7 Real Food & Lifestyle Blogs that use Foodie Pro Theme

Starting a new food blog, or giving a lifestyle blog a fresh, new theme? Then you’ve probably heard about Foodie Pro, one of the most popular WordPress themes on the market. Month after month, Foodie Pro has been the best-selling Genesis theme.

And it’s popular for a reason.

Foodie Pro was designed by Mom-preneur Shay Bocks as the flagship theme for her design company Feast Design Co. It’s clean, minimal and has easy-to-change color and style options to suit any blogger. Running on the Genesis Framework, Foodie Pro is backed by the power of Studiopress.

You can buy Foodie Pro as a stand-alone WordPress theme (with the Genesis Framework), or get it free (alongside all StudioPress themes) if you use WPEngine to host your website.

But before you make a decision to use Foodie Pro, you’re going to want to see it in action. And I don’t mean on a demo site. I’ve tracked down 7 amazing food blogs that actually use Foodie Pro. I’ll share the site name so you can take a look for yourself, as well as a screenshot of the design and some key stats like site speed and traffic estimates – important if you want your food or lifestyle blog to be SEO-friendly and easy for people to use.

Let’s get stuck into the list!

1. Flour on my Face

flour-on-my-face

Website type: Cooking, baking & family blog

Traffic Estimate: 217,000 monthly visitors

Hosting: Orange Geek

Theme: Foodie Pro

Plugins: Social Warfare, My Recipe Magic

Flour on my Face is one of my favorite example of Foodie Pro in action. It’s a very popular food blog (over 200,000 monthly visitors) but the design does not stray far from the out-of-the-box Foodie Pro layout. In fact, aside from the custom logo and colors (easy to change with a color picker from the WordPress dashboard: Appearance > Customize > Colors), I can’t see any changes except for choosing the 3-column layout, which can also be done from the dashboard

Arlene, who runs Flour on my Face, has made good use of the email subscription bar at the top of every page, and placed advertisements in the sidebar and within content too (using the Mediavine network). Excellent money-making potential, and no developer or coding required!

2. Vegan in the Freezer

vegan in the freezer

Website type: Vegan recipe blog

Traffic Estimate: 157,000 monthly visitors

Hosting: Behind Cloudflare

Theme: Foodie Pro

Plugins: Popup Ally, Simple Social Icons, WP Recipe Maker

I like Vegan in the Freezer because it benefits from a very clean, simple layout, with emphasis on really high quality photos and easy-to-read content. Ginny, the site’s creator, uses a right sidebar layout, in which she places an email signup widget, and Amazon affiliate widget linked to her cookbook. There are also Mediavine advertisements within the content, but thanks to the minimalist style, these ads don’t interrupt the flow of the page at all.

3. Elena’s Pantry

elenas-pantry

Website type: Healthy, grain-free recipe blog

Traffic Estimate: 360,000 monthly visitors

Hosting: GoDaddy

Theme: Foodie Pro

Plugins: WP Ultimate Recipe (Premium), Simple Social Icons, Pin It Button for Images

Elena’s Pantry is a very popular grain-free Paleo blog from best-selling author Elena Amsterdam. The blog does not have many customizations that make it different from the standard Foodie Pro installation (the only big of unique coding I see is the scrolling footer section, which is the only design feature I am not keen on!).

I like that Elena’s Pantry keeps to a minimalist, clean and modern style, and uses the right sidebar to place advertisements and promotions.

4. Hip Foodie Mom

hip-foodie-mom

Website type: Cooking blog

Traffic Estimate: 207,000 monthly visitors

Hosting: Orange Geek

Theme: Foodie Pro

Plugins: Social Warfare, Simple Social Icons, Soliloquy Slider

Hip Foodie Mom is yet another great example of a successful food blog that uses the standard Foodie Pro theme. The main customization that Alice Choi did on the site is a large image slider at the top of the homepage (done with a free plugin called Soliloquy Slider), the original logo and bright pink color palate, both of which can be easily changed from the WordPress dashboard.

hip-foodie-mom-blog

Hip Foodie Mom uses the standard right sidebar layout, with email subscription widget and social media widgets in the footer. The blog layout is clean and modern, with emphasis on photography.

5. Straight Up Food

straight-up-food

Website type: Healthy eating blog

Traffic Estimate: 153,000 monthly visitors

Hosting: A2 Hosting

Theme: Foodie Pro

Plugins: Simple Social Icons, Add This Share Button, Easy Recipe Plus (Premium)

Straight Up Food is really attractive food blog that uses the standard Foodie Pro setup, with the 3-column layout (similar to Flour On My Face above). It makes good use of color – green and orange highlights on a minimalist white background helps keep everything on-brand with the healthy eating vibe, and the photos really stand out. There is a designer credited on the site’s footer, but I have trouble seeing what changes they made to the Foodie Pro theme design aside from the logo and colors. Either way, it’s a fresh-looking site with excellent navigation.

6. My Frugal Adventures

my-frugal-adventures

Website type: Lifestyle blog

Traffic Estimate: 139,000 monthly visitors

Hosting: Yellow Fiber Hosting

Theme: Foodie Pro

Plugins: Simple Social Icons, Instagram Feed

My Frugal Adventures is a lifestyle blog that covers a wide range of topics – recipes, travel, diy, crafting and shopping. By now, you’ll probably be able to spot Foodie Pro on this site: big, centered, custom logo at the top of the page, a wide menu bar and right sidebar with author’s image and some advertisements! Well, you’re not wrong, My Frugal Adventures uses Foodie Pro out-of-the-box like most of the websites in this list. There is a design company credited at the bottom of the page, but aside from branding and a bit of graphic design, I can’t see any custom coding on this WordPress theme.

Unlike the other food and lifestyle blogs I’ve looked at, My Frugal Adventures chooses to display entire blog posts on the homepage, instead of just the featured image and title. Whichever you prefer, you can toggle between either option in the WordPress dashboard. My only criticism is the use of an advert above the logo – yes, it probably gets a bunch of clicks, but it looks ugly and detracts from the rest of the branding. Adverts within the content or sidebar are much less jarring.

7. The Imagination Tree

the-imagination-tree

Website type: Creative play and learning blog

Traffic Estimate: 359,000 monthly visitors

Hosting: TSOHost

Theme: Foodie Pro

Plugins: Related Posts by Zemata, Simple Instagram

The Imagination Tree uses color really well to distinguish itself from other websites, even though its layout and design does not differ from the standard Foodie Pro theme. The colored social icons look great – and can be easily be achieved using the Simple Social Icons widget. Everything else is pretty standard – minimalist design, emphasis on photography, and a right sidebar.

So, What Do You Think of Foodie Pro?

So there you go – 7 excellent examples of the Foodie Pro Genesis WordPress theme in action. It’s nice to see that even popular websites use out-of-the-box WordPress themes instead of custom designs. Of course, there’s no limit to what you can do to modify and customize the look and function of any theme, but having a great theme to start off with will give you a big head-start.

All of the blogs I mentioned above are getting a lot of their traffic from organic Google search, and I can personally recommend Foodie Pro (and any theme built on the Genesis Framework) for having great built-in SEO options, without the need for additional plugins. Speaking of additional plugins, I noticed that many food blogs that use Foodie Pro are also installing Genesis’ Simple Social Icons plugin – please get this feature integrated into the next Genesis update asap!!

I hope these food blogs will inspire you to create something great for your next project, and if you find any more great examples of Foodie Pro, let me know on Twitter @internetfolks