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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Chris Albrecht

Amazon Opening Full-Sized Cashierless Checkout Grocery Store

Amazon announced today that its new Fresh grocery store opening this week in Bellevue, Washington will feature Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology. This is the first implementation of Amazon’s cashierless checkout technology in a full-sized grocery store.

The grand opening for the new Amazon Fresh is Thursday, June 17 at the Bellevue Factoria Mall. To use the new cashierless checkout technology, users scan their Amazon app or their palm (if they’ve signed up for Amazon One payment), or they insert a credit card into a turnstile upon entering. As customers shop, cameras and sensors automatically keep track of what they pick up. When it’s time to go, instead of standing in a checkout line shoppers scan their app, palm or insert their credit card into a turnstile to exit. The Just Walk Out technology tallies up the total and automatically sends the receipt.

Amazon kicked off the whole cashierless checkout movement with the launch of its first Amazon Go store back in January of 2018. Up until now, the technology has only been used in these smaller Go and Go Grocery store formats, and questions had hung over Amazon (and other players in the space) as to how big the system could scale, since most Amazon Go stores are 1,700 – 2,500 sq. feet. This new Fresh Market is 25,000 sq. feet — a significant leap for the technology. As the store size gets bigger, more cameras, sensors and computing power are needed to identify a huge number of SKUs while monitoring the actions of more shoppers.

The cashierless checkout space has been having a banner year in 2021. In the first part of the year, we saw startups emerge, funding news and partnerships formed. As we wrap up Q2, however, we are starting to see more news around larger-scale impelmention of cashierless checkout. Grabango, which has a deal with Giant Eagle, raised $39 million. Israel-based Trigo added German supermarket chain Rewe to its roster of clients. And now Amazon, which licenses out its Just Walk Out technology is in a full-sized store.

Part of the reason for all this activity in the cashierless checkout space is the pandemic, which had retailers looking for ways to reduce the amount of human-to-human interaction. Cashierless checkout reduces the number of staff interacting directly with other people, and keeps customers from congregating in checkout lines. Big supermarket chains, however, don’t move on a dime and need solutions that scale to thousands of stores immediately. We were probably already going to see a number of announcements from big retailers about cashierless checkout this year. But Amazon’s announcement today may accelerate those announcements as supermarkets look to keep Amazon at bay.

Cooler Screens Expanding its Dynamic Screens to Stores Nationally

Cooler Screens, the company that turns the doors of grocery coolers and freezers into full-motion display screens, is expanding outside of Chicago to more stores across the U.S. AdWeek first reported the news last week, but since we are halfway through the year, the story seemed like a good opportunity to check in on one of my food tech predictions for 2021.

Back in December of 2020 I predicted that grocery and convenience stores would become more like Vegas, thanks to big, bright screens from companies like Cooler Screens and AWM Smart Shelf. Cooler Screens raised $80 million from the likes of Verizon Ventures and Microsoft in October of 2020 and at that time had its technology up and running in 50 Walgreens stores across the Chicago area.

Cooler Screens had planned on rolling out its screens to 1,400 Walgreens this year, but as the company told AdWeek, those expansion plans were delayed because of pandemic-related production issues. Having said that, the company has already expanded its presence to 100 stores across a number of different U.S. cities. In addition to Walmart, Cooler Screens has also signed up CVS and Kroger as customers. With the expansions, Cooler Screens anticipates 50 million shoppers will engage with its screens by early August.

The appeal of technology like Cooler Screens and AWM Smart Shelf is pretty straightforward. These screens and displays turn otherwise dead real estate into dynamic ad spaces. Why have a plain ole see through glass cooler door when you could display what’s inside on a screen alongside sales promotions, upselling on complementary items (get a pizza with that soda!), and full-motion ads that can generate additional revenue?

