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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Ashlen Wilder

Sausage Made from Jackfruit? It’s Delicious

Hailing from Asia, jackfruit is the largest tree fruit globally and is often likened to the flavor of Juicy Fruit gum. This massive spiky fruit seems like an unlikely fit as an ingredient in the plant-based space, but unripe jackfruit has a neutral flavor and a texture similar to shredded pork or chicken.

One company that makes plant-based meat alternatives using jackfruit is Boulder, Colorado-based Jack & Annie’s. Jackfruit serves as the main ingredient for its extensive portfolio of plant-based alternatives, ranging from meatballs to shredded pork.

Jack & Annie recently sent me samples of its plant-based maple breakfast sausages, savory breakfast sausages, and chicken nuggets to taste test.

I first tried the maple breakfast sausage and savory breakfast sausage, both of which are made from a base of jackfruit, water, soy flour, and canola oil. Using my cast iron pan, I cooked both types of sausages in a small amount of oil for about 8 minutes.

Photo of the jackfruit-based chicken nugget (left), savory sausage breakfast patty (right), and maple breakfast sausage link (top)

So how’d they taste? Both alternative sausages were the right amount of oily, and had a great, chewy texture like a animal-based breakfast sausage. The level of seasoning in each sausage was phenomenal, and my entire (small) house smelled liked maple syrup after cooking.

The chicken nuggets, made from a base of jackfruit, water, wheat flour, and soy flour, were next. I cooked them in my air fryer for about 8 minutes and plated them.

The verdict? Like the sausages, the texture was spot on. However, I felt like the nuggets lacked seasoning (at least compared to the sausages) and the breading was a bit thin. There are a lot of plant-based chicken nuggets on the market now, so it’s challenging to say which is the best (I personally really like Nowaday’s nuggets).

Pea protein, soy, fungi, and wheat are some of the most commonly used ingredients used to create plant-based meat alternatives. These ingredients are lauded for their affordability, high protein content, and ability to mimic the texture of different animal proteins. Although jackfruit is affordable and has a great natural texture, one downside to it is that it’s protein content is not as high as other ingredients. However, it does offer potassium and vitamin B.

A few other companies in the plant-based space besides Jack & Annie’s are using jackfruit as a base ingredient. Last year, Singapore-based Karana raised $1.7 million to develop plant-based pork made from the fruit. Upton’s Naturals offers a few different flavors of seasoned, ready-to-cook shredded jackfruit, and The Very Good Butchers produce a taco stuffing.

Overall, I found Jack & Annie’s products to be great alternatives. The company’s products range from $4.99-$6.50, and can be found in stores like Sprouts. Target, Wegmans, and Meijer.

Alt. Protein Round-Up: Tofurky’s Algae-Based Products and Animal-Free Chicken Fat

In this week’s alternative protein round-up, we have news on MeaTech’s cell-based chicken fat, Impossible Pork, the ProVeg Incubator, Tofurky’s partnership with Triton Algae, and Unicorn Biotechnologies.

MeaTech is now producing animal-free chicken fat

In the race to produce real animal fat outside of the animal, Israel-based MeaTech has hit a milestone: The start-up shared that it is now capable of producing over 700 grams of cell-based chicken fat in a single production run. MeaTech acquired Belgium start-up Peace of Meat last year, and is using its platform to produce the cell-based fat. The fat product can be used to create realistic marbling in cell-based meat or even used to create a plant-based hybrid product.

Impossible Foods is bringing its alt. pork product to foodservice

Impossible Pork will soon be found in foodservice locations in the U.S., Singapore, and Hong Kong. As of this week, David Chang’s New York restaurant Momofuku Ssam Bar began serving the alternative pork product in one of its dishes. Impossible Pork is set to launch in 100 plus restaurants in Hong Kong starting October 4th, and in Singapore sometime before the end of this year.

Proveg Incubator announces eight new start-ups in cohort

Berlin-based ProVeg Incubator just kicked off its latest accelerator program on September 20. Through the incubator, the start-ups have access to one-on-one mentoring, ProVeg’s network, and up to €250,000 in funding. This food-tech focused cohort contains eight start-ups from around the world, including:

  • Altein Ingredients (India) – mung bean protein
  • Alt Foods (India) – Plant-based milk made from grains and sprouted millet
  • Brain Foods (Bulgaria) – Plant-based snacks
  • Cultivated Biosciences (Netherlands) – uses fermentation to make a fat ingredient from yeast
  • Genesea (Israel) – B2B food-ingredient company that uses macroalgae
  • Meat Future (Estonia) – mycoprotein chicken and fish
  • Plant-based Japan (Japan)
  • ProProtein (Estonia) – uses precision fermentation to create dairy proteins

Tofurky partners with Triton Algae for future alt protein products

Plant-based meat brand Tofurky announced that it has partnered with algae producer Triton Algae Innovations to develop a new line of plant-based alternatives. The products will be crafted using Triton’s “essential red” algae, which contains protein, iron, vitamin A, and more. The algae, which is normally green, is grown with UV light which causes it to turn red and produce heme. It was not disclosed what exactly the new product will be, but it is set to launch in the first quarter of 2022.

Unicorn Biotechnologies Is Making Purpose-Built Bioreactors for Cell-Based Meat Production

According to Jack Reid, the CEO a new Cambridge-based startup called Unicorn Biotechnologies, companies trying to make meat without the animal today are mostly using large metal vats built for making something other than meat. “Existing bioreactor systems haven’t been and weren’t developed specifically for the cell ag industry,” said Reid. Read The Spoon’s story about how Unicorn is working to build purpose-built bioreactors for cell-based meat here.

