8 Legit Ways To Get Paid To Eat On Camera in 2024
Who doesn’t like free food? Everybody eats food – and it becomes even more intriguing if you’re getting paid to eat! But this time around, you’re doing it on camera. If you’re camera shy, don’t worry – there would be a few tips to kill the shyness.
The internet, in fact, has made it very easy to make money if only you put in a little effort. This wasn’t possible pre-internet. Therefore, if you’re a foodie, capitalize on this opportunity to earn free money.
Other ways to make easy money – check them out:
- FocusGroup: Make money by sharing your opinions on topics in tech, healthcare, etc.
- Branded Surveys: Answer online surveys and earn PayPal cash.
- Prime Opinion: Another survey site to make decent money using your phone.
How To Eat Well On Camera If You’re Shy?
To be able to eat comfortably on camera for money, the first thing to know is that there are people who are camera shy – and that means you’re not alone in this.
After becoming aware of this, you then have to practice. Record yourself with your phone when eating or doing an activity. This would help you feel more comfortable when it’s time for you to eat on camera.
Also, more importantly, you have to focus on the end goal – the money that you’d get after eating on camera should be the driving factor for you.
Easy Ways To Get Paid To Eat Food On Camera
Now that Mukbang is becoming popular – you’d want to make money with your eating talent. Mukbang is the latest internet trend that started in South Korea – where people eat on camera for money. Basically, the term “Mukbang” means – Eating Broadcast.
The truth is – you don’t even have to be a foodie to make money eating on camera. Here are a few ways to get paid to eat food on camera:
1. Create a Youtube Channel
The very first way to make money by eating on camera is to start your own YouTube channel. It’s super easy for you to not consider starting a YouTube channel because you might think nobody would be interested in you eating – but that’s not the case at all. There is certainly a group of people who are waiting for your unique personality or voice.
It is estimated that 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day – this means you have got a chance to get your videos discovered.
Things You Can Do On Your YouTube Channel
If you don’t have ideas of what to talk about or do on your YouTube channel – here are a few ideas for you to create a successful food channel:
- Taste test videos – You can blind-taste different kinds of food, and upload the video on YouTube. There are so many people who want to try certain kinds of food but first want someone to tell them how the food tastes before they try it. So this would be appreciated by your audience. Some of the foods you can taste test are bagels, donuts, tacos, poutine, and empanadas.
- List of food ideas – You can make a list of all the foods you have tasted, and describe how they tasted. People want to add new delicacies to their list, therefore, they would be glad that you shared.
- Recipe – If you have been cooking, you can use the recipes to create videos for your audience. There are people who come to YouTube to search for recipes for every Nouvelles cuisine they want to prepare, so you can create videos purposely to help them out.
- Everyday diet regimes – Everybody wants to be healthy, so there’s a constant search for healthy diet options. You can focus also on that by creating healthy recipes and cooking videos to help your audience.
- Cooking tips – Nobody wants to waste so much time in the kitchen – because of that, quick and simple hacks to speed up cooking are being searched on YouTube all the time. So you can design an informational guide to help your audience achieve their end goal.
How You Can Monetize Your Food YouTube Channel
There are many ways to monetize your Food channel. The commonest one is through display ads. Once your channel gets a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, you can apply to Google AdSense. After your channel is approved, ads would be shown to your audience anytime your videos are played.
Other ways to monetize your YouTube channel are
- Affiliate Marketing – Where you promote products of brands and you make a commission anytime someone you referred makes a purchase.
- Sponsorship – Brands like HelloFresh, Athletic Green, and Chatbooks can pay you to get a shoutout in your videos.
- Products and Courses – You can create your own recipe and cooking guides to sell for money.
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2. Become a Social Media Influencer
Another way to get paid to eat is to become a social media influencer. You can create accounts on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter to post images of you eating different kinds of food.
Over time, food lovers would notice and follow you. A huge following means brands would be willing to pay you to promote their products and services. You can also capitalize on Affiliate marketing and the selling of your own courses and products.
Becoming a social media influencer isn’t a walk in the park – it requires so much work in the initial stages. If you can pass the “ghost” phase, you can reap the benefits for the rest of your life.
3. Stream your videos on Twitch
Even though Twitch is mostly used by gamers, you can use it to stream your videos to get paid to eat on camera. Twitch has a feature known as “Just Chatting”, this feature would help you to upload videos that are not related to gaming to the platform.
