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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Allen Weiner

France Offers Model On Cutting Food Waste

The idea of not only ending food waste but also putting those goods into the hands of those in need is a great idea on paper. In many cases, however, the devil is in the details of how to get near-expired perishables from there to there.

France has gone beyond the traditional approach in which NGOs and food banks create informal links with local grocery stores, supermarket chains and produce wholesalers. In 2016, the country enacted a law that prohibits grocery stores from throwing away edible food. Essential to implementing that law is Banques Alimentaires a network of food banks that help feed more than 5,000 charities.

“There was one food manufacturer that was not authorized to donate the sandwiches it made for a particular supermarket brand. But now, we get 30,000 sandwiches a month from them — sandwiches that used to be thrown away,” Jacques Bailet, head of Banques Alimentaires told NPR in an interview.

What works in France, though, might be difficult to put in practice in the United States. Or at least so says Jonathan Bloom, the author of American Wasteland. Bloom, a journalist who is an expert in issues related to food waste, believes the current political climate in the U.S., where businesses are seeking less government interference, makes the French law close to a non-starter in a nation where its citizens waste more than 200 billion pounds of food per year.

“The French version is quite socialist, but I would say in a great way because you’re providing a way where they [supermarkets] have to do the beneficial things not only for the environment but from an ethical standpoint of getting healthy food to those who need it and minimizing some of the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that come when food ends up in a landfill,” Bloom told NPR.

Members of the French Parliament that drafted the law believe cutting down, if not eliminating food waste, should be a governmental issue akin to rules such as forcing drivers to wear seatbelts. Connecting grocery stores and supermarkets to those in need has also developed many startups that assist in the logistics of transportation and inventory management.

Close to home, a Canadian startup, Flashfood, has developed an app that allows supermarkets to take photos of perishable items that were headed to the landfill (or worse) and offered those goods to consumers at a discounted rate. Already going strong in Vancouver, B.C., and in selected locations in Ontario, CEO and founder Josh Domingues is proud of the fact Flashfood has diverted over 5,500 meals from landfill and into the homes of happy shoppers.

These actions should make observers of the future of food wonder: how a nation that can create every sort of lab-grown clean meat product and myriad meal kits suited for every taste fail to come up with powerful solutions that could make a dent in our nation’s food waste which is enough to fill the Rose Bowl. Are our priorities slightly out of whack?

What We Can Learn from H-E-B’s Acquisition of Favor Delivery

San Antonio-based H-E-B, the largest grocery chain in Texas with more than 400 stores, has acquired Austin-based Favor Delivery, a service that provides a wide-ranging menu of consumer-facing food delivery services. With so much noise in the grocery/restaurant-to-table market, why is this move such a big deal?

Privately-held H-E-B, which includes upscale Central Market among its brands, is a major player in three of the nation’s 10 largest metro areas—Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Toss in Austin, the current headquarters of rival Whole Foods, and you have a powerhouse whose decisions in all things food have a major impact on more than six million shoppers.

Despite what it says in its PR missives, H-E-B has taken relatively small and deliberate steps into the future with curbside pickup and delivery options with Instacart and Shipt. Favor’s 50,000 contract drivers give the regional grocery giant an army of delivery agents. H-E-B’s COO Martin Otto says his company and Favor have similar working cultures, making the purchase an ideal combo.

“We see a unique opportunity with this partnership to support and accelerate each other’s growth through the sharing of experience, insight, and resources,” Otto said in an announcement.

Here are some interesting takeaways from the H-E-B deal with Favor:

  • Amazon will have its work cut out to be a major player in the fastest-growing state in the nation. Not only does H-E-B have a market share lead over Whole Foods in major Texas cities, but Wal-Mart’s grocery business is stronger than Amazon’s grocery division. Technology alone will not allow the Seattle-based giant to leapfrog two entrenched players.
  • Beyond Amazon/Whole Foods, as H-E-B begins its slow march into the 21st digital century, its new channels to the consumer for groceries and prepared foods will have a chilling effect on domestic and international competitors wanting to enter the Texas market.
  • As far as Instacart goes, with $200 million new cash in its pocket, and a deal with Albertsons, what happens to its existing relationships with H-E-B and Whole Foods (which recently launched its own delivery service)? The smart money says that the San Francisco-based delivery service will look at other opportunities in the value chain beyond groceries. It would make sense for the growing number of ghost kitchens to partner with Instacart as the popular delivery company. This would work to leverage Instacart’s infrastructure in terms of drivers and likely some detailed data on customer behavior.