AeroFarms is Supplying Goose Island UK With Hydroponic Hops

Goose Island UK has collaborated with indoor vertical farming company AeroFarms to craft Hail Hydro’s beer, a brew made with hops grown hydroponically in AeroFarms’ 100,000 square-foot global headquarters in Newark, New Jersey.

The new hazy session IPA joins Goose Island’s Impossible IPA series, a collection of beers using new recipes, techniques, and hops. Those looking to learn more about the new beer can scan a QR code on the can to read about AeroFarm’s hops and take a virtual tour of its farm.

The hydroponic hops plants were grown without soil and submerged in AeroFarms’ patented growth medium and fed nutrient-rich water. Because this method is unaffected by changes in the weather, soil conditions, and any other environmental factors that come with crop farming, AeroFarms can grow and harvest these Cascade hops year-round.

As fluctuating temperatures, droughts, and flooding impact crop yields more each year, expect to see more indoor farming in the craft beer industry and beyond. The industry took off in 2020, as companies like Freight Farms, Elevate Farms, Plenty, and BrightFarms raised large funding rounds and broke ground on major expansions. While these companies have historically grown leafy greens and herbs, some are beginning to branch out to produce crops like strawberries, tomatoes, and cucumbers. AeroFarms grows over 550 varieties of plants, including leafy greens, hops, berries, and tomatoes (and how hops).

The AeroFarms and Goose Island collaboration beer is currently available on the Goose Island UK website.

Deane Falcone of Crop One Discusses How Indoor Farming Reduces Food Waste

When The Spoon last wrote about Crop One in 2018, the company had just announced that they were building the largest indoor hydroponic farm in the world. The farm, based in Dubai, is set to be 300,000 square feet, three stories high, and capable of producing up to 6,000 pounds of food a day.

This week, I spoke with Deane Falcone, the CSO of Crop One, to catch up on how things are going. He said Dubai is set to open sometime early next year in 2022. Crop One has been steadily growing its team during the past few years and brought on a new CEO, Craig Ratajczyk.

In our conversation, Falcone explained to me how Crop One’s protocol and technology produce extremely clean plants that result in very little waste. Here is a transcript of part of our conversation:

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ashlen: Can you discuss how indoor crop production reduces food waste?

Deane: Sure. You know, there are numerous metrics for just indoor production, but I’ll focus on things that are I think, unique to us at Crop One. So the first thing is that it’s going back to that plant first concept. What we’re really trying to do at the end of the day is grow a very, very high-quality plant. When you grow high-quality plants, I mean all the leaves that I get on the plants are on a, you know, spinach or kale or lettuce, you want all those leaves to be high quality. And so that’s what we really aim for. So that’s the beginning of the process. 

In other words, there’s not a leaf or there are far, far fewer leaves that might be discarded, because they’re not at the right development stage. They might have some yellowing or something like that. And so all the systems contribute to that high quality. So at the very beginning that of the process, what you’re wasting, so to speak, is reduced. So that’s an important concept to keep in mind. 

The other really important concept is the cleanliness factor. So we talk about this a lot, you know, we grow in sealed rooms, it’s filtered air, grown on purified water, we have pretty elaborate water purification systems. And so what that gives us is a plant that’s very, very clean. And you may or may not know from previous discussions with us, but no one touches the plants. If they are touched by hand when they’re transplanted or they’re harvested, it’s people being wound up wearing gloves, so only a gloved hand touches the plant. Not even water touches the surface of the plant that you eat. So I’m going into that because that results in again, a clean environment, filtered air, etc, etc. 

That gives us what we refer to as a very low microbial load on the surface of plant that has very little fungi and bacteria on the surface and plants, the surface of leaves. But we’ve had this tested, we set up the labs and stuff like that. And so the reason why that’s important is that these are not disease-causing pathogenic microbes but it turns out that when you as soon as you harvest the plant, as soon as you harvest that leaf, the fungi and bacteria, which again is a natural part of the environment, that’s what causes the breakdown of food, so we start seeing food decay is because of these.

The presence of fungal spores and whatnot that that break down the product. And so that’s a really big determinant as to the shelf life. So our shelf life is it’s at least three weeks the refrigerator So it is largely because of that. Now of course, it’s the freshness aspect that is, apart from getting close to a population center so that the delivery to the final consumer is very short. But it’s very fresh, but really the thing that gives us that long shelf life is the cleanliness of the product. Again, it just stays in very good shape over a long period of time.

The packing occurs in a cold room onsight so the delivery time to the cold room as you know, is a few minutes away right in the same building, that it’s packed. It’s been kept in refrigerated temperatures the whole time. 

So there’s really no waste except for the occasional you know, there might be a piece of stem or something that we don’t want in the product and so that simply won’t be passed. For all of those reasons the food waste is really, really low. Again it starts on “the field”, that is in the growth rooms. The plants are very high quality so there’s little waste there. A little sorting waste, and then it stays low throughout the entire process.

This is a really important issue as I’m sure you know, because the statistic I’ve quoted for years now is ⅓ or about 33% of all food produced is wasted, particularly agricultural crops. Just a few days ago in fact, I read another article that it can go as high as 40%. So 33 to 40% of food produced is wasted which is astonishingly high. 

