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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Allen Weiner

Beyond Meat Expands Its Chicken Tenders Footprint to Get a Leg Up

California-based Beyond Meat continues its drive to satisfy plant-based consumers by expanding the presence of its chicken tenders in high-profile retailers. Beginning April 12, Beyond will add Albertsons, CVS, Sprouts, and Whole Foods Market stores nationwide to its roster. Krogers and its brands (Fry’s, Food 4 Less, QFC, Ralph’s) will add the product throughout April. Beyond’s September 2021 announcement of the new product revealed an initial slate of retail partners led by Walmart.

The plant-based chicken market is highly competitive, given the riches at stake. SPINS, a data technology company, reported that the plant-based chicken market grew from $230.7 million in May 2020 to $271.8 million one year later. Others in this crowded space include Singapore’s TiNDL; Impossible Foods; Rebellyous Foods; Nowadays; Gardein; among others.

Beyond the supermarket shelf, food service in fast-food joints and restaurants has become a crucial channel to market for plant-based chicken. Beyond Meat’s poultry is in regional players such as Flyrite, Next Level Clucker; Plow Burger; Panda Express; and KFC (fried chicken). Globally, Beyond Meat products, including the Beyond Burger, Beyond Beef, and Beyond Sausage, are available at approximately 130,000 retail and foodservice outlets in more than 90 countries.

“Building on the positive momentum of our recent chicken launches, we’re excited to significantly expand the availability of our Beyond Chicken Tenders by showing up in more places for our consumers – from their favorite supermarket or drugstore to large warehouse clubs – making delicious, nutritious and sustainable plant-based meat more accessible than ever before,” said Deanna Jurgens, Chief Growth Officer, Beyond Meat in a company release.

Beyond Meat’s chicken nuggets are made primarily from faba (fava) beans with breading comprised of wheat and rice flour. They also contain pea protein, wheat gluten, spices, oil, and a mix of natural flavors. They are soy-free (although the label says they may contain soy from shared manufacturing facilities).

The plant-based chicken market has the potential to be a giant, ticking time bomb. While all matters of faux poultry hit grocery store shelves and eateries, not far off in the distance are a host of cultured products that will rival—and possibly outperform—their plant-based predecessors (provided the newer alternatives can scale). With governmental approval possible by the end of the year, companies such as Eat Just’s GOOD Meats division will be able to sell their cultivated chicken products in the U.S. The San Francisco-based company received approval from Singapore to sell its new product in Singapore, one of two countries where cultured or lab-grown meat is legal. The Netherlands recently allowed samples of this futuristic form of meat to be distributed.

As far as Beyond’s entry into the lab-grown or cultivated meat and poultry market, the company says its current commitment is to plant-based food. “We remain focused on our mission to create products that address the four growing global issues of climate change, human health, the constraint on natural resources, and animal welfare,” a company spokesperson told The Spoon. “We are incredibly proud of our approach to building meat from plants as an accessible and delicious way for consumers to make a positive impact on these areas.”

Israel’s Vanilla Vida Wants to Expand and Improve the World’s Favorite Flavor

Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that vanilla is the world’s most popular flavor? In addition, how about the idea that 95% of all vanilla sold is synthetic, generally made from an oil or lab-developed chemical compound. Sounds like a supply and demand issue for a real deal vanilla pod.

Vanilla Vida has done its homework and sees an opportunity to tickle the universal taste buds by using technology and data to produce large quantities of top-quality vanilla anywhere in the world. Madagascar and Indonesia are the top crop producers but face issues with uncertain weather, quality control issues, and a long drying process. With proof of concept completed, Vanilla Vida CEO Oren Zilberman is ready to expand beyond Israel and launch climate-controlled farms worldwide.

Zilberman’s experience as a VC is instrumental in the success of his new company. “When you are building a startup, you are always looking about what is the chance it can do a major impact and some change in the world and at the same time, have a really good business,” the company’s CEO said in a recent interview with The Spoon. He also explained that his experience led him not to want to develop something new or go into an unproven segment. By expanding the opportunity for a wildly popular product, such as vanilla, Vanilla Vida can hit the ground running instead of requiring a great deal of marketing to drive customer awareness.

Vanilla Vida’s approach uses technology in the form of climate-controlled growing centers along with data, including image processing, to ensure disease detection, quality control, and plant behavior pattern identification. Zilberman claims that Vanilla Vida’s technology can yield up to three times the volume of existing methods. Going beyond the farming aspect, the company’s IP allows it to alter the metabolism of vanilla beans in ways that increase and even enhance the end product’s flavor.

Founded in 2020, Vanilla Vida recently raised $11.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Ordway Selections, a Swiss investment firm, and money manager for a number of private families. Other investors in the round include PeakBridge, a seed fund specializing in FoodTech, Kibbutz Maagan Michael, and Strauss, which has now made its second investment in the company.