While 50 million shoppers is a lot of eyeballs, given Cooler Screens’ delay, I don’t think our grocery and drug stores will become the flashing, Vegas-like showrooms as I had predicted. I still believe this technology will continue to proliferate, but I might have to bump my prediction timeline to 2022.

Online Grocer Boxed Bulks up by Going Public via SPAC

Boxed, a grocery e-commerce site that specializes in selling bulk items, is going public via special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Announced today, the deal is being done via merger with Seven Oaks Acquisition Corp., and the combined company will be valued at roughly $900 million. To date, Boxed had raised $243 .6million in funding.

Founded in 2013, Boxed is kinda like a Costco without the membership requirement, selling bulk goods to both consumers and businesses. In addition to selling stuff online, Boxed also licenses out its order fulfillment and logistics technology to other retailers. In January of this year, the company entered into a multi-year partnership with Aeon Group, one of Asia’s largest retail conglomerates. (Aeon also led Boxed’s $100 million round of funding back in 2018.)

Boxed’s decision to go public via SPAC comes at a time of drastically increased interest in grocery e-commerce. COVID drove record amounts of people into online grocery shopping last year, and while those numbers have come down as the pandemic recedes, Coresight Research data shows that more than one-third of online grocery shoppers will keep up the new habit post-pandemic. Additionally, the ship-to-home category of grocery e-commerce that Boxed is in has hovered around $2 billion from month to month over the last year, according to Brick Meets Click.

All of this increased interest in online grocery shopping also means Boxed is facing increased pressure on a number of fronts. Not only does Boxed need to compete with traditional retailers like Walmart, which is rapidly expanding its delivery options and automating its fulfillment, but there is a raft of well-funded newcomers to contend with as well. On the ship-to-home side, companies like Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market both raised sizeable rounds of funding this year to expand. And on the smaller end of the spectrum, startups like Gopuff, Fridge No More and JOKR promise grocery delivery in as little as 15 minutes.

Boxed will now have additional funding to better compete. According to today’s press announcement Boxed “is expected to receive $334 million in net cash proceeds from a combination of Seven Oaks’ cash in trust of approximately $259 million, assuming no redemptions by Seven Oaks’ public stockholders, as well as a $120 million fully committed private placement financing.” Boxed CEO Chieh Huang will remain in charge of the new entity.

Refraction AI Launches Robotic Delivery Service in Austin, Texas

Refraction AI announced today that it is expanding its delivery robot service outside of Michigan and into Austin, Texas. This is the second location for Refraction’s robots, which will offer restaurant delivery in the South Congress, Downtown and Travis Heights neighborhoods.

Refraction is a little different from other robot delivery players in the space. Unlike Kiwibot or Starship, which make cooler-sized sidewalk robots, Refraction’s REV-1 robot is bigger, faster, and meant to drive in city bike lanes. The REV-1 is meant for suburban areas with a sizeable population in a relatively contained geography. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Refraction originated, the REV-1 has a delivery radius of roughly 3.5 miles.

That Refraction chose Austin as its second location is really not a surprise. Though the company was founded in Michigan, Luke Schneider, who was brought in as Refraction CEO last fall, is based in Austin, TX. When Refraction raised $4.2 million earlier this year, Schneider told me that part of that money would go towards building up operations in Austin.

Southside Flying Pizza will be the first restaurant offering Refraction’s robot delivery option. The Austin pilot will debut with a fleet of 10 robots with the possibility of more being added as more restaurant partners join the program. Customers in the service area will place orders directly through participating restaurants and choose robot delivery. Text messages are sent to the customer with delivery updates, notification when the robot arrives and a unique code to unlock the robot.

Worth noting is that in the press release announcing the Austin expansion, Refraction only mentions restaurant partners at launch and not grocery delivery. With its rather sizeable cargo hold, groceries are a good fit for the REV-1, and during the pandemic last year Refraction quickly added grocery delivery in Ann Arbor as people looked for contactless ways to get their food. I presume we’ll see grocery partners added to the list should REV-1’s delivery catch on with consumers.