Ashlen: Thank you for breaking all of that down. You might have mentioned this already, but I’m guessing seeing everything is pesticide-free as well?

Deane: Absolutely. And just so you know, our new CEO is always asking why do we only say pesticide-free? What about herbicides? What about the fungicides? He’s an ag person by the way. He comes from the ag approach. He has a very good perspective on what really has gone on for outdoor agriculture. So nothing touches those leaves and nothing is in the water either as far as chemicals, only mineral nutrients to the plants.

Ashlen: Have you ever had a problem in the past with pests entering the facilities or is that pretty easy to manage on your end?

Deane: Yes. So we’ve been in operation for over six years now, What I mean by the operation is the whole process of growing the plants harvesting, packing, and selling. The honest truth is you have to have good protocols so everything’s kind of double door. And we’re actually in a warehouse. So insects can get into the warehouse. If you aren’t careful with the double door system, that is. Don’t open the inner door when the outer doors are open, it’s really as simple as that. If you don’t adhere to that pretty soon you can get in second position. And exactly as you say, you know, without the use of pesticide that’s a lot of nice material for the insects to take. So they’ll take it over pretty rapidly but I have to say in the last, maybe pushing four years, but certainly the last three and a half years, we have not had a single insect infestation. It’s really, you know, well-trained people. People put their gloves on, we clean the shoes. The insects by the way are oftentimes almost microscopic, they’re very, small and so they can adhere to your clothes. And they just like to eat plants. It’s just very common and so we really have to keep an eye on that. But again the last three to four years, we haven’t had any insect outbreaks. So that’s literally the main thing keeping those doors shut.

Ashlen: Can you speak about the nutrition component of food that’s been grown outdoors versus something that would be grown indoors? 

Deane: So this is a huge interest to us. We’ve evaluated, everything we grow. The nutrition is at least as good, as what we’re trying to see is where we can make it better. And so, there might be ways of just, for example, manipulating what’s the mineral nutrient to the water. So for example, plants need a fair amount of calcium. How much calcium is actually taken up in a queue. related to these, and so we’re really starting to look at that. To see if we can enhance it because the biggest kind of change in perspective indoor growth is that everything is controlled automatically. It’s everything that’s dissolved in the water. 

So for example iron, in traditional agriculture, all those components are in the fertilizer or in the soil. In our case, we add them, right so they’re adding very precise levels. And of course, you could add to much, which you don’t want to have, you could have negative plant growth if you go too high with certain levels of other trace minerals. Such as copper; plants require a little bit of copper. Of course, they require a little bit of iron. You can’t go too high in those, and so on. But others like potassium and calcium, for certain species, we can actually increase their abundance of leaves by simply increasing their level in the water. So there’s there’s a lot of opportunities there we’re just at the beginning of increased nutritional content.

So if you think about outdoor grows, it turns out that the metabolites, the mineral nutrients, the vitamins that plants produce, and plants are great at producing an abundance of them. You know, they’re loaded. Almost all breeding plants are loaded with vitamin C, for example. The fact of the matter is those levels. Those levels oscillate very widely outdoors because it’s influenced by the environment. If you have a couple of days of heavy rain or a period of drought, warm days, all that kind of variability, that results in variability of this kind of nutritional aspects of vitamins and minerals and nutrients.

We can actually start to think about saying, oh we have Spinach or whatever leafy green that has x amount of a vitamin or X amount of iron, calcium, or potassium, that sort of thing. So that’s a pretty exciting thing, isn’t it? It’s something that you really can’t say with outdoor growth because again, the environments always changing. At least metabolites change pretty widely in those conditions.

Ashlen: Do you see indoor hydroponic farming as part of the future of food?

Deane: Absolutely. It’s absolutely part of the future. Yes. That I can expand on that if you wish. The first major thing that the industry has to do including us is scaling. And that’s exactly what our farms will show. It is a pretty large operation and produces quite a significant output of the crop. So that actually hasn’t been done to appreciable levels yet and in truth, completely controlled indoor farms, there’s plenty of greenhouses out there that are getting quite massive in producing a lot but they just don’t have that level of precise control nor do they have the density that indoor farming can provide. 

Stacked shelves, vertically stacked shelves. They give you a very high output and we’re not the only company doing that of course. Once that becomes established, then it’s just a matter of time for these things to propagate. There’s a lot of companies jumping into the industry because they see the value, right? It’s pretty obvious now.

Our product is particularly clean, we work really hard to use highly purified water to grow the plants and all that sort of thing. And we really see the advantages, as I mentioned before on shelf life, things like that. So it’s really only the beginning. The honest truth is we didn’t know that the shelf life would be so extended just by making a clean product. So as these kinds of realizations come forth, you can really see the industry expanding because it’s going to be a very viable way of providing food in a reliable and continuous way.

Ashlen: Those are all the questions I have for now. Unless there’s anything else you want to share.

Deane: The only other thing to bring up I guess is very important. Everyone knows about the water use efficiency that indoor ag provides. If you look at the West Coast of the US, we’re seeing the beginnings of real severe shortages of water. As I’m sure you know, most freshwater is actually used for irrigation with agricultural crops. So we’re at the earliest stages in this industry and then in this way of growing food, but it’s important because unfortunately, climate change is real and climate change is here. It’s good that we have these alternative means to at least get the maximum water use efficiency that’s possible, and that’s pretty much going to be true for most indoor farms. Mostly, in our case, all the water that you use in the system goes through the plant. It’s transpired through the plant so very little is wasted in that sense.