“We are a vertically integrated company,” Zilberman said. Vanilla Vida’s strategy is to create joint ventures with farmers around the globe (although currently solely based in Israel) to place these climate-controlled centers close to flavor houses and food manufacturers.

Zilberman is quick to point out that the global need for vanilla is not a zero-sum game. If 94% of the worldwide supply is synthetic, by entering the market, Vanilla Vida will not endanger the business of existing vanilla producers in countries like Madagascar.

 “We are not here to take an existing piece of the cake from countries such as Madagascar and take food out of their mouths,” Zilberman says. “We are expanding the market for everybody, and we want to help the world use fewer synthetic products and more natural.

Zilberman says that the company is now focused on scaling its business with its proof of concept completed. Initially, that scale will be in Israel, but Europe, the U.S., and other regions are all part of the plan after that. That plan includes expanding the uses for top-of-the-line vanilla, such as creating a floral variety that could be used in the cosmetic industry and a flavoring to mask the taste of children’s medicine.

“There’s no real crop in the world like vanilla in the world in both the challenge and opportunity,” Zilberman adds. “It’s an industry with zero innovation, which is unusual when the product has the world’s most popular taste and smell.”

Betterland Foods Launches Better-For-You Chocolate Using Perfect Day’s Animal-Free Whey Protein

Move over Hershey and Mars, WOO is coming, and it’s fixing to make a sweet, healthy impact on the candy category.

betterland foods, a Napa-based company that recently introduced its cow-free milk, is taking the alternative whey protein it created to take on the alternative dairy market and now aiming at making noise in the candy space with WOO. This better-for-you candy bar competes with the big names on taste but without guilt.

“Candy has not been disrupted since 1934,” company CEO Lizanne Falsetto said in an interview with The Spoon. “Keep in mind that Hershey and Mars can buy up the shelf space, but they still can’t get to the core of what we believe people want today. They want to have a decadent treat that’s better for them and better for the planet.”

WOO (as in Moo or Whoo) is now available direct to consumers before being launched in retail. WOO’s layered chocolate bar, built using Perfect Day’s whey protein, contains organic chocolate, caramel, peanuts, and cow-free nougat. Falsetto quickly points out the dramatic difference between WOO and its entrenched competitors.

Falsetto explains that most candy bars on the market have 28 grams of sugar, while WOO had nine. The betterland’s bar has six grams of fiber compared to one in most others and eight grams of protein versus four.

Falsetto and her partner, company president Bill Pikar come to the “healthy” food space with a significant win under their belts. Falsetto is the founder and former CEO of Think! A pioneering protein bar that she developed in her kitchen. The company was sold in late 2015, after which Falsetto began working with women leaders in her Holistic Success Network.

Always keeping an eye on the alternative protein space, Falsetto and Pikar were ready to jump at the chance at another chance to (as she puts it) “blow up a category.” The Perfect Day folks reached out to the former nutrition bar creator and suggested a new type of bar using cow-free whey. Not one to focus on their “been-there, done-that” space, the betterland’s team suggested they produce a “better for you” candy bar.

“We decided the candy category would need a disruptive product, and that’s why candy was the choice.” Falsetto commented. She also jokes that betterland’s newest product has a deja-vu experience. “Interestingly enough, we were making nutrition bars on candy equipment in 1995, and now, in reverse, we are now making candy on nutrition bar equipment.”

Having gone through retail product placement with THINK!, Falsetto has developed a clear marketing strategy. Initially, protein bars, she says, didn’t have a set home in a retail store, and she sees the same route for WOO. A “dual placement” strategy, where the vegan-friendly candy bar sits with its category competitors and at the cash wrap for impulse purchases.

WOO’s initial direct-to-consumer campaign aims to create consumer familiarity and tap into social media awareness. When betterland approaches Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods of the world, the company will be in a better position for retail acceptance.

Falsetto’s take on marketing speaks to her success at finding and fulfilling a market need: I would say when it comes to a market campaign., all we want to put the food into people’s mouths, and we want them to eat it alongside a Snickers bar—like the Pepsi Challenge.”

Without going into detail, likely, we’ve not heard the last of betterland’s relationship with Perfect Day and its alternative whey. “Lizanne’s experience as a protein innovator and retail disruptor made her our first choice to launch candy made kinder and greener with Perfect Day’s whey protein,” said Ryan Pandya, co-founder, and CEO of Perfect Day. “Lizanne has already proven what she can do with betterland milk, and we are thrilled to now bring animal-free layered chocolate candy to consumers who have been excitedly awaiting more products made with Perfect Day protein.”