Kroger’s Drone Delivery Officially Takes Off in Ohio

Kroger launched its first retail drone delivery on Wednesday of this week in Centerville, Ohio. The Dayton Daily News reported that the drone’s maiden voyage dropped off two packages of rice to Centerville Mayor Brooks Compton on the front lawn of the city’s offices.

Kroger announced the drone delivery program at the beginning of May, and while it had been running test flights in the Centerville area since then, Wednesday’s mayoral run was the first official delivery for the service. According to the Dayton Daily News, Kroger customers within a mile of the 1095 S. Main St. store can place an order for drone delivery and, as of now, there is no delivery fee for the service.

As we wrote last month, Kroger isn’t just looking to drop off food on your front yard. It’s aiming to get you items whenever/wherever you need it. Think: picnic supplies to a park or drinks at the beach. The drones can carry a five-pound payload and eligible orders should arrive within 15 minutes.

Kroger officially launching this program is the latest step towards drone delivery becoming a reality around the globe. So far in 2021, Flytrex has received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to expand its drone delivery program (which includes Walmart grocery deliveries) in North Carolina, Manna has been conducting 50 – 100 drone deliveries a day in Ireland, and Pizza Hut has partnered with Dragontail Systems for drone deliveries in Tel Aviv, Israel.

While there are regulatory and safety hurdles that still need to be overcome, drones hold a lot of promise, especially for food-related deliveries. Drones are faster because they don’t get stuck in traffic, so hot food or coffee arrives hot. Because they are up in the air, drones don’t add to traffic congestion on the roads. And they could also potentially make deliveries more economical because one operator can coordinate more drone deliveries per hour.

Kroger’s drone delivery will probably be more of a novel curiosity for customers at first. But if it can fulfill the promise of faster, more convenient food, we’ll be writing a lot more about drone delivery launches across the U.S. throughout this year.

LIVEKINDLY Collective Acquires Seaweed Burger Maker, The Dutch Weed Burger

LIVEKINDLY Collective, a collection of alternative protein brands, announced this week that it is acquiring Amsterdam-based company The Dutch Weed Burger. The Dutch Weed Burger makes a range of meat analogs using seaweed as the hero ingredient. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

LIVEKINDLY Collective formed in March of 2020 when Foods United bought vegan-focused media company LIVEKINDLY. Brands in the LIVEKINDLY Collective portfolio include Oumph!, The Fry Family Food Co., LikeMeat, and No Meat, which the company acquired earlier this year. This past March, LIVEKINDLY Collective closed a $335 million round of funding that the company said would go towards new partnerships and acquisitions.

With the purchase of The Dutch Weed Burger, LIVEKINDLY Collectiveis expanding into seaweed products. Seaweed is a source of protein that can be cultivated using minimal fresh water and no agricultural land. It’s also pretty versatile. Other startups using seaweed include New Wave Foods, which is making seaweed-based shrimp, and Oceanium is using seaweed to make food ingredients including protein, fibre and nutraceuticals, as well as home-compostable packaging materials.

In its press announcement, LIVEKINDLY Collective said that the acquisition of The Dutch Weed Burger also will help the company scale internationally into the UK and the Nordics, as well as the U.S. and Canada.

LIVEKINDLY Collective is striking while the plant-based iron is hot. Here in the U.S., sales of plant based meat have experienced double-digit growth over the past two years. According to the Good Food Institute, the plant-based meat market is worth $1.4 billion here in the U.S., having increased by more than $430 million from 2019 to 2020. Additionally, the NPD Group reported this week that shipments of plant-based proteins to restaurants in the U.S. were up 60 percent year-over-year.

Between demand for plant-based foods increasing and its sizeable warchest, it’s a safe bet that this isn’t the last acquisition LIVEKINDLY Collective will be making this year.

