Pinterest acquires Punchfork, the social site for recipes, meals, and gorgeous photos of food

Photogs and fashionistas, meet cooks.

Pinterest has acquired Punchfork, the recipe and cooking social network with an eerily Pinteresty-looking style. As part of the acquisition, the Punchfork site, API, and mobile apps will “soon be retiring.” In other words, sayonara to the site — and to its community.

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In a public announcement on the site, Punchfork CEO Jeff Miller said that moving the entire site and community to Pinterest made the most sense:

“We believe that a unified destination benefits our users in the long run, and the Punchfork team will focus on contributing to Pinterest as the premier platform for discovering and sharing new recipes and other interests on the web.”

Punchfork has built an audience for its beautiful images of meals and dishes — and the recipes that can help users re-create them. But it is not a huge one. The company has about 80,000 likes on Facebook and only has about 100,000 unique monthly visitors in the past six months, according to Compete.com.

The big question: Whether submersing that small but passionate audience within the massive Pinterest beast will enable the community to grow — or die.

Here’s the full text of the Punchfork statement:

January 3rd, 2013

Dear Punchfork Community,

Today we are excited to share the news that Pinterest has acquired Punchfork!

Since launching in January 2011, our mission at Punchfork has been to help home cooks discover new, high quality recipes and share them with family and friends. It is a mission driven by a belief in the ability of web and mobile platforms to inspire our lives offline–at home, in our communities, and for Punchfork, wherever meals are shared.

To cooking aficionados, Pinterest needs no introduction. It stands as one of the fastest growing online services in history, and millions of people use it to find recipes every day. Pinterest is often described as a platform for inspiration, and we feel this aligns perfectly with the goals of Punchfork. We couldn’t be more thrilled to join forces with the Pinterest team in San Francisco.

Initially, support for Punchfork will continue, but we will soon be retiring the Punchfork site, API and mobile apps. We believe that a unified destination benefits our users in the long run, and the Punchfork team will focus on contributing to Pinterest as the premier platform for discovering and sharing new recipes and other interests on the web.

Our sincerest thanks to our community members, friends, and everyone involved with Punchfork since its launch.

See you on Pinterest!

Jeff Miller
CEO, Punchfork