WOO candy bars will retail for $2.69 and are available at woobars.com

The EVERY Company Uses Iconic Product to Showcase Its Animal-Free Egg Whites

It’s common for musicians to play their most challenging piece to open a concert. Not only is the goal to calm the nerves, but it is also a way to showcase talent and let the audience know what they can expect. Using this model, EVERY Co. figures a great way to let the world know how exceptional its EVERY EggWhite is to have Bay Area’s Chantal Guillon, use it in its signature French macarons.

“From the day we founded the company, we have been asked by customers when will we get our hands on it (egg whites),” Arturo Elizondo, CEO, and founder of EVERY, told The Spoon in a recent interview. “We wanted to launch it in the most iconic application that really is the holy grail of functionality and with a customer that lives or dies by the ingredients.”

Founded initially as Clara Foods in 2014, the company rebranded in 2021 to better illustrate its mission of providing animal-free proteins that can be used in a vast array of applications. Unlike cell-cultivated and plant-based proteins, EVERY uses a 3D model of an egg protein and puts it through a fermentation process to achieve three products that serve different high-value markets. Elizondo says the resulting fermented egg white has the perfect consistency and mouthfeel, an ideal substitute ingredient.

In addition to releasing its EVERY EggWhite, the company has EVERY ClearEgg. This clear, highly soluble protein can be used in beverages and fortifying agents. Elizondo said that his company has been partnering with AB InBev, which is experimenting with using ClearEGG in protein drinks and other drinks. EVERY has a similar relationship with cold-pressed juice and plant-based snacks brand Pressed to use its soluble protein in the juicer’s Pressed Pineapple Greens Protein smoothie.

The third product from EVERY is its EVERY Pepsin, a digestive enzyme that is Kosher, Halal, vegan, and vegetarian. Pepsin is often used in dietary supplements and food processing.

With no background in science, Arturo Elizondo brings an element of cache and evangelism to the company that is the backbone of every conversation. His passion for a global future of food security caused him to leave his job in Washington, D.C., and move to the Bay Area without a job or place to live.

“I didn’t want to just sit on the sidelines, and so once I learned about the impact of animal ag,” Elizondo said. “I felt I had to do something about this. “I was in D.C. and Geneva and realized that if we as a world were going to have a shot at averting this climate crisis, I need to at least try and give it a shot.”

Elizondo met his future partners at a conference in the Bay Area. Seven years later, the company hopes to provide a cruelty-free alternative to egg whites and products that use whites as a primary ingredient. The decision to go after the egg market was deliberate.

“The egg is in everything,” EVERY’s CEO said. “I remember when I first went plant-based and was in a grocery store, reading the label and saw eggs in everything. The egg is universally loved across cultures and in so many foods we eat. We wanted to be the first in the world to use this technology for one of the big multi-hundred million animal protein markets.”

Rather than using its three products to go directly to consumers, EVERY wants to enable third parties such as bakeries, beverage companies, and any industry that uses egg whites. “The technology is only as useful as the impact that it has on products,” Elizondo added. “Our products must work in every application. They have to be able to perform across the board. We want to give eggs a run for their money.”

This takes us back to the iconic French macaron. Beginning today, March 23, the macarons, using EVERY’s EggWhites, will be available in-store at Chantal Guillon’s San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif. locations and for Bay Area delivery via partners like GrubHub, UberEats, Seamless, and Allset on Wednesday, March 30. It is interesting to note that products using these alternative egg whites won’t be labeled “plant-based” (a standard marketing term) but are vegan as no animal is used in their creation. Elizondo believes that vegans will, for example, welcome baked goods back into their lives that have been missing for years because of their use of animal-based eggs.

“I miss eating the angel food cake we used to eat at Xmas every year. Now I can eat that. There’s something really magical about that. We’re not guilting people into comprising. You can truly have your cake and eat it too.”

Russian Food Tech Hit Hard by Ukraine invasion

Beyond the horror inflicted on Ukraine by Russian forces, the universal blowback from this unprovoked attack has dealt a major blow to Russia’s food-tech business. Between the financial impact of harsh sanctions and public sentiment against anyone or anything associated with Vladimir Putin, established companies and startups in every segment of this emerging space have been hit hard.

Yandex, the company, called by some the “Google of Russia,” is the biggest name on what is becoming a sinking ship. Yandex deployed its delivery robots in many U.S. locations via its partnership with GrubHub, but Yandex has fallen on hard times since the Ukraine invasion. The University of Arizona and The Ohio State University have ceased accepting deliveries from GrubHub via its Yandex partnership. In the meantime, one of the firm’s key executives, Tigran Khudaverdyan, has been hit with personal sanctions and has left the company after his assets were frozen and his personal travel was restricted.

CNN reported that Yandex, which handles about 60% of Russia’s web traffic, along with its media business and ride-sharing divisions, is losing customers to the point where it may not be able to meet its debt payments. The company headquarters is in the Netherlands but primarily serves the Russian market and is listed on the Russian Stock Exchange.