Moreover, you can chat with your fans or audience to be able to build a strong connection with them. Over time, your Twitch account can be monetized in several ways.
The first is by creating a Patreon account so that your fans can donate money to you. Other ways are through affiliate marketing and brand partnership.
4. Sell Your Merchandise
Naturally, as you create quality food videos on your YouTube channel and other social media platforms, there would be a percentage of your audience who will love to buy anything you put in front of them.
This is when it becomes necessary that you create any form of product and sell it to your die-hard fans. Some of the products you can sell to your fans are:
- Aprons
- T-shirts
- Mugs
- Notebooks
- Caps – and many others.
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Other Ways To Get Paid To Eat
Besides getting paid to eat on camera, here are other ways to get paid to eat:
5. Become a Restaurant Mystery Shopper
You can eat without paying a penny if you become a restaurant mystery shopper. To become a mystery shopper, you have to apply to work as an agent for mystery shopping agencies. Some of the agencies available are
- Mystery Dining by HGEM
- MSPA Americas
- A Closer Look
- Coyle Hospitality Group
- Mystery Shoppers America
- BestMark – just to name a few.
Here’s what these mystery shopping agencies pay you to do; regulatory bodies and owners of restaurants, hotels, casinos, bars, and supermarkets usually want to know how things are done at these places in terms of customer service, quality of products (food), tidiness of the environment – etc.
So they hire agents (mystery shoppers), to visit these places as regular customers to complete these assignments.
You can therefore become an agent to accomplish some assignments. In your case, you’d be paid to go eat at restaurants and bars – after that, you can rate your customer experience – as well as the taste of the food.
According to Zippia, mystery shoppers in the U.S. earn $50,028 on average per year – which is $24 per hour. Depending on the country, you can make less or more than that. The number of mystery shopping gigs you get also determines how much you’d earn per year.
6. Become a Food Tester
As easy as becoming a restaurant mystery shopper, becoming a food tester requires some form of qualifications.
Requirements to become a Food Tester
- Be of legal age.
- Have a degree in food science or a certificate from a culinary school.
- Your senses such as visual acuity, taste, and smell must be razor-sharp.
- Must not have any food allergies.
When you become a food tester, you’d be tasting and examining food products to compare them to the food or cooking department’s standard (in terms of appearance, flavor, taste, quality of ingredients, and smell).
According to ZipRecruiter, full-time food testers make an average of $46,972 per year($22/hr). However, the range is from $17,500 (for beginner food testers) to $111,000 (for experienced food testers).
If you want to get paid to eat – you can apply to work as a food tester at these companies:
7. Become a Restaurant Reviewer
You can also become a restaurant critic or reviewer, and get paid for that. It works just like the mystery shopping but for this one, you’re not working for any agency.
All you have to do as a restaurant reviewer is to visit various restaurants to eat their cuisines and write reviews on them on your own blog or other people’s blogs as a freelancer.
Apart from rating cuisines, you can talk about customer service, tidiness of the environment, etc. Unlike mystery shopping where the food is paid for by agencies, you have to pay for your food when you start as a restaurant reviewer.
But over time as your reviews gain traction, you can monetize your blog, and also be able to work for magazines, news publishers, and other big websites.
The money you can make as a restaurant reviewer or food critic is massive if you’re patient enough to work without payment in the initial phase.
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8. Use Eating Apps that pay Cashback rewards
There are apps you can use for all your shopping including groceries, and gas (even though it’s not food) – to get cashback rewards on your purchases. Some of the apps can give you as much as 40% in cashback rewards when you use them to buy food at their partner restaurants and eateries.
The best cashback apps to use are as follows:
If you want to know all the cashback apps you can use for grocery shopping, you have to read this post.
Final Words
Occasionally, eating competitions are organized in communities, so you can check if there are events like that in your area.
However, before you do, make sure you’re well prepared for that because eating competitions are not as easy as you think.
Getting paid to eat on camera is possible and it’s another side hustle you can use to make money. I hope that this article has been helpful, I’m wishing you more dollars and freedom!
Manuelo is an entrepreneur and a personal finance nerd. He is the founder of Dollars And Freedom. An expert in side hustles, online gigs, and everything about making money. His works have been featured on major financial publications, like Business Insider, GoBankingRates, Investopedia, Entrepreneur, and more. When he’s not busy with his blog or writing for others, you’ll catch him hanging out with loved ones or reading books on stoicism and self-development.
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