How to pitch your ideas to Food24
Food24 is a South African online publication owned by New Media, a division of Media24 (Pty) Ltd. We are the country’s biggest food site that features recipes and articles on food and drinks. We are actively seeking pitches from journalists, writers and contributors of all backgrounds. As food trends and topics tend to be ubiquitous it may be the case that we are already working on an article similar to the one you submit as a pitch.
Pitches to Food24 go through a collaborative editorial process. Before getting in touch with us, please go onto the site and spend time reading our content to familiarise yourself with the kind of articles and recipes we publish. We’re very interested in stories that have a strong link to South African or African food.
We do not publish restaurant or product reviews. Please visit our sister site Eat Out for restaurant-related content. We do not publish in-depth scientific health pieces or promote dieting and restrictive eating. While travel pieces are wonderful, they usually don’t perform as well as we would like, so it’s very rare for us to feature these on Food24.
All pitches to Food24 should include a brief bio and introduction explaining why you believe your story would be a good fit for our publication. Please also share links or documents to at least two previously published pieces and/or your online portfolio. If you have no previous experience, please share an example of your writing.
We looking for pieces on:
> International and local food trends
> Cooking advice and tips
> Current events and how they relate to food and drink – with a strong local angle
> Interviews and profiles with relevant thought leaders in the food space
> Drinks features (wine, beer, spirits, coffee and non-alcoholic)
> Cultural columns relating to food
Unless stated otherwise by our commissioning editor, we require a word count of between 500-550 words — tight enough to be a well-paced read, but rich enough to leave the reader feeling inspired and empowered to enter the kitchen with confidence.
A successful pitch not only identifies an interesting subject, but also makes an argument for why Food24 readers would find it helpful, relevant and/or thought-provoking.
We’re also interested in stories relating to current events and breaking news where food is the main talking point. These stories do not necessarily have to contain a complete narrative arc, but we ask that your pitch offers a conclusion or a forward-thinking statement and contains at least three sources you hope to approach.
Recipes
Recipes form the backbone of Food24 and we want our collection to represent the melting pot of cultures we have in South Africa. Our recipes aim to be easily replicable in a domestic home kitchen with ingredients that one can find at any of South Africa’s major supermarkets. Currently we don’t accept recipe pitches for payment, and only commission the development of recipes for specific campaigns or projects.
Video
Food24 accepts pitches for video content from freelance video producers with experience in storytelling and working in a collaborative environment. Ideal pitches contain strong storylines and insight backed by an authoritative food voice. We are not looking for hosted face-to-camera content unless it is for a particular project that requires this format.
All videos published on Food24 need to be approved by our team of video professionals who have the rights to final editing of footage. Submitted videos will have to work across multiple platforms including YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.
If a video that we have paid for is published on our platforms, it will feature the Food24 logo and relevant branding.
TO SUBMIT: Send your idea to tessa@food24.com