Russian grocery-delivery giant Samokat entered the U.S. market with a bang in September 2021 with a new service called Buyk (pronounced bike), which offered 15-minute delivery using empty storefronts in New York City. In the wake of harsh sanctions which froze capital assets, the company has shut down operations and this week filed for bankruptcy.

As it turns out, Russian consumers have become major consumers of plant-based meats. Fueled by the pandemic, Vegconomist reports that 10% of Russians eat plant-based alternatives while 54% are willing to add such products to their diets. Greenwise and Welldone are two leaders in the plant-based meat industry in Russia, both of which have set their sites on the European Market and beyond. Even if the Russian market is a large one, the country’s citizens are facing economic hardships and will unlikely have money to purchase anything more than basic staples. The future of these companies must be in doubt.

According to industry tracker Traxcn, the Russian food tech scene is booming with 131 food tech startups in areas such as personal meal services, online catering, plant-based meats, restaurant reservations, and cloud-based accounting services specializing in working with restaurants. Companies such as Gettable, Welldone, and Qummy (among others) will face significant challenges attracting investors and reaching consumers beyond Russia during these troubled times.

From the U.S. perspective, major fast-food companies are taking a significant hit by leaving Russia and Ukraine, leaving their operations dark. McDonald’s, for example, gets 9% or $2 billion of its revenue from Russia and Ukraine. Pepsi and Coke are suffering similar losses (Coke 1-2% of annual revenue; Pepsi, 4% of yearly income) by leaving Russia and Ukraine.

GourmetNFT Want to Help Culinary Creators Monetize Recipes & Food Experiences Using NFTs

The tried-and-true cookbook is dead. Long live the fractional cookbook.

The movement toward secure, one-of-a-kind recipes and food experiences are fueled by advances and acceptance of the technology surrounding Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). It could be a way to move beyond one-dimensional food presentations and feed the growing number of foodies who want more bells and whistles in their gourmet interactions. And then, there are chefs, who, faced with shrinking margins and the impact of COVID-19 on their businesses, are always on the hunt for new revenue streams.

“It has always baffled me as to why chefs and culinary creators, who are essentially IP creators and artists don’t get royalties unless they get into the whole hassle of writing and publish a cookbook,” Ruth McCartney, part of the team behind GourmetNFT, said in an interview with The Spoon. “When NFTs came along, my mind went to individual recipes and for foodies to be able to curate and compile all of their favorite recipes and cook from their iPads.”

McCartney believes those in the food industry—from three-star Michelin chefs to up-and-comers making indigenous pasta in Brazil—need to be rewarded for their skills. Like her brother—Sir Paul McCartney of that minor band from Liverpool.

“I think it’s a good way not only for chefs to be treated like rock stars,” she said. “It’s an iTunes for chefs.”

Liquid Avatar, a Canadian firm that focuses on the verification, management, and monetization of personal identity, and its subsidiary Oasis Studios, a multimedia NFT content-creation company, provide the technology and artistry that powers Gourmet NFT. David Lucatch, Liquid Avatar’s co-founder and president, believes GourmetNFT can take advantage of his company’s technology to securely and quickly allow consumers to purchase a range of recipes and culinary adventures.

One such adventure is a multisensory weekend at David Skinner’s Houston restaurant, eculent. Skinner’s reputation in the food world could have a Pied Piper effect inspiring other noted chefs.

“The road to publishing a cookbook is paved with good intentions however schedules get in the way,” said Skinner. “But with Gourmet NFT, Chefs can upload one recipe, one image, one video at a time as they are already creating a short form variant of the content for social media. Over time, they will have amassed what amounts to a digital cookbook.”

But, as the people behind GourmetNFT and others who follow the space know, using NFTs to share recipes alone will not cut it. For a recipe to be considered “copyrightable”—not to mention entertaining— “bonus material” such as inside tips or custom videos must be part of the deliverable. Beyond such individual digital assets as instructions on making George Harrison’s favorite custard, McCartney explained that goods and services could be delivered using the secure platform.

“Chefs can also make money by putting put a QR code on their dedicated Gourmet NFT website as well as put (the code) on their menus, to-go boxes, and build their own fan clubs and traffic to their fractional cookbook page,” McCartney said. She pointed out the example of Brazilian Chef David Rivillo, a man noted for his inventive pasta creations. Rivillo is signed to an exclusive deal with GourmetNFT and will sell singular pasta with his digital presence.

All of which begs the question: Will NFTs spell the end of printed cookbooks and the vast expanse of subpar YouTube cooking videos?

Ruth McCartney said she has spoken to leading publishers about the opportunity; the response, she says, is, “We don’t do NFTs—That’s art.”