H-E-B will not be alone as a bellwether for future trends. More attention must be paid to chains such as Wegmans, Publix, and Harris-Teeter. These companies have intimate knowledge of their customer base and brand loyalty. These factors, more than any tech strategy, are the key to future success.

Uber Eats’ Move Adds to a Noisy, Competitive Delivery Market.

The food delivery business has suddenly shifted from being about consumer convenience to a battle of market competitors more focused on profits and flattening the value chain than providing options. An industry focused on giving hungry consumers the opportunity to select from a wide array of dinner-time choices has morphed into pizza delivery 2.0 and that’s, at best, boring. Simply said, the home chef faces a lot of cacophonies when it comes to grocery delivery, meal kits, and restaurant fare (home and away).

Profits are a good thing, especially for public companies or ones with an eye on expansion or acquisition. However, what we find in recent announcements is a change from the initial concept of turning a fleet of rideshare drivers into a virtual extension of a city’s best restaurants.  When Uber Eats acquires Ando, a “dark kitchen,” its fare likely will become the focus of its New York delivery options.  The king of all rideshare firms thus sends a signal to its customers that Ando’s bibimbap and fried chicken will be tonight’s special every night. The food delivery business is heading for a 180-turn, moving from delighted consumers (as we see in the GrubHub ads) to one of supplier vertical consolidation.

“We are committed to investing in technology that helps consumers, delivery and restaurant partners alike,” Jason Droege, Head of Uber Everything told TechCrunch. “Ando’s insights will help our restaurant technology team as we work with our restaurant partners to grow their business.”

None of this is to say that Uber Eats is wrong or alone in seeking ways to increase its bottom line. Others such as Deliveroo and Amazon are connecting pieces of the value chain—that is owning the food prep and delivery segments of the business—to streamline its operations. And, from a business 101 perspective, it is a sound idea if the founding principle of consumer choice remains intact.

Even with innovations, such as robotic delivery and ordering food based on your specific health DNA, this is an industry headed for a major reckoning. Why? Here are a few good reasons:

  1. The barrier to entry is low. Take Evansville 2 Go for example. A local man in Evansville, Ill., has built a food delivery service for his local community by hiring some drivers and connecting with a handful of local restaurants. There are many similar examples taking place around the country where entrepreneurs in markets too small for the “big guys” to tackle are building simple versions of GrubHub, Uber Eats, and Amazon Restaurant delivery. As pizza parlors as far back as the ‘60s (that’s the 1960s) knew, all it takes to deliver a fresh pie is a telephone and a trustworthy person with a car.
  2. Dark kitchens are a weak link in the restaurant delivery business. When a customer looks at his or her menu options for food, what is the more likely choice—an establishment at which they have had a memorable meal or one that may be run by a celebrity chef but lacks the cache of a local favorite?
  3. Competition for the consumer dollar. The average American dines out a bit more than four days a week. That leaves three days for restaurant delivery and home meal kits (of all varieties) to battle it out for the consumer dollar. Given dining out often costs more than these two alternatives, there’s not a lot left in an individual or family’s food budget after those four out-of-home meals.

For those who believe that millennials will drive the restaurants delivery business, here’s some interesting news from economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Millennials are losing their taste for restaurant dining.  Spending at restaurants went down more than seven percent since 2015.

“It stands out as a bit unusual how soft restaurant spending has been considering where we are in the business cycle,” Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at BofA Merrill Lynch told CNBC. “The consumer should be spending more on a broad range of items. But we’ve seen restaurants slowing more akin to a recessionary environment.”

Take heart—pizza delivery isn’t going anywhere.