Ashlen: Thank you for bringing that up, that’s really important. Great. Thank you for taking the time to speak.

Alfred’s FoodTech Joins Growing Field of Companies Vying to Create Whole Cut Meat Alternatives

Until recently, most plant-based meat products have come in ground or minced form, such as crumbles or patties. But lately, there has been a drive to create “whole cut” meat analogs that can mimic the tissue and muscle structure of animal proteins like a steak or chicken breast.

One of the latest entrants to the whole cut race is Israel-based Alfred’s FoodTech. Formed earlier this year, the company recently unveiled its platform to make plant-based whole cut alternatives, which it claims will “be able to build continuous tissue-like structures and can work with other existing technologies.”

In its announcement, Alfred’s said it had created prototypes of alternative chicken nuggets and deli meat. Two of the main ingredients in the products are pea protein and canola oil, and the company intends to stick with simple ingredients like these while creating products with whole cut texturization.

Alfred’s plans to be a supplier for food companies, meat producers, and cultured meat companies looking to add alternative protein analogs to their portfolios. The company claims it will be able to create custom compositions and can even work with cell-based ingredients.

Alfred’s FoodTech joins a market that is filling up fast with companies looking to create whole-cut products. Better Meat Co, Green Rebel, and Meati have developed whole cut steaks made from mushrooms or mycelium. Earlier this year, AtLast Food Co raised $40 million to create whole cut meat alternative analogs. Others, like Redefine Meat and Novameat, are developing technologies for 3D printing whole-cut plant-based steaks.

To date, Alfred’s FoodTech has raised $1.3 million in seed funding, and the company is currently raising a Series A round. The company was selected as one of the 12 finalists for The Good Food Institute’s annual conference and will present its tech in the pitch slam on September 23, 2021. The company has plans to open a low-volume production site to scale its production.

Update: The article previously referred to the company as “Alfred FoodTech”. The company is called Alfred’s FoodTech, and the article has been updated to reflect this.

Alt Protein Round-Up: Cultured Seafood in Europe, Precision Fermentation in Silicon Valley

The Good Food Institute released a new report that shared in the first half of 2021, alternative seafood companies raised a total of $116 million in funding, compared to $26 million in all of 2020. In contrast, last year saw a 23 percent increase in U.S.-based alternative seafood sales.

In addition to this report on alternative seafood, we’ve got news on BlueNalu, Meatable, Change Foods, Enough, and a new cultured food hub in Switzerland.

BlueNalu to bring cultured seafood to Europe

BlueNalu announced this week that it would explore the distribution of its cell-based seafood throughout Europe in partnership with frozen food company Nomad Foods. According to the two companies, this is the first agreement between a cultured protein company and a consumer packaged goods company in Europe. BlueNalu did not disclose what seafood analogs it would supply or when distribution throughout Europe would occur.

Givaudan, Bühler, and Migros form the Cultured Food Innovation Hub

Givaudan, Bühler, and Migros, three Swedish corporations, have partnered to open the Cultured Food Innovation Hub outside of Zürich, Switzerland. The hub, which is set to open in 2022, will assist existing start-ups in the precision fermentation and cultured meat and seafood space to develop and commercialize their products. The facilities will include biofermentation capabilities and a product development lab.

Meatable enters joint development agreement with DSM

Dutch cultured meat start-up Meatable and Royal DSM, a nutrition tech company, will work together to reduce the cost of growth medium used in cultivated meat production. Growth medium is a liquid that contains proteins, growth factors, and vitamins that cells need to grow, and it is often the priciest component used in creating cultivated meat. In addition to working on growth medium, the companies “will focus on the development of meat-like taste and texture of the final product, which are important factors influencing the purchase decision of consumers.”

Change Foods open up R&D facilities in Silicon Valley

Precision fermentation start-up Change Foods announced it has opened up new R&D facilities in life science incubator BioCube. BioCube has established itself as one of the longest-running and well-respected incubators in Silicon Valley, with alumni such as Impossible Foods. Change Foods has set its sights on creating vegan cheese with the same stretch and melt of real cheese as its first product, and will use its new facilities at BioCube to accelerate those efforts.

Enough begins construction on world’s largest alt. protein facility

Scotland-based Enough (previously 3F Bio) produces an alternative protein made from mycelium called ABUNDA. The company just started construction on a 15,000 square meter factory in the Netherlands, which according to the press release, is set to be the largest factory for alternative protein in the world. The production facility will be able to produce approxiameltely 10,000 metric tons of mycoprotein per year.

Napa Valley Winery Uses Cisco’s IoT Sensors in Vineyard

Bouchaine Vineyards, based in Napa Valley, California, shared this week that it has integrated Cisco Systems‘ sensor technology throughout its 100 acres of vineyards.

The Cisco Industrial Asset Vision sensors are installed in multiple areas throughout the vineyard to gather data points, including humidity, water availability, temperature, and light. Large vineyards are broken up into “blocks” separated based on topographic features or soil type. The sensors track data block-by-block and upload it to a real-time dashboard.

Each block might receive a different amount of light, and Cisco’s technology can determine how much light is hitting each grapevine in a single block. This information gives insight into the development of tannins and can also be used to inform leafing, fruit thinning, and irrigation of the vines.

A critical insight for the California-based vineyard is water usage. With California constantly experiencing droughts and strain on water sources, knowing when to irrigate is essential. Since the sensors track temperature, this can help the winery irrigate the vines when only necessary, therefore reducing its water usage.