Gardyn Hopes to Grow Even Greener with New Investment

This week, JAB Ventures, an investment firm with stakes in consumers brands such as Keurig Dr. Pepper, Peet’s coffee, Pret A Manger, and others in the food and beverage space, announced a $5 million investment in Gardyn, bringing the company’s capital raise this year to $15 million.

With the expanding global focus on healthy eating, climate change, and sustainable resources, companies such as Gardyn, which entered the market in 2020, are hoping to level the playing field in the home gardening space. The goal for players looking to make successful inroads into this consumer space is by offering scalable products with appeal to black and green thumbs alike. Those ahead of the pack have harnessed and simplified technologies, such as AI, to provide choice and convenience, resulting in ongoing yields of chemical-free fruits and vegetables.

“Gardyn, built on remarkable technology and a radically novel customer experience, is shaping the future of food at home,” said Joachim Creus, Senior Partner at JAB, in a company press release. “Gardyn is the clear leader in the fast-growing segment of homegrown food, as evidenced by the brand’s strong growth and high adoption and retention rates, even beyond COVID. JAB Ventures is proud to support Gardyn’s development and bring to market credible alternatives to the industrial paradigm of the past, in a way that is better for the planet, better for health, and brings natural art to your home.”

In a phone interview with The Spoon, FX Rouxel, founder and CEO of Gardyn, describes his company’s approach to the home produce-growing world as “hybrid-ponics,” which takes advantage of the tried-and-tested hydroponics approach to gardening with an overlay of Artificial Intelligence. The result for Gardyn is a vertical tower that takes up a small space making it suitable for even small spaces in apartments. Even though it offers a small footprint, Rouxel explains Gardyn offers a large yield. That abundance is governed by technology that provides a continuous supply of healthy greens, vegetables, fruits, and even flowers. The constant supply is critical as fresh produce—especially plants grown without pesticides– is highly perishable.

“Our vision is simple,” Rouxel says. “We want to control such elements as time, pest problems, germinating seeds, and efficiently using such resources as energy and water while creating a beautiful piece of natural gardening.”

Elements such as water and light are controlled using AI and a “Kelby” technology, which is billed as a gardening assistant. Kelby keeps an eye on the individual seed containers called yPods to ensure they are experiencing optimal growing conditions. At this point, Gardyn has 750 seed varieties.

Rouxel says that the JAB investment will partially support future growth in such areas as AI. As indoor home gardeners evolve from using company-supplied yPod seed packets to experimenting with their own seed choices, tweaks to the AI will be needed to recognize these independent plantings and determine the best growing conditions. The financing also will be used to continue to grow the Gardyn community which is an essential part of the company’s popularity. The community is a vital source for individual Gardyn-ers to share growing tips and healthy recipes, particularly for those more exotics greens and veggies.

Gardyn is one of a growing cohort of companies in the indoor gardening segment. Other players include AeroGarden (owned by Scotts Miracle-Gro), The Smart Garden, Rise Garden, Lettuce Grow The Farmstand, Tower Garden FLEX, and other niche products. While indoor gardening isn’t likely to be a zero-sum game, a handful will survive based on price, ease of use, scalability (in both add-ons and seed varieties), and channel partners in the next few years.

Eclipse Foods Believes It Has The Secret Sauce for The Best Plant-Based Ice Cream

One of my favorite culinary memories was walking through the heart of Buenos Aires sampling Italian-style “helado” from myriad shops, one scoop better than the next. In going vegan 10 years ago, I had to push experiences such as that ice cream crawl away for my health and growing concern about the issues related to animal welfare. The absence of that flavorful, rich, creamy taste of goodness left a hole in my diet as I soldiered on into the vegan lifestyle.

Thanks to the founders of Berkeley, California-based Eclipse Foods, those on a plant-based diet can enjoy the look and taste of ice cream that replaces even the best dairy products available in scoop shops and freezer cases. The secret is a platform/process devised by experienced chefs in a kitchen using a form of bioengineering that blends plant-based ingredients.

Eclipse Foods believes the answer to satisfying the ice cream cravings of the plant-based food crowd is not to create a substitute, but to create a replacement. Company CEO Aylon Steinhart saw the impact Beyond Meat had on the vegan food scene, creating an actual replacement for those craving hamburgers rather than yet another bean burger that acts more of a substitute for meat lovers.

The Eclipse Food story is bigger than ice cream, its first product to hit the market. Working alongside CTO, Thomas Bowman, an accomplished chef and former head of product development for JUST, the result was to learn the characteristics of the microbe in casein, the main protein in milk, and replicate that leaving the diary properties behind.

“We figured out the magic of milk,” Steinhart said in a recent interview with The Spoon. “The secret sauce is our secret sauce.”

