes was the number one request from users already engaged with the brand, Tastemade head of marketing Niara Simon-Hollis previously told StreamTV Insider
“Wonder's acquisition of Tastemade is the next step in our vision to create the super app for mealtime. We're excited to inspire consumers through world-class video storytelling across the Wonder family of brands, while enhancing our ability to deliver innovative, end-to-end advertising opportunities for brand partners," said Marc Lore, founder & CEO of Wonder, in a statement. "Tastemade has built an expansive audience, award-winning creative studio, and incredible network of partners that will enable Wonder to create more curated digital experiences, building a media network that captures our mission to make great food more accessible."
Tastemade, meanwhile, will utilize the Wonder platform and brands to boost consumer engagement and monetization, while continuing to serve as an inspiration and entertainment vehicle for consumers.
The digital food-focused brand has marked recent growth, including positive benefits from its inaugural brand campaign “Where Taste is Made” in 2023. That campaign helped craft and promote the brand’s message as a destination for food enthusiasts, and alongside other marketing efforts helped drive a more than 40% increase in streaming viewership globally for Tastemade in 2024.
Speaking to StreamTV Insider in December, Tastemade’s Simon-Hollis emphasized the next marketing phase was going to be all about how to thoughtfully connect and convey to consumers and business partners what the company has across its different verticals, citing the new cooking app and driving Tastemade+ subscription growth as big priorities at the time.
But now with the acquisition by Wonder, Tastemade will have more resources and touchpoints with which to engage and entertain consumers – with combined assets that can follow the food journey from inspiration to recipes and retail and through to food delivery to the dining room.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Tastemade co-founder and CEO Larry Fitzgibbon said the purchase means that, for example, consumers who watch a celebrity chef make a signature dish on Tastemade could soon potentially be able to easily order that same meal to their home through Wonder, Grubhub or Blue Apron.
And eventually, Lore told the WSJ, he hopes to build Wonder into an AI-driven app that is able to check consumers’ health through diagnostics, set dietary goals and budgets “and then autonomously feed you breakfast, lunch and dinner from the assets that we’ve got.”
Branded, original content
While FAST sometimes get a bad rap for serving up a lot of older and library content, Tastemade is among free ad-supported streamers that has continued to roll out original content and Wonder intends to lean into its content studio and the opportunity for advertiser, brand and retail integrations.
“The addition of Tastemade's world-class studio brings limitless original and branded content creation capabilities to inspire consumers and drive results for advertisers — from 10-second shorts to feature-length documentaries,” said Wonder in announcing the acquisition.
Tastemade’s streaming library currently contains more than 1,000 hours of original streaming TV content, including shows with notable chefs such as Andrew Zimmern, Alison Roman, Jamie Oliver and Frankie Celenza.
It’s already tried out injecting commerce and shoppable elements into content – merging original series with brand integrations and retail purchase opportunities. For example, in June Tastemade partnered with Shopsense AI to enable US viewers to shop items from episodes of the streamer’s then-new original series Kitchen Glow Up. Every episode provided on-screen prompts that direct viewers to a mobile storefront where they could browse and purchase products inspired by and seen in the show, hosted by professional cook and designer Ellen Marie Bennet. The mobile storefront featured kitchen, pantry and cooking items, including from Bennett’s Hedly & Bennett brand as well as products from large retailers like Target.
And through the acquisition, content and brand integration benefits flow both ways, as Tastemade will be able to utilize Wonder’s IP, family of brands and relationships with popular chefs to create new shows for viewers on social platforms and streaming channels and also have a direct route to engage Wonder’s existing customer base.
“Propelled by a unified vision, this acquisition represents an incredible opportunity for both Tastemade and Wonder to leverage our strengths and elevate our storytelling and retail capabilities to new heights. Together, we will build a platform that seamlessly merges the joy of watching with the convenience of having dinner delivered right to the door,” said Tastemade's Fitzgibbon in a statement. “With Tastemade’s unmatched ability to engage and inspire consumers, this acquisition marks an exciting opportunity for both companies to more deeply connect with customers and to deliver real-world outcomes for advertisers."
Fitzibbon will continue in his role as co-founder and CEO of Tastemade at Wonder, while also taking on the title of EVP of Wonder Media, Advertising & Content. Tastemade co-founder Steven Kydd will also join Wonder, as co-founder, president and head of Business Development & International at Tastemade. The Tastemade team will report to Daniel Sholssman, Wonder’s chief growth and marketing officer.