According to a study done by Cornell University, climate change has reduced farm productivity by 20 percent since the 1960s. As a result, farmers are increasingly embracing Internet of Things technology like Cisco’s to monitor and adapt to changes in temperature, precipitation, and humidity to fight back. Arable has developed sensor-filled discs that monitor metrics like rainfall, humidity, soil moisture, plant temperature, solar radiation, wind speed and direction, and chlorophyll index. InnerPlant actually turns plants into “living sensors” that change color when something is wrong with it (disease, pests, not enough water, etc.). Another agtech company called CropX uses in-ground sensors to measure soil moisture.

In addition to sensors, Bouchaine uses Cisco Webex, a virtual meeting and event platform, to allow its customers to book virtual tastings through the winery. In the virtual tastings, customers can view a live stream of the vineyard, and a dashboard with information gathered from the sensors.

The Alt Protein News Round-Up: Cultured Pork in China and McPlant Burger’s Launch

If you haven’t had the chance to check it out, The Spoon was given an exclusive virtual tour of Rebellyous Foods’ production facility, where it manufactures its plant-based chicken. Speaking of which, we have some news about Rebellyous Foods’ school cafeteria launch, CellX’s cultured pork unveil, the official launch of the McPlant burger, and Equinom’s new partnership.

CellX unveils cultured pork and shares goals for price parity

China-based cultured meat producer CellX revealed its cultured pork product this week, which uses cells extracted from the country’s native black pig. The alternative pork product was incorporated into various dishes and served to potential investors. Pork is the most consumed meat in China, but the country has experienced supply chain issues due to the pandemic and an outbreak of African Swine Fever amongst herds. The company’s goal is to reach price parity with conventional pork by 2025.

Rebellyous plant-based chicken nuggets to be served in public schools

Rebellyous Foods, a producer of plant-based chicken tenders, nuggets, and patties, shared this week that its alternative nuggets will be making their way into public school cafeterias in Washington and California. The first school to supply the nuggets was Ramon Valley Unified School District (SRVUSD) in Northern California last year, and the five new school districts to do so are Dublin Unified, Livermore Joint Unified, Santa Ana Unified, Pleasanton Unified, and Everett Public Schools. The “Kickin Nuggets” were developed specifically for K-12 food service and are made from a base of soy protein.

McPlant burger launches in McDonald’s throughout the UK

Starting September 29th, select McDonald’s locations in the UK will begin rolling out the highly anticipated McPlant burger, which is now 100 percent vegan. The meat-free patty was made in partnership with Beyond Meat, and the burger will also include vegan cheese, mayo, lettuce, tomato, mustard, ketchup, and pickles. McDonald’s previously ran trials of the McPlant in 2020 in various countries, and at that time, the burger was vegetarian but not vegan. The McPlant will become available nationwide starting in 2022.

Equinom to partner with Meatless farms as a supplier

Equinom, a nutrition company that uses AI to improve the nutrition content of seeds, disclosed this week in a press release sent to The Spoon that it will begin supplying Meatless Farm, a plant-based meat brand, and its ingredient subsidiary Lovingly Made Ingredients. Meatless Farms will use Equinom’s pea protein concentrate in a variety of its products, boosting the protein content by up to 50 percent. This is the first plant-based company that Equinom has partnered with.

Wild Earth Launches Cell-Based Petfood

Plant-based pet food brand Wild Earth has announced plans to expand its product line into pet food made with cell-based meat. The announcement comes on the heels of a new $23 million funding round from a group of investors that includes Mark Cuban and the star of Vampire Diaries, Paul Wesley.

Led by alternative protein entrepreneur and investor Ryan Bethencourt, Wild Earth has been one of the early leaders in creating pet food from plant-based ingredients. With products like Clean Protein dog food (which uses pea and potato protein) and Superfood Dog Treats With Koji (Koji is a fungi protein used in fermented food in Asia), company sales have grown more than 700% year over year, according to a release sent to The Spoon.

Pepper the App Aims to be the Instagram for Cooking

Jake Aronskind realized that every time he went on a social media platform, most of what he was seeing was food. After the pandemic began, this was amplified. Seeing people he never thought would be cooking and baking made him realize that there needed to be a more specialized platform for sharing food and recipes. This resulted in him and several cofounders developing the Pepper app.

Specialized social media platforms exist for activities like running (Strava), reading (Goodreads), and hiking (AllTrails). Still, most foodies share their culinary creations on the most popular platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, TikTok, and Pinterest. I recently spoke with Aronskind prior to Pepper’s Labor Day weekend launch, and he said, “It’s this idea of building a platform for a specific niche in your life. At the end of the day, Instagram, Facebook, all these other platforms, are simply not made for niche activities.”

Pepper most closely follows the format of Instagram. The app features a newsfeed where you can see the posts from friends and the people you follow. Instead of just adding a caption to go along with a photo, the poster can add a full recipe or list of ingredients. Similar to hashtags, there are options to categorize the recipe with different tags, including different diets (i.e., vegan, keto, gluten-free), difficulty level, and meal type.

From the app’s explore page, trending recipes can be seen from other users. If you find a recipe you want to make on the explore page or newsfeed, you can click the “save” button on the photo. The “saved” section on your personal profile hosts these posts, acting almost like a digital cookbook.

