• by Danielle Oster , November 6, 2023

Leading meal kit brand HelloFresh teamed up with dating app mainstay Tinder to entice consumers looking to cozy up with a new partner, launching a "Forking Season" campaign centered around a “Date Night Delights” recipe series.

An online survey of 3,000 American millennials and Gen Z respondents from HelloFresh and Tinder found that 81% viewed hosting a home-cooked meal for a date as a sign of a relationship becoming more serious.

The ability to cook was among the top traits single people in the HelloFresh x Tinder  survey found most impressive, and 70% of respondents said that cooking for or with a partner was “more intimate” than fooling around. Over half of respondents (56%) in the survey admitted to feeling pressure to impress their date when hosting such occasions, which may also explain the quarter of respondents who admitted to taking credit for a take-out meal they purchased.

Addressing these concerns, coupled with the arrival of cuffing season --  the increase in people looking for a short-term partner to cozy up with during the colder months of the year -- the effort provides an anxiety-easing antidote with the Date NIght Delights recipe series promising a low-stress way to impress a date with a home-cooked meal.

The series is a mix of customer favorites and new recipes the brand claims is curated for couples, and designed to make cooks of all ability levels feel more confident with pre-portioned ingredients and easy instructions. Among those dishes is Rosemary Fig Pork Tenderloin With Kale & Sweet Potato Jumble; White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake (because you can’t go wrong with a good dessert); and a Grand Cru and Cured Meat Board for the most foolproof way to deliver date-night dinner at home.

The campaign also includes a limited series of spice blends called Forking Seasonings, for couples looking for ways to spice things up. Each bundle in the series includes three exclusive blends: Ignite (cinnamon, cloves, and ginger); Spark (saffron and salt); and Kindle (vanilla and sugar) -- along with instructions from HelloFresh on how to incorporate the spice blends in food and drink recipes.

The Forking Seasonings blends are available for purchase on a dedicated webpage, which also includes an interactive quiz for couples to determine “the spiciness level of their relationship.”

“We know Tinder users are looking for a match to get cozy with this cuffing season, from the 96% increase in users talking about [the season] in their profile bios,” Tinder Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Stephanie Danzi explained in a statement. “We’ve also found that today’s singles are looking for new date ideas that are more interactive than sitting across from each other in a restaurant.”