Cannes – VICE Media and FremantleMedia launched their joint food venture Munchies in beta on April 7. Named after VICE’s existing flagship food show, Munchies is a new, video-driven online channel that combines VICE’s preeminent online video content with FremantleMedia’s global reach and world class production capabilities.
Munchies will showcase the best in original food content and programming, chronicling the broad spectrum of the global culinary experience and the diverse voices that are pulling it forward: chefs and home cooks, makers and consumers, the politics and policies of food, “front” and “back of house” restaurant life, old wives tales, innovative news, and culturally significant indicators in our modern world. Through original video content, editorial features, articles, how-to’s, recipes and events, Munchies will offer a signature perspective on the intersection where humans and food connect and will provide an antidote to the mounds of tired, anachronistic celebrity chef and cook-off shows which simply do not engage millennial audiences.
A total of five titles were unveiled at MIPTV for the Munchies vertical (www.munchies.tv) which is now live in beta, with more content forthcoming throughout the month. Munchies will be taking adventurous viewers into places unknown and heading to the kitchens and restaurants of some of the world’s most renowned chefs and gastro-personalities like Daniel Patterson, Matt Orlando, Danny Bowien, and Rosio Sanchez in addition to the most unlikely culinary beacons such as rapper Action Bronson and hardcore scene music legend John Joseph.
Titles include: Being Frank, Munchies: Chef’s Night Out, Fresh Off The Boat, Girl Eats Food, and F*ck, That’s Delicious.
Munchies: Chef’s Night Out: VICE’s answer to the glut of sleepy food shows. Munchies profiles chefs when they hit the town to enjoy a night of boisterous eating and drinking at their favourite restaurants and bars. You’ll understand chefs in a way that you’ve never seen before, get an insider’s guide to the best restaurants and bars around the world, and witness them return to the kitchen to cook up late-night snacks after a long evening of drinking. This season, Munchies goes global as we head to Paris, London, Berlin, Montreal, San Francisco, New Orleans and New York with award-winning chefs like Daniel Patterson, Inaki Aizpitarte, Callie Spear, and Michael Schwartz.
Fresh Off The Boat: Food travel shows are only as interesting as their host, and Eddie Huang is VICE’s critically-acclaimed beacon of genre-bending content. Florida-born, Taiwanese-American, retired lawyer, hip-hop aficionado, and pork bun proprietor, Eddie dives deep into dissecting social issues that lie beneath the surface of the universal language of food. For the third season of Fresh Off The Boat, Eddie goes domestic to explore what it means to have freedom and individuality in contemporary America by visiting places like the Florida Panhandle, Northern California, and New Mexico.
Girl Eats Food: Joanna Fuertes-Knight is an open-minded home cook meets cynical food host who takes viewers on an investigative journey through Britain’s contemporary food trends. On this season of Girl Eats Food, Joanna ditches cooking in the kitchen and heads out on the streets in search of the dishes and makers behind the odd side of London’s culinary scene, from uncovering fruit bat soup in the secret side of London’s Chinatown to meeting bedroom molecular gastronomists and trying her hand in the cutthroat circuit of pop-up restaurants.
Being Frank: Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo are two humbly successful restaurant partners from Queens, New York who have stumbled into the epicentre of the global food conversation despite their old-school establishments. Even though their neighbourhood restaurants are not considered “part of the fine dining scene”, the Franks rub elbows with billionaires, the culinary elite and the likes of Martha Stewart and provide a gateway into the private world of the global culinary scene, teasing out exclusive moments with some of the most ground breaking players on the international food stage. This season sees our hosts speak at a food symposium in Copenhagen, source restaurant ingredients in the mountains of Sicily, and host exclusive dinners for René Redzepi and Enrique Olvera.
F*ck, That’s Delicious: Chef turned rapper, Action Bronson is a globe-trotting musician who finds the time to cook homemade lamb burgers when he’s not jotting down rap lyrics in the recording studio. Between his onstage antics of distributing shopping bags full of steaks to fans and cooking in some of the world’s best kitchens before concerts, F*ck, That’s Delicioushighlights the performer’s intimate knowledge of global cuisine. This season, Action takes viewers on his musical tour as he explores local cuisines in South Africa, New Zealand, Japan, Macedonia and Croatia to break bread with fellow performers, chefs, local fishermen…and his Macedonian grandmother.
Keith Hindle, CEO Digital & Branded Entertainment, FremantleMedia commented: “Munchies’ programming brings the bold and compelling aesthetic of VICE to the hugely important area of food and its place in our daily lives. We’re really proud of it and look forward to developing more great content for both online and for broadcasters around the world.”
Longer-term ambitions for Munchies include experiential activities such as festivals and tastings; mobile extensions such as apps and a ‘food locator’ concierge service; social activity including full Facebook integration and UGC reviews and contributions; and licensed merchandise.