Eclipse has made a lot of progress since The Spoon’s Catherine Lamb wrote about the launch of the company’s limited edition flavors less than a year ago. Lamb compared the Eclipse non-dairy process to that of Perfect Day, a significant competitor in the space whose product also avoids the use of nuts.

“Unlike Perfect Day, which ferments actual dairy proteins using genetically modified microbes, Eclipse’s dairy is made from a combination of everyday plant-based ingredients that the founders claim do a much better job imitating dairy than plain old oat or almond milk,” Lamb said.

The idea to use this magic milk as a building block for ice cream was based on several factors including market opportunity and the decision, as Steinhart said, to go with a product that was “in the center of the plate, not a co-star.” With the ability to create replacements for cheese, sour cream, and cream cheese, Eclipse will likely move forward with those products after they have established a beachhead in the ice cream space. With the plant-based shoppers representing only 18% of consumers, Steinhart believes his products are not in a “winner take all market” with a lot of opportunities.

While I can attest to the sensational taste of Eclipse Foods chocolate plant-based ice cream—which is as good as any traditional dairy product—the company has gone through several blind taste tests to underscore the success of their product.

Eclipse had an independent thirty-party firm conduct a 100-person blind taste test with 73% of those sampling Eclipse versus the best selling ice cream in the U.S. said the plant-based dessert was creamier. While still early in the game, Steinhart is pleased with uptake from consumers who can purchase the product online and the growth in sales for the products on the shelves of independent grocery stores in the Bay Area. Retail has been an important part of the company’s distribution strategy with the closure of restaurant partners due to the pandemic.

 Steinhart agreed that the vegan frozen dessert space is a crowded one and given the current market conditions due to the pandemic, product marketing has its challenges. He describes marketing vision as wanting to create “an aspirational product—the best of the best.” The approach to fulfill that idea is to use leading chefs and influencers whose praise and endorsement create a trickle-down effect. The inability to offer in-store product sampling is a thorn in the side of any new product, especially one whose taste and experience is a strong selling point.

As far as a product distribution strategy goes, in addition to retail and direct-to-consumer, Eclipse has created foodservice partnerships with existing brands OddFellow in New York and Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream in San Francisco. And it doesn’t stop there.

“We want to be in every Sonic, Wendy’s, Dairy Queen, and Carl’s Jr.,” Steinhart said. This milk product will spin in any type of ice cream machine, meaning it can be used for soft serve and milkshakes. With time and taste on its side, plant-based ice cream lovers have a lot to look forward to.

Plant Jammer Gets €4M Investment for its AI-Powered Recipe Platform

Plant Jammer, a four-year-old Danish startup building an AI-powered cooking assistant, is one step closer to its goal of reaching one billion people, thanks to a €4 million investment in its AI recipe algorithm and platform. The Copenhagen-based company plans to expand its presence in the digital food space by licensing its API to third parties who can build branded customized experiences for their customers.

The new injection of capital comes from Danish investment firm Vaekstfonden, German food processing company Dr. Oetker, and German appliance manufacturer Miele. Miele had previously invested in Plant Jammer in 2018.

”Plant Jammer’s combination of recipe creation with AI is both unique and functional. We expect that this technology will be a core pillar in the connected kitchen of the future. Therefore, we believe Plant Jammer has great business potential,” says Dr. Christian Zangs, Managing Director of Miele Venture Capital.

Plant Jammer’s application, already in use by 10,000 households in Europe, allows users to build customized recipes by factoring in their individual preferences and what they may have in their home or what may be on sale in the local supermarket. While the app is focused on plant-based and vegetarian creations, partners who license the platform are not limited to those options. The database also contains food choices that include animal products and dairy; the PlantJammer app chose not to surface those results allowing the company to focus its version on a select niche.

In an interview with The Spoon, CEO and founder Michael Haase explained that partners who license the Plant Jammer’s API will pay based on the number of “calls” or accesses by users. For example, a grocery chain in Sweden can use the Plant Jammer API to develop a branded application such as a chatbox, that could include such extras as a link to online shopping. Each time a user of that third-party application builds a recipe, based on ingredients, tastes, diet, or any number of factors, the PlantJammer AI-driven database would work behind the scenes to deliver the results.

“I like to think of the analogy of the gold rush,” Haase adds. “We are interested in being the supplier of the jeans and shovels that enable others to do their jobs better.”

Personalized data from commercial partners will not be shared with Plant Jammer, but those partners can pass on generalized information via tags to allow the Haase’s company to continue to innovate on its platform. There are several areas Haase hopes to develop focused around food waste and the increased use of the excess capacity of local farmers and vendors.
Initially, the company founder says, the goal is to focus on food waste in the home. Haase says that 50% of all food waste takes place in the home, so we want people to build recipes based on what they already have in their refrigerator or cupboard.