No End in Sight for Innovation in the World of Food Delivery

Commerce’s path, from mall-based retail foot traffic to the ‘90s bloated iteration of digital shopping leading to Amazon’s far-reaching store-to-door tentacles, may appear to have taken a circumventurous route. The exact opposite is true. From the early days of the web to today’s AI/VR-powered shop-on-voice command, the value proposition remains the same—convenience.

The major change from clunky versions of e/t/m/d-commerce (electronic, TV, mobile, digital) to a more transparent experience results from a focus on partnerships and a more realistic view of the value chain. Amazon, as an example, understands that it cannot alone drive the future of purchasing goods and services; the Seattle-based giant has amassed an array of teammates from grocery chains to CPG manufacturers to department stores with Alexa-powered kiosks. There was a time, not so long ago, when Apple, Amazon, Google, and Apple wanted to own every building block from manufacturing to consumer products. Time and a lot of failed experiments had led to more realistic aspirations in the world of commerce.

Grocery delivery is a case in point. Early 2018 points to some dramatic changes in the world of home shopping. Players in the space—big and small–are breaking the meal journey down to micro inflection points to hit consumers when they are taking actions (or inactions, as the case may be) where ordering fresh food and pantry staples are likely to take place. For example, the term “shoppable recipes” is especially buzzy as it refers to turning the passive act of reading a recipe into an actionable event. Companies such as Chicory, Fexy, Serious Eats, Amazon, and Kroeger are using technology to allow home cooks to order ingredients in real time for a given recipe while scanning the step-by-step process of making tonight’s dinner.

Another key inflection point in the meal journey is the delivery process with a focus on the delivery of groceries (and other items) to residences when no one is home to accept packages. Amazon’s 2017 announcement of its Amazon Key at-home product/service raised significant skepticism but “homeowner not present” delivery services are gaining traction in the new year. With an understanding that in successful partnerships each party does what it’s best at, lock maker August (owner by lock giant Assa Alboy) is expanding its August Access delivery service which allows delivery to homes where the owner is away. Teaming up with Deliv, a UPS-backed delivery startup, grocers (using the Deliv Fresh service) and other retailers can securely open the front door of a home to drop off a package.

“Through this unique partnership, we are bringing a bit of magic to the shopping experience,” said Daphne Carmeli, CEO of Deliv, in a statement. “Deliv provides the last mile fulfillment solution for a broad retailer network across the country while August Home supplies the technology to take the final step into the home for a totally seamless experience, start to finish.”

Other early stage opportunities in the meal journey take a series of inflection points and bundle them into a single solution. Tovala, a Kickstarter-funded manufacturer of smart ovens, tackles the chore of meal prep and the hassle of buying/ordering groceries by selling prepackaged meals that are geared to work with their appliances. A frozen meal’s barcode is scanned into the Tovala and the oven takes care of the rest.

All of these developments take us back to the value proposition of convenience as it relates to the meal journey. Consumers want to save time and have the ingredients for tonight’s dinner (or the dinner itself) magically arrive at the door (even when they are not home) but at what cost.  And who bears that cost? And how much are today’s busy millennials willing to spend? In the ultra-competitive grocery world Albertson, Kroger, Whole Foods/Amazon, Sprouts, and others may be willing to absorb the cost of home delivery just to win market share. On the other hand, if you buy a meal kit or want a hot meal delivered to your door, the cost hits your pocketbook with a premium for the convenience. For consumers engaged in the ever-changing meal journey, the cost-convenience continuum is at its earliest stage. Like the halcyon days of premium channels on cable, subscribers loaded up on Showtime, HBO, Cinemax and a few others only to be hit with the budget–blowing cable bills. In a world where the click of a mouse or a few kind words to Alexa can bring Peking Duck to your front door, or your 10th week of a meal kit service, everything is fine and dandy until your credit card bill arrives.

Yes, life sure was convenient—but at what cost?

Myxx Brings Shoppable Recipes To Krogers

Why bother knocking on your neighbor’s door to borrow that cup of sugar you need to complete your batch of chocolate chip cookies when you can order sweetener, flour or even tasty morsels of cocoa right from your recipe. That is a) if your recipe is online and b) if you are taking advantage of a new technological wonder, shoppable recipes.

