FUNKE buys food platform Chefkoch from RTL Deutschland

Düssel­dorf — Deloitte Legal has advi­sed FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe on the acqui­si­tion of the food plat­form Chef­koch from Gruner + Jahr, a company under the umbrella of RTL Deutsch­land. FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe thus streng­thens its posi­tion in the food segment of the German market. 

With the 100 percent take­over of Chef­koch GmbH, both the brand and the team of around 100 people are moving to FUNKE. The kochbar.de portal will also become part of FUNKE. Chef­koch GmbH will remain the opera­tor of the digi­tal offe­ring essen-und-trinken.de. The Chef­koch head­quar­ters in Bonn will thus become another loca­tion on the FUNKE map of Germany. Chris­tine Nieland will remain on board as Mana­ging Direc­tor and will conti­nue to manage the brand and the company toge­ther with her current manage­ment team. 

“Chef­koch is the top dog on the market and firmly estab­lished in peop­le’s minds as the best-known cont­act point for people inte­res­ted in cooking and baking. With the inte­gra­tion, we are taking our alre­ady strong food exper­tise to a whole new level — this will be a key growth area for FUNKE and fits in well with our strong target groups,” says Jesper Doub, Mana­ging Direc­tor of FUNKE Medien Natio­nal Brands in the press release. “We are consis­t­ently pursuing the path we have taken with the GALA, BRIGITTE and ELTERN brands and are inte­gra­ting further strong natio­nal brands, espe­ci­ally in the digi­tal sector, into
.”

About Chef­koch

Chef­koch reaches around 20 million unique users per month, making it the number 1 in the digi­tal food segment in Germany. Thanks to the large variety of recipes with over 360,000 recipes, nume­rous smart func­tions and the active commu­nity, Chef­koch is an indis­pensable compa­n­ion in the ever­y­day cooking lives of many users. This is also reflec­ted in the strong reach with more than 223 million monthly page impres­si­ons and inten­sive user loyalty with over 8 million regis­tered users. The bran­d’s social media
presence is also growing steadily: 1.4 million people follow the brand on Pinte­rest, Insta­gram has 751,000 follo­wers and Chef­koch has 335,000 follo­wers on TikTok. 

Advi­sor FUNKE Media Group: Deloitte Legal Germany

Dr. Michael von Rüden (Co-Lead, Part­ner), Dirk Hänisch
(Co-Lead, Part­ner), Horst Heinzl (Coun­sel), Chris­toph Meves (Coun­sel), Maxi­mi­lian Giep­mann (Asso­ciate) and Victo­ria Zahn (Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A, all Düssel­dorf), Nikola Werry (Part­ner, Digi­tal Law, Frank­furt), Jan Rudolph (Coun­sel, Digi­tal Law, Düssel­dorf), Alina Birgit Scheja (Asso­ciate, Digi­tal Law, Frank­furt), Claus Wilker (Employ­ment Law, Coun­sel, Hanover)