As you know I’m a huge fan of the National Post Gastropost missions. I’m such a fan that not only do I participate on a regular basis, but I decided I wanted to interview them too! For those of you who might not know what Gastropost is all about – I will explain: Every week Gastropost posts a mission (i.e a cookie mission) and people (like me and many many others) submits a photo thru Twitter, Facebook, email or Instagram. It’s as simple as that. On Saturday – the cookie photo that you submitted might be included in the Gastropost section.
Gastropost staff chat with a George Brown Culinary Arts student!
Here’s the interview:
a) Who initiated the initial idea to have a Gastropost feature in the
National Post?
There were a few people involved. In early 2012 National Post and
Postmedia Network Inc. (which owns National Post as well as a number of
other well-known newspapers like Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald, Vancouver
Sun, etc) started working on a plan to be more directly engaged with
readers in a different way. We recognized that Toronto was in the middle
of a food renaissance and that there were lots of food lovers who were not
only passionate about food and their city, but also had a lot of expertise
to share. In mid-May we came up with the Gastropost concept of weekly food
missions, then worked with the excellent National Post design and
editorial teams to launch it just two weeks later. We move fast!
b) I’m assuming everyone is a “foodie” who works on Gastropost… True of
False?
We love food, yes! But honestly, we’ve always believed that Gastroposters
themselves are the experts. Even before we launched we made sure to
connect and involve a few of the community’s leading voices, and now we’re
learning new things from our members every day. (Incidentally, we also
discovered early on that even some hard-core food people don’t consider
themselves “foodies,” which is why we talk about “food lovers” instead. We
try to make room for diehard foodies and more casual food lovers alike.)
c) Have you ever received a food photo and found yourself going out later
that day to purchase that item?
You have no idea how difficult it can be to watch all of your delicious
food photos roll in all day! Our office collectively gains a few pounds
every time we host one of the more decadent or indulgent missions. So yes,
we for sure look to Gastroposters for both home cooking and dining out
inspiration.
d) When was Gastropost launched?
In late May 2012 we sent our first mission ‹ simply, “Eat something
delicious!” ‹ to a small handful of Gastropost pioneers, the results of
which were in National Post for the first time on June 2nd. We’ve been in
the paper every Saturday since, and a few weekdays as well, meaning this
week’s salad mission is mission number 35!
e) How many submissions do you normally receive a week?
As you might expect it varies a bit from week to week. We’ve had as many
as 300 different people complete a single mission, and often some people
complete the mission multiple times, meaning we would have received even
more than 300 individual missions. Since we’re growing, more missions are
being completed each week.
f) What’s been the most successful social media platform for
Gastropost…twitter, instagram or Facebook
That depends. Twitter is great for following and chatting with members,
which we love to do, and probably explains why we currently have more
followers on Twitter than anywhere else. Because it’s more visual we love
using Facebook to feature posts and announce new missions, and Facebook
polls do very well for us too. We only started posting mission
announcements to Instagram a couple months ago and we had a few hundred
followers before posing our first image, so there’s obviously a lot of
potential there. As far as how people complete missions, Instagram is
number one.
g) What’s the feedback been like?
Overwhelming and humbling. It’s so amazing how much people love Gastropost
and how expertly missions get completed. It’s motivating, inspiring and a
big part of why we love our jobs.
Congratulations to the entire team at Gastropost. What a great concept!!