A shoppable recipe allows the home cook to click on a “buy” button alongside the list of ingredients in each recipe and add those to a shopping cart. Depending on the vendor and its partners, that list can be sent to a virtual grocery cart which is then sent to a supermarket where the items are assembled and delivered to the consumer. In cases where the store is part of the August Access program, those goods can be placed inside your home if you are not around.

As with any emerging application of technology, the shoppable recipe concept is being approached from many different angles. As you might expect, Amazon has been on this idea for several years, filing a patent in 2015 for “automatic item selection and ordering based on recipe.” In Nov. 2017, the Seattle retailing giant teamed up with Fexy, a content aggregator which has Roadfood and Serious Eats under its umbrella. Weeks later, Amazon partnered up with Allrecipes to integrate Amazon Fresh shopping into some of the online recipe goliath’s recipes.

This brings us to Myxx, which uses a proprietary algorithm to convert individual recipes into shopping lists that can be taken to a partner store and morph into an aisle-by-aisle selection guide, a deliverable bundle of goods or a curbside pickup box (or bag as the case may be). CPG companies and retailers can promote specific products (no doubt for some promotional fee) with a key differentiator for Myxx being its ability to adapt its more than 50,000 recipes to suit special dietary needs such as gluten-free, low carb, vegetarian, paleo, and low sugar. The application also can filter out recipes that include soy, peanut or lactose.

Last week Myxx announced a partnership with Kroger’s to bring their shoppable recipe platform to Kroger’s and Harris Teeter stores (at the time of announcement, the company indicated their platform is available today to Krogers customers in 17 states with more to follow). The company has a clear roadmap for its future and one area it knows is should approach is that of coupons. “Coupons are not currently a feature in the Myxx platform, however, we are developing the ability to offer promotional discounts to users based on certain brand selection and users’ actions,” a company spokesperson said. “This is exciting for both brands and retailers as it provides a new incentive channel based on user engagement but also helps minimize the effort involved in the coupon redemption process.  Today, print and digital coupons can be used at the point of transaction – either at the store or via their loyalty card.”

It will take a powerful vision and understanding of consumer behavior to win in this shoppable recipe game, especially with Amazon holding a powerful position. In addition to Myxx, others such as Chicory, Whisk, and Avocando all are looking to grab market share in this nascent space.

The link between content and commerce is a holy grail that has been elusive. T-commerce, that is buying products that are shown during an on-air TV show, has yet to take off (the technology is tough) and scanning embedded ads in print have had limited success. Capturing the hot lead is a mantra taught to salespeople the first day on the job; how it translates to big success in the tech world remains a mystery.

Peapod Hopes Its Chat-to-Cart Feature Boosts Its Bottom Line

The grocery delivery space is moving far beyond the task of bringing fresh kale and imported cheese to your doorstep. Merely offering the luxury and convenience of avoiding crowded grocery aisles is no longer enough to woo time-starved consumer, who now has myriad choices when it comes to selecting a personal supermarket shopper.

If it’s tech inspired bells and whistles you want, Peapod, a 28-year veteran of the grocery delivery wars, is attempting to boost its sagging growth by adding a new text-to-order tool. Dubbed “Chat to Cart,” consumers can create lists on their phone via text (not to mention voice-to-text or emojis) and send them over to Peapod for fulfillment. The new feature was developed by Chicago-based online shopping tools developer, StorePower.

To use the service, customers text the toll-free number, 1-833-TXT-PPOD and provide a list of products by name or by emoji symbol. The service includes an option to share the shopping list among family members who can add products to the order. After an initial order, or once the number is saved, orders can be placed via Siri or Google Assistant.

“At Peapod, we have always been committed to being the ultimate convenience for our customers,” said Cat De Merode, Peapod’s VP of product in a company release. “The Chat-to-Cart platform was designed for the busy shopper that relies on their mobile device whether at home or on the go. Now, instead of texting a family member to pick up an extra gallon of milk, you can text Peapod and let us do the work. The texting functionality complements the Peapod mobile app and desktop website for one seamless ordering process.”

