For much of the past decade, CookUnity has operated as a subscription-based prepared meal service built around a network of professional chefs. This week, the company made its first major move beyond its own platform through a partnership with Airbnb, allowing guests to order chef-prepared meals directly through Airbnb as part of their short-term rental experience.
“It goes from the subscription model, right, which is what we’ve been doing for a decade, into a new model whereby we’re now taking the chef’s incredible food and making it available through other platforms like Airbnb,” said Morley Ivers, CookUnity’s head of partnerships, in an interview.
According to Ivers, the integration is active across 22 U.S. states and Washington, DC. Travelers can pre-order meals to be delivered ready to heat in their Airbnb rental, turning an empty fridge into a stocked one without a grocery run.
“One of the traditional downsides of selecting Airbnb, perhaps, is you walk in and your fridge is empty,” Ivers said. “The strategic partnership that Airbnb and Cook Unity have set up has changed that for now and for the future.”
Meals start around $15 and are designed to be reheated quickly with minimal equipment, such as a microwave.
Unlike some of the larger ready-to-eat delivery providers, such as Factor, CookUnity does not operate a single centralized production facility that mass-produces meals. Instead, it runs eight regional commissary kitchens across North America, where chefs come in with their own teams and operate independently.
“We have eight very large kitchens with 180 incredible top-tier chefs,” said Ivers. “They come in as their own bosses, as entrepreneurs with their own teams.”
CookUnity supplies the infrastructure—real estate, equipment, packaging technology, ingredient sourcing, logistics, and delivery—while chefs focus on creating and executing menus. This model leads to some regional variability, as each commissary kitchen hosts its own roster of chef partners, though some chefs, as Ivers explains, have begun using the CookUnity system to expand beyond their core markets.
Chefs are not paid flat fees or licensing royalties; instead, their compensation is tied to customer feedback.
“These are not employees inside of our kitchens who are getting a recipe from Cat Cora and sort of executing her recipe,” Ivers said. “This is actually Cat Cora, who’s coming in with her recipe. Our team is working with her on it making sure it meets the parameters of what’s required for an incredible ready-to-eat experience for consumers. But it’s her team that is executing that dish to her standards and obviously our standards as well.”
According to Ivers, chefs on the platform are making an average of $850,000 per year. That figure is striking and suggests that some chefs may increasingly focus on creating meals for CookUnity rather than investing their own capital in opening and operating restaurants.
The prepared meal delivery category continues to grow, driven by consumer demand for convenience. Estimates suggest the broader global prepared meals market could rise from around $190 billion in 2025 to more than $300 billion by 2032, with delivery representing a fast-growing portion of that total.
It remains to be seen how the Airbnb partnership will perform over time, but it clearly opens up a new market for CookUnity’s chefs and creates an additional revenue stream beyond the company’s home subscription model. According to Ivers, this partnership is just the beginning, with more third-party platform integrations expected in 2026 and beyond.
You can see my full interview below.
