NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME) today launched Extra Crispy, a new digital editorial brand dedicated to obsessively documenting breakfast, brunch and the culture surrounding it all. Extra Crispy is the second original brand from Time Inc.’s Brooklyn-based creative lab, The Foundry. Following the same successful launch model of The Drive, which debuted in September 2015 and now reaches more than 2 million monthly unique visitors*, Extra Crispy is a multi-platform brand with a digital property, social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest and live experiences.
As America’s appetite for breakfast and brunch continues to grow—breakfast order sales topped $52 billion in 2015, up 30% from 2009*—Extra Crispy features content including recipes, how-tos and hacks, as well as cultural trends, news and first-person stories with influencers and celebrities.
“The Foundry is all about identifying emerging audiences and platforms. Extra Crispy allows us to experiment with inherently shareable content—from coffee obsessions to Cronuts and the viral food phenomenon of today. We’ll have our plates full,” said Matt Bean, SVP, Editorial Innovation, Time Inc.
Directing the launch of Extra Crispy is Meredith Turits, Senior Strategist, Brand Development at The Foundry, who joined Time Inc. in November 2015 and is responsible for editorial, product and strategy for the brand. Turits was a founding editor of Bustle, a leading website for women that scaled to an audience of more than 40 million in two years, and a former online editor at Glamour.
"We’re thinking about breakfast as not only the most important meal of the day but also as a new cultural stronghold. Extra Crispy is all about exploring that intersection. We’re taking food off its pedestal, making it fun and accessible. Breakfast is a meal with home, friends and family at its heart, and our editorial content reflects that,” said Turits.
Extra Crispy has an all-star launch team that includes editors, writers and strategists from brands within and outside of food media, including the New York Times, Tasting Table, Cooking Light, Yahoo!, Bustle and HelloGiggles. Their work has appeared across wide-ranging outlets, such as Bon Appétit, Grub Street, Serious Eats, Vice Munchies, Food52, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Elle, the Paris Review Daily, Los Angeles Times, Racked, Men’s Health, CNN and ESPN/Grantland.
Ryan Grim is Site Director of Extra Crispy. Before joining The Foundry at Time Inc. in March 2016, Grim was Deputy Editor of Tasting Table and, prior to that, Managing Editor of Vice magazine.
Food journalist and author Kat Kinsman, former Editor-in-Chief of Tasting Table, joined Extra Crispy in May 2016 as Senior Editor, Food and Drinks. Prior to Tasting Table, Kinsman worked on the launch of Eatocracy at CNN and was Managing Editor from 2010 to 2014.
Extra Crispy brings together a diverse network of contributors for a range of experiences and perspectives on breakfast and brunch as a way to experience food and culture. Contributors include Kyle Chayka, Jen Doll, John Freeman, Matt Gross, Anissa Helou, Heidi Julavits, Alana Massey, Chris Offutt, Matt Sumell and Justin Warner.
Launching from The Foundry, the brand is uniquely positioned to develop creative marketing solutions for its advertising partners through native and branded campaigns in addition to traditional media. The launch sponsor for Extra Crispy is Arla Foods, a Danish dairy company, currently fifth-largest in the world, which is launching its cream cheese and sliced cheese in the US.
Live experiences are an integral part of Extra Crispy’s multimedia brand platform. The brand is a media sponsor of the upcoming CoffeeCon, the consumer coffee festival and coffee university, to be held at Industry City in Brooklyn on Saturday, June 4, and will host an espresso class in its offices. The brand is finalizing plans to launch a two-day celebration of all things breakfast and brunch featuring vendors, music and events with Jimmy Carbone in New York on Labor Day weekend.
As part of the launch, Extra Crispy is kicking off a national search for a Bacon Critic to cover the bacon beat, spanning food, drinks and culture. The Bacon Critic will serve a three-month appointment researching, writing about and critiquing the best of the country’s bacon to eventually declare “America’s Best Bacon” at the end of his or her tenure. To learn more, go to ExtraCrispy.com.
For more, visit www.ExtraCrispy.com, follow @extracrispy on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest and like /extracrispy on Facebook.
* Sources: comScore Monthly Multi-Platform, April 2016; Mintel.
ABOUT TIME INC.
Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME) is one of the world's leading media companies, with a monthly global print audience of over 120 million and worldwide digital properties that attract more than 150 million visitors each month, including over 60 websites. Our influential brands include People, Sports Illustrated, InStyle, Time, Real Simple and Southern Living, as well as more than 50 diverse titles in the United Kingdom.