While digitally based grocery shopping makes up only 3.8% of the grocery retailing market, researchers see a bright future.  Packaged Facts, based in Rockville, MD., believes online grocery sales will go grow from a CAGR of more than 27% over the next five years. By 2022, the company says online sales of grocery items may be worth as much as $42 billion annually.

Peapod’s owner, Dutch-based Ahold Delhaize would like the digital delivery service to contribute more to its overall bottom line. In its most recent quarter, Ahold’s ecommerce revenue was up 20% but Peapod grew in the single digits. Company officials claim its various supermarkets, such as Food Lion, have not successfully integrated Peapod into their services.

Putting aside specialty delivery services such as Farmstead, players in the online grocery/delivery market are running low on competitive factors. Advances such as Walmart’s partnering with Google Home to gain access to their voice-enabled assistants does precious little to create any distinction among the Peapods, Instacarts and Shipts of the world (not to mention store-branded delivery services). Blurring the lines even further is the growing overlap between grocery and restaurant delivery with such all-purpose digitally powered, food-to-home services as Postmates promising speedy grocery services in New York.

That $42 billion revenue figure for grocery delivery sounds like a hefty prize, but the question remains—how much will go to the one-two punch of Amazon/Whole Foods and how many remaining companies will be spending millions to grab minor slivers of market share.

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When Is a Food Truck Not a Food Truck—But Something Better?

 ClusterTruck offers a visionary approach to food delivery, despite its somewhat misleading name. Located at the intersection of virtual restaurants, just-in-time ordering, home delivery and fleet management, the Indianapolis-based company recently has added Kansas City to its growing roster of markets served.

With ClusterTruck, it’s all about synchronization. Food, from an extensive menu, is prepared in a commissary-like kitchen in each of its now six locations. Orders, via a dedicated app or via the company website, are only offered within zones in each city where meals can be delivered to a customer’s curb within a reasonable time frame to ensure freshness. The twist, compared to other food delivery options, is that an individual order is not started until a driver can be located. For those who live outside a designated zone, a customer can place their food request and meet a driver within the delivery area.

“Having come from a deep technology background, we approached the growing problem of unsatisfied food delivery customers from a software perspective,” ClusterTruck Inc. CEO Chris Baggott, who co-founded digital marketing software company ExactTarget, said in a release. “We believe hungry people should never have to choose between the convenience of fast delivery, the food quality they’d get at a sit-down restaurant and the personality of street food, so we created a service that offers all of the above.”

Essential to ClusterTruck’s success is the specially designed kitchens where the food is prepared. Large digital displays cue chefs when to begin meal preparation, based on not only finding a driver but calculating the time it will take the vehicle to reach the meal prep location. According to company information, Baggott hand-coded the software to ensure accuracy for this crucial step.

Baggott also has his hands in the process far beyond prep and delivery. The ClusterTruck CEO owns a farm where animals used for much of the company’s menu are sourced, in a pasture-raised and antibiotic-free environment. With increasing demand, Baggott is contracting with other farms who are willing to raise their cows and pigs to ClusterTruck’s specifications.

ClusterTruck’s delivery fleet is made up of drivers who also may work for other services such as Uber, Lyft or Postmates. One of the company’s big selling points to recruit new drivers is that ClusterTruck provides only curbside delivery, all of which eliminates the hassle of parking, apartment building codes or elevators. Also, the company says it pays its drivers daily, rather than weekly or monthly, as is common with other food delivery services.

Enjoy the podcast and make sure to subscribe in Apple podcasts if you haven’t already.

“WeWork” for Food Entrepreneurs Gets Financial Shot in the Arm

Budding butchers, bakers, and (edible) candlestick makers have another innovative option to provide the vital tools, training, and resources to facilitate movement from startup home food entrepreneurs to the realization of their goals of commercial success.

