Merkats started with a community that already knew how to do this.
At Princeton, joining a cooking co-op — a group of students who cook for one another — was one of the dining options available to upperclass students. At the Scully Cooperative, a community of about 35 members, people were always cooking, chatting, and cleaning together. But one of the hardest parts of running a co-op was keeping track of everything.
Members sometimes ordered duplicate groceries, cook shifts made too much food, and people forgot to sign off on chores. In 2025, we tried to solve these problems with a Discord bot and custom commands like /setRecurringPoll and /setMenu, but it was not a friendly interface for everyone.
That experience inspired Merkats: an easy-to-use app that brings these tracking tools together. Although our iOS app is now available on the App Store, we are still early in development. We hope to work with new cooking groups to learn what they need and build features that make cooking together easier.
If you are interested in learning more or sharing feedback, schedule a 30-minute conversation with us. We would love to hear how your group cooks together.
Our vision is to create community through communal cooking and provide the platform to make this possible.
— The Merkats team