Case study 04
Culture
Bites
Cook like a local, wherever you are
A subscription-based e-commerce brand delivering a different world cuisine every month — pre-measured ingredients, chef-designed recipes, and live classes that teach the culture behind the dish.
one box
one country
Twelve cuisines a year, boxed, taught and told.
Role
Business & Product Design
Team
Team of 6
Duration
8 weeks
Tools
Figma · Canva · Analytics
project
Overview
CultureBites is a monthly subscription box that sends a complete world cuisine to your kitchen: pre-measured ingredients, a chef-designed recipe, and the story behind the dish. Every box pairs with a live virtual class hosted by a chef from that cuisine.
My team built the full e-business strategy — model, payments, marketing plan and growth metrics — and I led the brand and the digital storefront: the website, the app, and the flow that turns a curious browser into a subscriber.
Outcome
A full business design + a clickable web and app prototype.
People don't subscribe to ingredients. They subscribe to being somewhere else for an hour.
my
Role
Contributions
- Led brand direction — name, logo lockup, palette and voice
- Designed the website and mobile app screens end to end
- Built the subscription and checkout flow, then prototyped it
- Co-authored the marketing plan and the growth metrics framework
Team structure
the
Problem
Meal kits solve dinner, not curiosity. They repeat the same handful of familiar recipes, strip out the culture behind them, and lose subscribers the moment the novelty wears off.
the
Solution
A different country every month — ingredients, recipe, story and a live class with a chef from that cuisine. The variety is the retention strategy, not a marketing line.
chapter one
Empathize
Who actually cooks a meal kit twice? We looked at the food-box market, the churn problem, and what people say they want from 'trying something new'.
Market & user research
We started in the subscription-commerce market: who buys meal kits, why they leave, and what "trying a new cuisine" actually means to people who say they want it. Alongside desk research we talked to home cooks, students and busy professionals about the last time they cooked something unfamiliar — and what stopped them doing it again.
Key insights
Novelty is what churns
Meal-kit subscribers cancel once the menu starts repeating — variety is a retention lever, not a nice-to-have.
Cooking is a learning goal
People don't just want dinner; they want to come away able to make the dish again without the box.
Authenticity is checked
Audiences notice when a 'global' menu is flattened. Sourcing and chef credibility carry the brand.
Dietary needs gate purchase
Vegan, halal and gluten-free households opt out early unless options are visible up front.
Food is social
Boxes get bought as gifts and cooked with other people — gifting and group classes had to be first-class.
12
Cuisines a year
One country a month, chosen with chefs from that cuisine
3
Revenue streams
Boxes, digital classes, gifting & corporate
6
Person team
Business strategy, brand and product design
chapter two
Define
A sharp problem, two people to design for, and the promise the brand has to keep every single month.
Problem statement
Food lovers want to cook the world's dishes properly, but the products available give them either convenience without culture or culture without a way to actually cook it at home.
Personas
Maya Okonkwo, 29 (she/her)
Consultant · cooks to unwind
Maya travels for work and misses the food more than the places. She has money but no time, and wants a cooking night that feels like an evening out rather than another chore.
Goals
- Cook something genuinely new once a month
- Skip the sourcing and the shopping list
- Learn technique, not just follow steps
- Share the night with friends
Daniel Reyes, 22 (he/him)
Student · budget-conscious explorer
Daniel cooks constantly but on repeat. He follows food creators, saves recipes he never makes, and drops out at the ingredient list — half the items aren't in his grocery store.
Goals
- Try cuisines without buying twelve spices
- A price point he can actually justify
- Vegetarian options that aren't an afterthought
- Something to post while he cooks it
how might we
- — make a monthly box feel like a trip, not a delivery?
- — teach the culture behind a dish without slowing the cook down?
- — make dietary needs and gifting visible from the first screen?
chapter three
Ideate
The business model as a design object — what we sell, who we sell with, and how the money moves.
Business model
A subscription-based e-commerce model that integrates a physical product with a digital service. The box pays the bills; the classes and the content are what keep people subscribed past month three.
Payments run through third-party infrastructure (Stripe, PayPal, Shopify Payments) with automated billing and buy-now-pay-later, while vendor terms use deposits and dynamic discounting to keep sourcing flexible month to month.