Pepper the App Animation Video
Pepper’s how-to video

Social media is how many of us stayed connected with others during the pandemic, and in 2020, Americans spent an average of 82 minutes per day on social media platforms. Cooking and “stress-baking” became coping mechanisms for dealing with the negative psychological effects of the pandemic, so it’s no surprise that food posts have dominated social media platforms in the past year and a half.

Recon, a food social media app that launched at the beginning of summer (founded by former Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff), connects users through photos of homemade dishes and restaurant reviews. Whisk, a recipe-sharing app, partnered with TikTok at the beginning of the year to trial run the integration of its recipe saving and grocery list features. Foodqu!rk is an online platform where users find their food personality and connect with others through dietary preferences.

The Pepper app launched this week, and it is available for free in the iOS App Store. It will likely be available for Android phones by the end of the month.

I Tried Underground Cellar’s Gamification Tech for Online Wine Shopping

Not all of us are lucky enough to have a wine cellar within our homes to store bottles at the perfect temperature, humidity, and darkness. Most of us don’t casually reach for a $70 bottle of wine. A Napa Valley-based company called Underground Cellar is looking to change that. Through its e-commerce platform, users can virtually store up to 500 bottles and receive free upgrades to more expensive bottles of wine.

The Shark Tank-backed platform has existed for about five years, and in June 2021, the company raised $12.5 million in funding. Underground Cellar recently reached out to me and offered site credit to test out its platform. As someone that typically only buys a $10 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from Trader Joe’s, I was excited to give it a try.

Example of how the upgrades work

Every day, the Underground Cellar’s platform features different wineries, regions, or varietals. A bottle price is listed for each select deal, and the minimum purchase number is three bottles per order. However, most of them are upgraded to more expensive bottles after you purchase wine, but the user still pays the lowest price listed. On top of this, every deal includes a “top upgrade,” which means you have the chance of receiving a rare or expensive bottle of wine.

My CloudCellar and the wines I received

I ordered three bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, and each bottle cost $35. I did not know exactly what brands or vintages I would be receiving until after I placed the order. I actually ended up with bottles of wine valued at $45, $60, and $85. Two of my bottles were ready to ship right away, and the one took about a week to become available. The bottles are stored in my “CloudCellar,” which means that Underground Cellar is storing them in its Napa Valley facilities until I am ready to ship the wine to my house.

Other platforms that sell and recommend wine exist, like Vivino and Winc. However, Underground Cellar’s gamification feature sets it apart from the other sites. Buying wine on the platform feels like a safer, tannin-infused version of gambling. As the user, you know you will at least get a bottle worth what you paid for. The chance of getting upgraded to something like a 1975 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque (worth $2,000) is what keeps the user hooked and coming back for more deals.

I liked the platform because it forced me to try completely new wines that I normally would not have reached for in-stores. As a 25-year-old millennial on a tight budget, I would never spend $85 on a bottle of wine, but I was given this opportunity with the upgrade technology. I definitely don’t have a wine cellar, and I liked knowing that my bottles of wine were being stored in perfect conditions.

On the flip side, some people might not like that they cannot choose exactly what wine they want. On top of this, most bottles on the platform start at around $30-$35 (except for the occasional $20 blowout deals). Certain people, like myself, typically stick to the $5-$20 range when it comes to buying wine. Shipping is a bit pricey, costing $21 for ground shipping for three bottles of wine. To receive free shipping, 12 bottles must be shipped together.

Overall, I found Underground Cellar to be a neat platform I would recommend to my wine-loving friends. Since its recent funding round, the company has been growing its team, improving its gamification tech, and making more connections with wineries.

Viome Launches At-Home Test Kits in Nordstrom

Personalized nutrition and health company Viome Life Sciences announced today that it will now offer its Health Intelligence Test in the department store chain Nordstrom. The wellness product will be a part of the store’s beauty category.

The test measures microbial, human, and mitochondrial gene expression through samples of blood and stool. As a result, insights are offered on the individual’s cellular health, biological age, immune system health, and gut health. The company claims that these insights can help someone better understand their digestion, energy levels, sleep patterns, skin, weight, and hormones.

While a precision health company selling an mRNA test in a fashion retailer seems unlikely, this news might signal that personalized nutrition is moving into the mainstream. Personalized nutrition is expected to change the way we eat, and the global personalized nutrition market is forecasted to grow from being $3.7 billion in 2019 to $16.6 billion by 2027.

When Viome founder and CEO Naveen Jain spoke with The Spoon earlier this year, he talked about how he’d invested heavily in automated production to scale the company’s personalized nutrition testing. With the deal with retailers like Nordstrom’s, it looks like that investment may be paying off.

“Precision nutrition is the future,” said Jain in the announcement. “This partnership is a giant step towards making our technology more accessible, so people can understand what’s right for their unique body.”

Viome isn’t the only company in personalized nutrition to offer an at-home testing kit. Genopalate uses information from DNA swabs to create personalized nutrition plans for the user. DayTwo focuses on the gut microbiome to provide customized diet recommendations, while Sun Genomics develops probiotics specifically for the user based on their gut health. According to Viome, it offers the world’s first at-home mRNA test that is commercially available.

Viome’s Health Intelligence Test is now available on Nordstrom’s website for $199 USD, and starting in 2022, will be stocked at select store locations.

Are Squares the Future of Food? SquarEat Thinks So

When you hear the phrase “future food”, your mind might go to cell-based meat or meals cooked and served by robots. You may consider a more dystopian direction and remember the square-shaped wafers in the film Soylent Green (set in 2022), or the company called Soylent (which took inspiration from the movie’s title) with its meal replacement shakes intended to replace food altogether. Although we don’t know what exactly our food will look like in the next 25-50 years, we do know we need creative solutions to feed a population that is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050.