New York-based Pilotworks (formerly FoodWorks), billed as a “WeWork for food startups,” has received $13 million in expansion capital from Acre Venture Partners, a fund backed by Campbell’s Soup, along with TechStars, a funding and mentoring program. The money will be used for expansion to markets, such as Chicago and Dallas, along with the development of the necessary properties, culinary infrastructure, and staffing.

A company press release reveals the company was founded in 2016 and has since helped more than 250 food and beverage startups get off the ground. Pilotworks says that more than 70% of the businesses it has worked with are women or minority-owned.

“We’re very excited to add so many great strategic partners and continue our work of empowering anyone to start a food business successfully. We will be adding new units: Newark just opened, and Chicago and Dallas are slated to open in December alongside our existing kitchens in Brooklyn, Portland, and Providence, as well as furthering our presence in New York City. We are also excited to continue expanding our services and offerings across the entire food stack,” said Pilotworks CEO and co-founder Nick Devane.

The company’s website says it offers a full range of services that go beyond a mere stove and fridge. Everything from garbage and linen service, to assistance with branding and web design, is available to its members. Companies such as Aida Eats, Mac & Son, BOONBOX, Dank, and Crown Jewel Beverages are veterans of Pilotworks programs.

While the association with WeWork is fine for general identification purposes, it fails to capture the essence of what makes the boom in community commercial kitchens a hot commodity. Pilotworks enters a crowded space that spans options from highly regarded Food Corridor—a community and network of commercial kitchens that offers similar services to Pilotworks in a more federated manner—to individual shared-use kitchen incubators such as Capital Kitchens in Austin. The website Culinary Incubator offers a database and list of 725 shared-use kitchens in the United States.

What looms as a difference-maker for Pilotworks is its association with Campbell’s Soup. The New Jersey-based food and beverage giant could use this network of startup kitchens to find the next great idea to bring in house and take to the global market. That said, Tyson Foods, General Foods, and others also are operating accelerators with the same endgame in mind.

Worth noting is the startup goldrush led by Pilotworks and other similar endeavors focused on major markets that are either population centers (New York, Dallas, Chicago) or food meccas (Portland, Providence). A tour of any farmers market in smaller cities would prove there are some great food-next ideas worth nurturing outside marquee locations.

Bringing Bean to Bar to the Home Food Factory

“Bean to bar” is among the lesser-known, but still popular, phrases in the foodie lexicon. For most, it’s the equivalent of an exquisite, controlled farm-to-table production process in the chocolate world. In that specific application of the term, it follows the cocoa bean from the farm. The bean starts with drying. After it is shelled, the inside nib is taken to a lab-like kitchen where those inner goodies are mixed with raw cocoa butter and sugar to make sumptuous craft chocolates.

For others, “bean to bar” is a come-hither headline that leads the inquisitive culinary explorer to a class where the hands-on experience of making (and later eating) chocolate is a multi-hour learning session. In such workshops from New York to the southern regions of Peru, the do’s and don’ts of chocolate making are explored, including how to carefully remove the outer part of the cocoa bean and devise the formula/ratio of bean to sugar and cocoa butter to suit individual tastes. Hence, when you see a chocolate bar in your local gourmet shop that says 70%, it means it’s 70% cocoa bean with the remaining 30% made up of sugar and cocoa butter.

In the bean to bar workshop, the class hits the pause button before actual production. The process of making artisan chocolate—be it a small batch for a class of 20 students, or for a large order—is a lengthy one that tempers the ingredients in a melangeur or similar commercial machine. Those in the workshop are given silicone molds, perfectly melted chocolate, and mix-ins to allow each student to create his or her final artistry.

With an emphasis on growing veggies at indoors, brewing your own beer, distilling booze and other home food factories, making your own chocolates appears to be lagging. With shrinking global supply chains, there certainly is a wide range of choices when it comes to cocoa beans, cocoa butter and sugars of every vintage (raw, refined, organic, etc.…) The issue is the lack of popularly-priced home chocolate tempering appliances. Smaller versions of a traditional melangeur run more than $350 with industrial-sized models running well over $1,000.

