Thanksgiving Day cooks had an app-etite for mobile in the kitchen

Allrecipes.com certainly put on some weight during the Thanksgiving Day holiday, at least in terms of traffic.

The major online food brand, that attracts more than one billion visits per year, had its busiest traffic day ever on the day before Thanksgiving Day. More than 7.9 million home cooks visited the site looking for meal ideas, recipes and instructional videos.

According to Allrecipes, more cooks than ever before are taking their mobile devices into the kitchen instead of a cookbook or laptop. Visits to the foodie site were up 97% year-on-year in the week leading up to Thanksgiving Day, with the total number of visits from mobile devices reaching 12 million. Nearly 4 million home cooks visited Allrecipes from a tablet device during the week leading up to Thanksgiving, a 232% increase year-on-year.

"Thanksgiving is the most popular holiday for a home-cooked feast. Seventy percent of home cooks prepared for a Thanksgiving meals this year, and it's so rewarding to be the go-to food resource for them as they embrace the latest digital technologies, platforms and devices to simplify meal planning," said Lisa Sharples, president of Allrecipes.com.

"Allrecipes has always believed digital technology, social media, and online communities would revolutionize how, when, and where cooks are thinking about their next meal, so it's thrilling for us to see the numbers continue to rise each year!"

With more than 15 million downloads worldwide, Allrecipes' mobile apps are the most popular across all platforms. The recently released Video Cookbook for iOS and Windows 8 had approximately 20,000 unique visitors during the week leading up to Thanksgiving Day.

Tags: food industry, holiday season, mobile apps, mobile usage, mobile video, Thanksgiving Day