Food-focused programming is one of the most popular sub-genres of unscripted television so the explosive growth of online culinary content should come as no surprise.

Tasty, the online culinary vertical introduced by BuzzFeed in 2015, quickly gained traction with Canadians and in just four years has evolved to become a fully diversified leading global food brand.

Tasty now reaches 15 million Canadians monthly, more than any other food content provider in Canada and millennials make up two-thirds of its audience. One of the reasons Tasty appeals to millennials is they don’t have a lot of time. They’re looking for easy-to-construct recipes with step-by-step instruction, so Tasty’s signature over-head visuals designed for following along on smartphones while cooking hit the millennial mark. The Tasty Global Cooking Survey found that 66% of them make the recipes featured, 51% make the dishes exactly as instructed and 30% purchase the exact brands used in the videos.

The predominantly millennial audience makes Tasty a very attractive property to brands and the new studio which is already open is designed to make it convenient for Canadian advertisers to create branded videos for that audience.

Rich Reid, SVP of Global Content at Buzzfeed says, “Opening a Tasty Studio in Canada marks a huge moment for our massive, global food brand. By bringing our production to Canada we can now develop localized recipes, formats and talent to further ensure we’re reaching and engaging with the Tasty audience in a more meaningful way.”

BuzzFeed has just started exploring the capabilities of the studio but plans to have an editorial calendar of recipe videos to share through Tasty social handles, targeted to a Canadian audience during key tent pole events like holidays.

Beyond producing more local cuisine content with Tasty’s signature top-down recipe videos, Reid adds that the localization play also means “now our partners can also utilize the Tasty brand in a faster, more customizable and effective way too.”

The new studio allows brands to create Tasty content here for the first time, providing access to award-winning video producers, food stylists and editors. Branded executions handled through the Tasty Canada studio can feature new formats such as Tasty Challenge and Tasty Story, encompassing influencers and chefs. In addition to branded videos, advertisers can run display, programmatic and pre-roll ads around the content.

Since Tasty was introduced in Canada, it has worked with hundreds of brands across verticals such as CPG, finance, personal care and entertainment including ABI, Nestle, Campbell’s, American Express, Nespresso, Ferrero and Universal Pictures.

Tasty’s reach in Canada includes a series of consumer products such as Tasty Cookbooks, the Tasty One-Top and Tasty Cuisinart appliances. The studio is equipped with the branded cookware  – part of a strategic partnership with Walmart  –  that includes Tasty pots, pans, bakeware and kitchen gadgets all in the latest on-trend colours designed to accent millennial kitchens.

Existing co-branding initiatives include the Tasty Seasoning Kits in partnership with McCormick’s Club House. The partnership enables McCormick, a 130-year-old seasoning manufacturer, to rejuvenate and extend the reach of its Club House brand with millennial audiences. The collaboration designated Club House as the “official spice of Tasty,” incorporating Club House spices and branding into recipe videos, in-store display and paid digital, social, and email marketing.

Bringing the brand full circle, since the millennial time crunch extends to their grocery shopping, Tasty’s shoppable recipes were designed to make that chore an easy one. Users can add the ingredients featured in recipes directly to their Walmart cart via the Tasty app and order for either pickup or delivery.

Reid says, “Tasty has always been focused on making cooking and food more accessible and we’re so excited to get even more Canadians in the kitchen with Tasty.”

Buzzfeed announced the new Tasty Studio in Toronto on February 5 with a half-day event to show off the new digs and share the latest in digital content and food industry trends with Buzzfeed clients and executives.