Following the model of such entrepreneurs as PicoBrew make sense for the home craft chocolate market. Any easy-to-use machine where the ingredients come in “kits” would be an idea for the novice chocolatier. Brands such as Nestle, Hershey, Ghirardelli and others could create kits (bean, cocoa butter, sugar) that carry their signature flavor and communities of chocoholics could share their magic recipes.

The global chocolate market is work more than $98 billion, so there’ s little fear the home market will cause the Belgian economy to suffer. As a foodtech trend, the home chocolate market appears to be a large, untapped opportunity.

Bay Area Start Up Adds Efficiency to the Farm Fresh to Table Movement

Serving the dual purpose of reducing food waste, and providing the Bay Area’s agricultural bounty to more local consumers, Farmstead has accelerated its mission by adding express pickup to its roster of services. Using many micro-hubs in San Francisco and San Mateo, the company is launching its AI-powered service that employs technology to create an efficiency that brings fresh produce closer to more area residents.

“At a time when the tech sector is trying to figure out what the future of grocery shopping will be, we are rolling out a new digital grocer that solves for convenience, food waste, and geographic density,” Farmstead CEO and co-founder Pradeep Elankumaran said in a company press release. “Our suburban customers requested a free rapid pickup option from their nearby Farmstead hub to help them replace time-consuming last-minute trips to the supermarket – we’re thrilled to bring them this carefully designed, compelling new experience.”

Offering farm-fresh goods is a challenge for incumbent grocery delivery services. Selecting the freshest tomatoes or apples is a skill that stretches the limits and skill set of fulfillment services, such as Instacart.  By offering a convenient pick-up service, consumers are able to see what they are getting before adding them to their fridge or pantry.  Using AI, not only is Farmstead able to streamline the farm-to-consumer process, but also can eliminate food waste by normalizing supply and demand.

In his or her initial order, a Farmstead user selects from a list of fresh local produce and groceries. That initial order sets in motion a calculation in which the company can predict what and how much it needs to have on hand, based on availability and individual consumer behavior. Showing its commitment to the community, any leftover food is donated to Feeding America which works with Bay Area shelters.

The company clearly have its sites set far beyond the Bay Area. “The addition of Express Pickup to Farmstead’s fulfillment model makes it possible to launch lightweight, software-defined hubs anywhere in the US to quickly and easily meet consumer demand, fitting in seamlessly with their existing grocery habits,” said Farmstead product manager Jennelle Nystrom.

The new express service has orders ready within 30 minutes. Customers can click on an app when they arrive at their closest micro hub which will indicate they are on site. At that point, an employee will place the custom supply of food in the user’s car. The hub or curbside pickup has become a popular model being deployed or tested by several companies include Amazon and Texas grocery chain, H-E-B.

The first Farmstead order is free with subsequent orders costing $3.99. The company started one year ago, and already has completed more than 17,000 deliveries to Bay Area customers. Farmstead has raised $2.8 million in seed funding from Resolute Ventures, Social Capital, Y Combinator, and Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures.

A London Restaurant Aims to Offer Customers Personalized Menu Options

To even out the odds in the precious restaurant business, one London eatery is capitalizing on the technology of personalization to claim the mantra. “You are what you eat.”

Vita Mojo, with two locations in London, allows customers to match their dietary needs by allowing diners to tweak the menu based on health concerns or specific goals, such as lowering sedum intake. Upon entering Vita Mojo, there are two lines—one for those who have used the restaurant’s website to place their order, and the other for those new to the process. Newcomers can use a bank of iPads to choose from the day’s offerings and make the dishes theirs using a series of sliders that control such things as ingredient quantities and eliminate allergens, such as egg and soy.

But wait, there’s more.

In partnership with DNAFit, a genetic testing company, Vita Mojo is offering a special on a complete DNA profile with DNAFit’s standard fitness and nutrition markers which provides a template for customizes exercise and diet genetics. That information is added to a customer’s profile which allows him or her to get granular in their Vita Mojo food order. For this special offer, where an individual profile is created from a customer’s saliva sample, the standard price of 249 GBP ($325.33) is reduced to 186.75 GBP($244).

