Reader's Digest believes it has the recipe for a bigger position in food editorial

Reader's Digest, in collaboration with its food and recipe website Allrecipes.ca has launched a regular new editorial section of RD called Open Kitchen. 

While Reader's Digest has always had a share of the lucrative packaged goods and food-related advertising, this editorial cross-pollination makes it a somewhat bigger player in the market.

At the same time as launching Open Kitchen in its December issue, edited by the new food editor Valerie Howes, the company is launching a French version of the Allrecipes Dinner Spinner, an application for iPhone and iPad matching time-stretched readers with everyday ideas about how to feed themselves and their families. The "slot machine" format is activated by shaking the iPhone or iPad and it comes up with various food combinations (I can remember the cartoon character Cathy who lamented 'Where do you get a pound of cooked chicken?') .

And newsstand buyers of the December RD edition get a bonus 48-page Allrecipes booklet, sole-sponsored by Kraft Canada, which is one of the biggest accounts in the food advertising business.