“Our declared purpose is to empower one billion people with food habits that increase their health and the health of the planet,” Haase added.

That said, Haase admits his goal is a lofty one. “Right now, we are in a world of what I would call ‘trickle-down gastronomy’,” he says. “There is a huge divide between those whose world is focused on things such as molecular gastronomy and the masses. If we can show people that you can make something great in 25 minutes with simple ingredients, that would be great.”

Former Uber CEO Lands in the Cloud Kitchen Market

Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is playing a new game modeled after those HGTV shows, where teams of fortune hunters turn distressed properties into quick-sell gems. In the case of the newly formed City Storage Systems, the narrative differs in that these down-and-out chunks of real estates are empty or neglected strip malls and parking lots, and the endgame is to create an assembly line of cloud kitchens.

In fact, this new company is built upon the ashes of a firm called CloudKitchen which specialized working with food entrepreneurs in the infrastructure end of the food business. CloudKitchen offered a range of services including shared-kitchen facilities, delivery services, and even marketing help. City Storage Systems aims to repurpose a nationwide inventory of non-performing real estate into kitchen facilities primarily for restaurants and other such establishments that want to focus on food and forgo the headaches associated with running a restaurant.

The company’s new website says, “We provide infrastructure and software that enables food operators to open delivery-only locations with minimal capital expenditure and time.” But clearly, it is more than that. Kalanick also has a venture fund, 10100, which will be a position to invest in those restaurants and related businesses that are successful tenants in real estate properties his company manages.

According to a story in ReCode, the former Uber CEO is investing $150 million into City Storage Systems, which is based in Los Angeles. He is joined by other Silicon Valley investors as well as former Earthlink (an original ISP) founder Sky Dayton.

While City Storage System is not necessarily a game changer, its entry into the market forces observers to closely examine the zeitgeist surrounding new models for restaurants in their various forms. To his credit, Kalanick is taking a tried-and-true real estate practice of targeted leasing and subleasing distressed properties. While most of these efforts are done seasonally—such as doing temporary rentals to costume businesses at Halloween—City Storage System is looking at a big picture which more resembles an incubator than a short-term revenue generator.

This zeitgeist leads to a crazy quilt of overlapping help-the-cook concepts aimed at providing one, or more, crucial parts of the value chain with a clear emphasis on the supply side of the food business. For example, City Storage is not alone in the cloud kitchen business (although they are shooting for massive scale) and will go toe-to-toe with the adjacent sector of shared commercial kitchens. These shared kitchens fall into many subcategories. These may include those looking for commercial space for their cottage food businesses. Or it could appeal to startups who find the shared model appealing, offering add-on services such as possible funding and assistance with marketing and legal matters.

While it is apparently a myth that most restaurants fail in their first year, the restaurant business is not for those wanting to make a financial killing. Because the cost to open a traditional restaurant is about $3,000 per seat, there is a flood of accomplished chefs, newbies, and wannabes taking the lean startup approach to feeding the public for profit. It also is one of the reasons there are about 4,000 food trucks in the U.S., with an annual growth rate of about 8%.  And, as you can infer, it also is the force behind the growth in shared, ghost and other variants of food prep ideas.

All of these options push the important element of demand to the back of the bus. And, those in the demand part of the equation—aka consumers—are faced with a dizzying array of options come meal time. Do I A) order groceries from the store and cook from a recipe I find on the web? B) Open the meal kit that arrived and assembles the ingredients for tonight’s meal? C) Fire up an app and order from a food delivery service D) Go out to eat? Or… there just aren’t enough letters in the alphabet to chronicle the choices. Anyone who professes to have his or her finger on the pulse of dining habits of consumers is fooling him or herself and/or investors. One survey says millennials eat out five times a week. Others say the opposite.

As with many sectors heavily influenced by technology, the food infrastructure business has no clear direction or bottom line. It is a time of experimentation, placing bets on the roulette wheel and ensuring your business plan has multiple pivot points. The good news for consumers is the number of mealtime options is unlikely to slow down anytime soon. If you have a hankering for Ethiopian food at midnight—it’s likely a click away.

Walmart Believes Its New Freshness Technology Can Reduce Food Waste

 

A crucial area for technology in the food world’s battle against waste zooms in on the ability to track the freshness of produce as it travels from farm to wholesaler to retailer to table. Keeping perishables out of the landfill requires more than a passing squeeze of a tomato or thumping of a watermelon to determine its degree of ripeness. Systems must be able to measure the varying conditions that impact spoilage and apply those standards to everything from apples to zucchini.