A Miami-based company called SquarEat has joined this “future food” category with its full meals that come in the form of multiple 50g squares. The start-up aims to simplify nutrition for those who have a busy lifestyle or struggle to consume enough calories and proper nutrients.

It operates as a meal plan service that delivers to your house on a weekly basis, but unlike other similar services, all of the food arrives pre-cooked, vacuum-sealed, and in the shape of a square. Currently, 15 different squares are listed on SquarEat’s website, ranging from chocolate pancakes, sea bass, basmati rice, vegan burger, and asparagus.

The company is gearing up for its upcoming launch and is accepting investors through its WeFunder campaign. I recently interviewed Maria Laura Vacaflores, the CMO of SquarEat, to discuss the inspiration behind the company, the sustainability of the squares, and the upcoming launch.

This transcript has been lightly edited for the sake of clarity:

Ashlen: Do you want to start by discussing the inspiration behind launching SquarEat? 

Maria: Of course. So the idea behind SquarEat comes from one of the most common issues, people who often struggle to deal with a busy lifestyle, trying to keep up with a healthy and proper diet. So we have experienced firsthand the inefficiencies of the tradition of meal plan services. And we have seen a clear possibility of disruption by bringing a complete transformation to the sector that is growing tremendously fast, introducing a brand new concept, that is 100% natural food. The only thing is the shape, the square shape, is simply the result of the cooking process needed to achieve our goals, or ensure convenience and guarantee taste. And you know those are really practical. Our goal is to make people’s lives easier without sacrificing taste. 

Ashlen: How are the ingredients cooked to form a square?

Maria: We use all-natural ingredients. For example, our chicken square is called 95% chicken breast, and then you have a little bit of rosemary, and salt and pepper. We just use normal, natural food, and the way that we cook it is low, you know, at a low temperature. We put it on the blast cooler that is thermal shocking, and that’s the way we make the form, we get the square shape. 

Ashlen: Okay, okay, that makes sense. It sounds like it’s all-natural and simple ingredients, everything you can pronounce easily. Are there any preservatives in there?

Maria: The way that we make our product last longer, is because we vacuum seal everything individually. So there’s no oxygen in the squares, like you know, completely sealed, and you can have it for up to two weeks in your own fridge. That’s also really good because you know all the foods right now, like a normal traditional meal plan, if you’re okay I’m gonna describe it. On Monday, they deliver it to you, and you have to eat it then or by Wednesday because it’s not going to be good. Sometimes they put sauces on the top or they mix it up, and it looks awfully bad. I’m telling you this because I’ve done these meal plans before. 

I know people need to eat healthily, that’s why you’re doing a meal plan, right? You can cook but you also want to be healthy and you want your food to taste good. So we came up with this idea. If you can’t eat your food by Wednesday, like I said, right so you don’t need to worry with a square. You can eat it Friday, Saturday, etc. you just, decide you don’t want the chicken, just the vegetables, and that’s okay. You have this flexibility that no other company allows you to have.

Ashlen: And so you said, it can store up to two weeks in the fridge. Can it be put in the freezer, and thawed out and eaten at another time or do you recommend that people eat the squares fresh?

Maria: Yeah, if you want you can, but you don’t need to because they’re going to be completely fresh. If you want to put food in the freezer because you want to eat it like a month later, you know, that’s up to you but I recommend always to leave the squares in the fridge. Two weeks that’s perfect timing, but it’s gonna be fresh, you’re gonna feel it. It’s gonna be fresh, like the first day you receive it. 

Ashlen: So has it been a challenge to convince people to eat food in the form of a square?

Maria: We’ve gone through some resistance. A lot of haters. However, we got a lot of love from the ones that are excited about our idea, as the squares are highly digestible and practical. For example, they are intended for people who suffer from autism who might have a sort of aversion to food. I’ve had a lot of friends, for example, they suffer because they can’t gain weight. They can’t eat the protein they need, or the calories they need, because they can’t eat that much. They’re really skinny, or they have this problem with the food. So my friend called me the next day, like, Oh, my God, this is a solution in my life. Finally, I can get my food properly, I can get my calories, I can eat healthily, I can, you know, have a healthy body. And I mean, it’s the food that you need, that your body needs, but it comes, you know, in a more digestible, practical way. And you just eat it like, like a little snack. 

Ashlen: I’ve often heard for people who are struggling to get enough calories, a nutritionist often recommends eating protein bars, but those can be kind of gross.

Maria: Yes, those are. Those are meal replacements, not ours. Yeah, for example, I can tell you that it fills my heart with joy, knowing that people with more specific needs may have found a solution that can improve their lives, you know? We are compared to the SnowPiercer and Soylent Green movies, you know, where they do the square shape of the food. The shape of the food is often associated with this dystopian future, where people are oppressed and forced to eat disgusting things. But we’re not going to force anyone to use squares. You know, we are only proposing a solution. A tasty meal for children, adults, women, men, any age, we’re seeking a healthy lifestyle. Imagine all the children who don’t want to eat their veggies. And the moms are like, Oh my god, you know, they want to do everything for the kids. You know, to eat the vegetables, they need vegetables. You need those vegetables when you’re a kid. So imagine you’re given something like the food they wouldn’t eat doesn’t look like broccoli. You know, and you’re like, my kid is now eating broccoli.