01
Subscription revenue
Standard, Premium and Digital-Only plans — monthly curated recipe boxes as the core.
02
Digital content
Live and recorded cooking classes, cultural insight content, and a recipe archive for subscribers.
03
Partnerships
Chefs and suppliers, corporate and educational bulk orders, plus influencer and affiliate collaborations.
Value proposition
Immersive cultural experience
Storytelling through food — every box carries the dish's origin, not just its steps.
Convenience & education
Pre-measured ingredients and hands-on expert guidance in the same package.
Sustainability & customization
Eco-friendly packaging with vegan, gluten-free and dietary-conscious options.
Revenue streams
Subscription plans
Standard · Premium · Digital-only
One-time purchases
Gift boxes for holidays & occasions
Corporate sales
Team-building and education bulk orders
Sponsored collabs
Influencer marketing & affiliate promotions
payments
Automated billing, BNPL at checkout, and deferred or partial vendor payments so a month of unusual sourcing never blocks a launch.
chapter four
Design
Brand, website and app: the storefront that has to make a box feel like a trip.
Brand
Warm, editorial, appetising
Cream paper, deep rust type and saffron accents — warm enough to feel like a kitchen, restrained enough to let the food carry the colour. The wordmark splits Culture and Bites so the cultural half always reads first.
Paper
Rust
Saffron
Ink
Web → app
Same story, different distance
The website is for deciding — it sells the month, the class and the credibility. The app is for staying: plans, unboxing previews, class reminders and reordering, all one thumb-reach away.
chapter five
Market
Where the diversity of the product becomes the marketing — channels, partners, and a calendar built around cultural moments.
Positioning
CultureBites is marketed as a diverse-cuisine product first: the promise isn't "dinner solved", it's "somewhere new this month". That single framing gives the brand twelve campaigns a year, each with its own palette, chef, story and audience.
01
Social & content
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest — highly visual, with the cultural narrative built into every post rather than added as a caption.
02
Influencers & chefs
Specialist culinary creators and known chefs, each tracked with a unique promo code so influencer ROI is measurable, not anecdotal.
03
SEO & blog
Keyword-led content around 'authentic international recipes' to grow organic traffic and build authority between launches.
04
Referral & loyalty
Discounts for referred friends plus a points system that rewards continued subscription rather than one-off spend.
05
Email & SMS
Messages tailored to cuisine preferences and engagement history, with early access to premium events for the most loyal subscribers.
06
Offline & community
Pop-up cooking demos and tastings at gourmet grocers, farmers' markets and cultural festivals, supported by high-traffic billboards.
Cultural calendar
Seasonal boxes timed to the moments people already cook for.
Growth metrics
What we'd watch to know whether any of it is working.
Acquisition
- · Monthly subscribers
- · Conversion rate
- · Customer acquisition cost
Retention
- · Churn rate
- · Customer lifetime value
- · Average order value
Campaigns
- · Social engagement
- · Influencer ROI
- · Email open & click-through
Experience
- · Time on site & bounce
- · Live class attendance
- · NPS & referrals
finale
Prototype
The final clickable flow — pick a cuisine, pick a plan, start cooking.
Final prototype
The app, screen by screen
Built to the same visual system as the deck: full-bleed food photography, a cream canvas, rust filter pills, and a floating cart in the tab bar. Tap a box on the second screen — the summary follows you.
CultureBites
Cook like a local,
wherever you are.
Sign up
Already a member
Photography first. One decision on screen.
Subscription Boxes
Browse, filter, and add a box to the cart.
Explorer Box
What's inside
- Pre-measured ingredients
- 1 cuisine each month
- Video tutorials
Confirm the plan, the ship date, and the class.
Photography leads
Food fills the frame before any UI does — the product is the culture, not the checkout.
One decision per screen
Sign up, pick a box, confirm. Nothing competes for the tap.
Cart always in reach
The floating cart in the tab bar keeps the subscription one thumb away.
reflection
Diversity is the product.
The strongest strategic move was also the simplest: lead with the cuisine, not the subscription. Every screen, campaign and packaging decision got easier once the month's country became the headline and the plan became a detail underneath it.
Working across business model, brand and interface in one project taught me how tightly they're coupled — a pricing tier is an interface decision, and a hero image is a retention decision.