Vita Mojo founder Nick Popovici told the Daily Mail, ‘Your DNA influences the macronutrient components of your diet.  Whether you should be eating a high or low-fat diet is all dependent on your genes – as well as what ingredients you should be eating more of less of.  Vita Mojo’s partnership with DNAFit is a global first – we want all our customers to have as much information as possible, so they can eat to achieve their fitness goals or just to live a healthier, happier life.”

Restaurants, along with any company focused on health and wellness, is trying to ride the wave of DNA-based personalization. The reason—big money. A research report from Boston Consulting Group claims that over the next five years, personalization will shift $800 million of revenue to the 15% of companies that get it right.

What makes the Vita Mojo/DNAFit deal so interesting is how the results from the DNA test can be easily added to your dietary profile for the British restaurant. Consumer-oriented DNA tests such as 23andme provide general recommendations, such as whether your genes suggest you avoid red meat or avoid fast food. Actions that need to be taken based on those findings need to be actively pursued by the individual which is far less effective than the Vita Mojo model.

In a recent story in The Spoon, we noted that scientists are working on diets that not only are based on DNA, but how the right food intake can repair damage done to DNA over the course of a lifetime. Part of the process is linked to the use of 3D food printing “to precisely detect what an individual’s body needs and instant ways to fabricate customized food to meet those needs”

How Technology Can Make an Impact in Reducing Food Waste

Whatever the metric, all corners of the culinary world, and anyone interested in sustainability and helping one’s fellow man or woman agree—there is too much food waste while people still go hungry. Numbers don’t lie.

Each year more than $218 billion, or 1.3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, is spent on food that’s never eaten, according to a 2016 report from ReFED, a group working to end food waste in the U.S. And, while that data can seem overwhelming and somewhat paralyzing, in recent years there have been many technological and charitable efforts to end the plague of hunger. Technology solutions focus on creating efficiencies in the supply chain which can be easily applied as part of supplier or commercial food purveyor’s daily operation.

Winnow, for example, is a UK startup that provides commercial operators the Winnow Waste monitor which consists of a scale and application. The goal is to track waste by weighing food headed for the trash heap and adding that data to the cloud. Over time, the system’s algorithm provides analysis to allow an establishment to order more efficiently.  Winnow founder Mark Zornes told TechCrunch that he believes food waste makes up between five and 20 percent of all purchased inventory. Once implemented, the company CEO adds that the waster monitor can reduce food purchasing costs from between three and eight percent.

Working at the farm level, California-based AgTools uses IBM Watson technology to supply farmers with a plethora of data such as weather reports, commodity pricing, and consumer trends. Armed with such information, farmers can focus on crops that have market demand and understand which channels to the consumer will lead to the most profits. Predicting market trends will cut down on waste by tackling surpluses at the beginning of the value chain.

“Large corporations supply to the retailers and control the data back and forth,” Martha Montoya, chief executive officer and founder of AgTools LLC told the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. “Now the growers and the retailers are going to be able to have the same data.”

And then there are companies tackling the issue of food waste by harvesting byproducts from food production and transforming material headed for the landfill into fresh produce or consumer edibles. Known as upcycling, ReGrained, based in San Francisco, gathers grain from breweries and turns it healthy snacks. Following a similar path, Brooklyn-based RISE Products gathers unspent barley from local brewers and sells it to bakers in the area for use in their baked goods. A staple at local markets, Joe’s Organics in Austin, takes waste headed for the landfill, composts it and then uses the resulting matter to grow spouts and microgreens.

Using technology in the form of social media as a megaphone to volunteers, donors and those in need, organizations such as Feeding the 5000 work with local non-profits to show how food headed for the landfill can be repurposed for meals to feed the hungry. In Austin, for example, working with two local chefs, everything from pasta to poultry that was headed for the garbage was gathered from local grocery stores, restaurants and food manufacturers and cleverly converted to a hearty chicken stew and vegetarian pasta salad. Set up on the Texas State Capital Lawn, anyone hungry was invited to grab a bowl and dig in and illustrate live the phrase “waste not, want not.”