Ashlen: Yeah, that’s really interesting. Okay, yeah, I didn’t even think about using that for children. Because you’re so right. If a kid sees something that looks like food they have an aversion to they’re not going to eat it. But you know, in a different form, it might be convincing. 

Maria: That was me. Because my mom, many times, said to me, I couldn’t eat fish. I would always say it is fish, and she lied about it to me. And now you can get them to eat right, to eat healthily and all the nutrients they need.

Ashlen: So kind of going off of, I guess, the dystopian future you mentioned, do you see what SquareEat is doing kind of as the future of food? Do you see more companies doing this? I guess, processing food in the way you do and making it more convenient and simple? Or what do you see?

Maria: First of all, I strongly believe that there is an attractive and futuristic shape that communicates exactly the soul of our project, we want to revolutionize the ready-to-eat meal plan delivery service industry by giving our customers something that they never had, that they haven’t tried before. But you know, think about portion control, already seasoned and portable, long-lasting, tasty, with all the nutrients being preserved. So I think people are gonna copy these in the future, I’m telling you, and we have to re-envision a future where people don’t necessarily have to cook, where houses are built with, you know, with different comforts. And what a full kitchen may not be necessarily a future that everyone can afford. That’s what we want, not like the movies you know. We want everyone to have a better life than they can afford.

And it has to be optional but like I’m telling you, there are so many people right now who don’t like to cook and they don’t have to. So this is the present, imagine the future, how it’s gonna be. I believe that yes, it’s is gonna be like this. Yeah, I’m not, I’m not telling you that I don’t like steak sometimes. Like a nice dinner, a nice barbecue, but you know, in my everyday routine, something healthy and you know, I want something ready. That’s fine.

Ashlen: Yeah, I feel like everyone kind of has like maybe one or even two meals a day we’re just rushing around and we don’t have time to cook or we don’t want to stop and pick up food so I definitely see room for the squares in a very busy lifestyle. But I have a personal question for you actually. How often do you eat the squares yourself?

Maria: Well, well it’s gonna be a year that I’m eating the squares because the project has been developing for more than a year of trying and cooking and discovering new flavors, new things that we can add. I am the person that taste tests and I eat like every day. I will say I eat from Monday to Saturday, for lunch, breakfast I eat the squares. I can cook something maybe myself perhaps sometimes that is not the squares again. But you know what I do, I put them in the air fryer, maybe I do some chicken nuggets with my square. For the vegetable squares, cut them up like in tiny pieces. I do like tacos, I put my meat squares in them because it’s already cooked and I just need to warm it up the way I want it and give it a little flavor, extra fuel that I wanted. So if I want to eat super healthy, okay, then just the squares. I can put them just straight in the microwave. Maybe a little bit of oil. And that’s it, you know, although my mood and my daily routine, but I’ve been eating like every day for a year.

Ashlen: Very cool. Okay, thank you for answering that. So on The Spoon, we like to cover food waste as well. And I believe I read something on your website that was just a brief statement on food waste. So how are do the squares help reduce food waste?

Maria: Okay, our product, our production chain runs on minimal waste in food and energetic resources. We are eco-sustainable from the production stages to deliveries, we don’t use any gas or any other dangerous things that can be combusted into the preparation process. And thanks to our innovative techniques, we are also able to use almost 100% of the food we need to obtain this worse. That’s something unique compared to the availability of alternatives on the market. And they there’s also a significant reduction in terms of waste, both from us and the customer point of view. Because if you can see there that vacuum sealing are squares naturally extends our product shelf life, for up to two weeks. Our sealing bags are BPA-free. And it’s food-safe, and microwavable, and you can also boil them if you want safely. They are 100% recyclable. And as a food manufacturer, we are simply asking our customers to do their part when it comes to taking care of the environment as much as we do.

Ashlen: Great. Yeah, I was thinking about other like meal prep companies and such. And I was just thinking there are things like broccoli stems and peels, even that gets tossed out. So I would imagine that in a square, you could kind of combine all of that, which is also more nutritionally dense incorporating those bits and pieces. So that’s good to know. And then you could have answered this already. But to clarify, the squares, are they a direct meal replacement? And can you replace all three meals with squares?

Maria: Oh, that’s great. It’s not an alternative food. The only difference is our preparation methods and the unique shape that it has. Think of, for example, mozzarella or pasta, yogurt. They’re from soy, milk, or grains, but that doesn’t mean that they lose their natural properties during the transformation process. They are often proof. Our squares are made of 100% natural ingredients, and they are not I meal replacement like I said sorry. And I mentioned the chicken right, and chicken squares have the addition of natural spices. And our innovative production processes allow our products to have a longer shelf life, better preservation of nutrients, and consumption flexibility. So you can definitely have three meal boxes a day. And this is exactly what SquarEat is designed for.

Ashlen: One last question: When did the company launch its first products?

Maria: So hopefully, we’re gonna be ready within a few weeks. We are expecting that because we are finishing the last details for the big opening. And we were expecting that it will be like at the end of September, hopefully, if not at the first week of October, but we’re gonna keep you updated for sure.

Ashlen: Sounds great. For some reason, I thought you had already launched but that’s great that I’m talking with you before the launch. 

Maria: Yes, yes. Perfect. We’re right now running our crowdfunding campaign. When it’s closer to the end of this campaign, we’re gonna launch if that makes sense.

SquarEat’s WeFunder campaign is still active, and has so far raised a total of $165,905.