Walmart made recent headlines with the announcement of its Eden technology—a suite of apps that can determine a product’s freshness from farm to shelf. Developed via a company-wide hackathon, the algorithm uses FDA standards alongside a baseline of more than 1 million images. While not offering specifics, Walmart says the resulting technology is easy enough to be used by its associates to keep its shelves free of spoilage. Presumably, Eden is best applied as produce leaves its warehouses.  As an example, the company explains that a lot of soon-to-ripen bananas headed for store 500 miles away can be diverted to a closer Walmart thus eliminating potential waste.

Parvez Musani, VP of supply chain technology at Walmart says Eden will help the company reach its goal of removing $2 billion in waste over the next five years. Some 43 distribution centers already have the technology in place and have already saved the Bentonville, Ark.-based company an estimated $86 million.

While Walmart’s approach has a noble goal, an image-based algorithm (as described in the company’s blog) may be open to individual interpretation. One man’s rotten tomato is another’s recipe for gazpacho. Using machine learning suggests that such a system is a continual work in progress as opposed to sensor-based technology which is not only more accurate but more easily accessed by all parties from farm to grocery supercenter.

One such provider of sensor-based freshness information is Altamonte Springs, FL.-based FreshSurety. According to its website, FreshSurety, uses inexpensive, disposable sensors that measure and report temperature, moisture and metabolite data using a proprietary wireless communication system connected to the internet. This information is converted to carton-level product freshness and shelf life assessments essential for effective quality-based purchasing, logistics and merchandising decisions.

FreshSurety is not alone in offering what appears to be a more advanced technological approach to product freshness. Silicon Valley-based Zest Labs offers Zest Fresh, a sensor-based logistics system to measure produce freshness. Zest Fresh assigns each pallet of produce an individual code that marks product type and data related to its exposure to the elements which would impact its spoilage. That information is uploaded to the company’s proprietary cloud where the data can presumably be tracked by anyone in the value chain from farm to distributor.

Zest Labs is basing its revenue on the savings it can offer its customers. CEO Peter Mehring told Fast Company that retailers and farmers pay his company 10% of the value of the waste they avoid by using the Zest Fresh platform. Mehring adds that his company aims to reduce a retailer’s waste by at least 50% with that savings going to his bottom line.

Samsung Adds Food Image Recognition To Bixby Through Calorie Mama API

Search has come a long way since the earliest algorithms deployed by Google, Lycos, and Inktomi. After conquering basic and complex queries, search engines set their sites on images, video, and audio as frontiers that required new ways of looking at metadata to provide consumers with useful results.

Image recognition has been a focus of developers wanting to add value to the basic ability to capture and identify a picture of a peach or a fast food meal at Wendy’s. The key, as exemplified by companies such as Palo Alto-based Azumio, is to link image recognition to valuable datasets. For Azumio’s Calorie Mama AI-powered platform, the company offers an API available for third-party developers as well as a consumer download which allows users to track nutrition intake.

While Azumio faces competition from Google and Pinterest, a new partnership with Samsung may allow the folks behind Calorie Mama to separate itself from the pack. Samsung has announced a working relationship with Azumio to adds its Calorie Mama technology to Bixby, the South Korean giant’s AI personal assistant platform. Calorie Mama will be baked into the new Galaxy S9 and S9+ enabling users to obtain instant nutritional information about the food they eat.

“Our vision for the Calorie Mama API is to provide the best food image recognition technology to our partners,” Tom Xu, co-founder of Azumio said in a press release, “and to simplify nutrition tracking and food discovery for healthy living to their customers.”

While this announcement is a nice to have for Samsung smart device users, the true value goes far beyond the basic ability to count calories and set nutrition goals. Azumio’s work primarily is focused in areas related to health in such areas as diabetes and sleep disorders. The company’s Argus platform offers activity and diet tracking along with a social network focused on health and fitness. Argus powers its suite of applications such as Instant Heart Rate, Sleep Time, Fitness Buddy and Glucose Buddy.  The endgame of connecting food recognition with health-related applications, focusing on those in which diet management is essential, is where the real power lies.

Samsung and Azumio’s combined efforts began in 2013 when the Argus platform was offered in Samsung’s Gear line of devices. Samsung continues to work on its own proprietary health and fitness apps, but those have not been offered to consumers outside of Korea. The value of adding Calorie Mama to Bixby could show great promise. For example, a cook wanting to create a healthy meal could ask Bixby to recommend a substitute for a high-fat ingredient by tapping into its database of image data.

Pinterest—which is preparing for a possible IPO—will undoubtedly rise to the challenge to go beyond its image recognition work with Google (called Lens) which allows users to find recipe pins based on captured pictures. Pinterest recently has hired a new head of computer vision, Chuck Rosenberg, a 14-year Google veteran. Given the primary task of computer vision technology is to analyze images and tie those results to associated data, Pinterest is on an accelerated path in this space. Unlike Samsung, working in a somewhat closed ecosystem, Pinterest will make its application available to all takers.