Out of the 13000 communities that applied for Facebook’s Global Community Accelerator Program, only 130 got selected. 13 of these are from India, but the only Indian foodie community on the list is Eat Kochi Eat (EKE).
Founded by Karthik Murali in September 2015, EKE is a community that focuses on helping foodies discover the best places to eat in Kochi. “As a newbie to Kochi in 2012, I noticed that there wasn’t an online discussion forum where I could gain an insight into the best restaurants in the city. EKE was started to fill this gap”, shared Karthik.
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Over the next few years, EKE carved a niche for itself by ensuring that the discussions in the group were Kochi based, and all the initial group members were people who lived in Kochi. The group had strict guidelines that were enforced diligently. All this led to EKE becoming the go-to community for Kochi foodies.
EKE was instrumental in the successful launch of Swiggy in Kochi. The launch was in the form of a BBQ party and was a huge hit.
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In addition to this, EKE has also conducted various food trips, events, and restaurant experience programs.
And in the wake of Covid, they engaged their audience with their Bachelor’s Kitchen series.
It is this community-building zeal that has led to EKE getting selected to the Global Community Accelerator Program.
Under the program, EKE will receive mentoring from food industry experts and Facebook tech experts to help the community scale. They will also gain early access and support to new features that Facebook will roll out in the future. In addition to this, EKE will also receive up to $50,000 to scale operations.
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Karthik says, “We plan to continue our community-building activities and will invest the funding to conduct more programs and contests. EKE is also planning on expanding to cover the rest of Kerala and bring all food-loving Malayalis together. We are planning to announce a major event later this month, so follow us on Facebook and Instagram to stay tuned!”
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