Print a Drink 3D Prints Designs Inside a Cocktail, Develops Smaller Machine for Corporations

We’ve seen 3D printers create cake decorations, personalized vitamins, and even cultured beef. And now, thanks to Print a Drink’s robot, we’ve seen custom designs printed inside a cocktail. You might think such beverage witchcraft would be impossible. I mean, how could a design be suspended and hold its shape in anything other than a jello shot? Turns out it just takes the right drink, the right droplet and the precision of a robotic arm.

Based in Austria, Print a Drink has actually been around for three years. It was started by Benjamin Greimel as a university research project. Since that time, Print a Drink has created two working robots (one in the U.S. and one in Europe) that up until the pandemic would travel to special events and conferences printing out custom designs inside drinks at parties and such.

So how does it work? Print a Drink uses a robotic arm with a custom-made printer head attached to it. The robot uses a glass needle to inject a food-grade, oil-based liquid inside a drink. The drink itself needs to be less than 40 percent alcohol and can’t be a straight shot of something like vodka or whiskey because the injected beads won’t hold and will float to the surface. Greimel explained to me via video chat this week that the combination of liquid density, temperature and robotic movement allow the designs to last for roughly 10 minutes before dissipating.

Coordinating all those puzzle pieces is complicated to say the least. In addition to setting up the robot at an event and operating it, there are specific requirements around drinks that can be used, and designs need to be uploaded into the robot. Plus, there are safety concerns because the robotic arm does move about pretty quickly. Because of all those reasons, Print a Drink’s business has been around renting the robot ($2,500 – $5,000, depending on the event) and not selling them outright. In addition to all of the complications above, staff would need to be trained properly on how to use the machine, and chances are good that the people operating the devices are not roboticists who can troubleshoot.

To make Print a Drink more accessible, Greimel and his partner (the only two people at the company) have developed a smaller, self-contained version of the robot that is roughly the size of a countertop coffee machine. But don’t expect a consumer version for your next backyard soirée. This smaller version is still complicated, and still requires training, so the company is targeting large corporations like Disney or a hotel chain like Hilton where it could be installed and used for special events or promotions. Greimel said the first prototype of this smaller Print a Drink will be available in the next week.

Though more specialized, Print a Drink is part of a bigger automation movement happening with booze right now. In addition to robot-powered bars like Glacierfire popping up, we’re also seeing automated drink dispensing vending machines from Rotender and Celia start to hit the market. It’s not hard to see all of these types of robots working in tandem, however, with a robo-bartender pumping out standard cocktails, while Print a Drink prints up specialty drinks customized for special occasions. We’ll drink to that.

NPD: Shipments of Plant-Based Proteins to Restaurants Up 60 Percent Year Over Year

Shipments of plant-based proteins from foodservice distributors to commercial restaurants were up 60 percent year-over-year in April of 2021, according to new data released by NPD Group today. The stat is another data point illustrating the staying power and appeal of plant-based proteins.

NPD writes that plant-based beef nabbed the largest share of those protein shipments, with the number of pounds shipped increasing by 45 percent year-over-year in April. Plant-based chicken grew by 82 percent year-over-year in April, and plant-based fish is up 72 percent year-over-year. Plant-based chicken and fish are more nascent categories compared with plant-based beef, which would explain their relative dramatic jumps.      

“There has been a lot of public discussion about plant-based beef and meat substitutes, and whether or not plant-based is a fad or a trend,” says Tim Fires, president of NPD’s SupplyTrack said in a press announcement. “But the fact of the matter is, chefs and operators see the plant-based protein category as a flexible option for developing recipes and menu offerings that taste good, and their guests enjoy. Plant-based is now a staple in their repertoire.

Though NPD didn’t specify reasons for the increase in shipments, the two big drivers for this growth in plant-based protein are availability and price. Both Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, the two biggest players in the beef analog space, have dramatically ramped up production in the past couple of years, which has helped bring prices down and closer to parity with animal meat.

But this increase in shipments of plant-based protein to restaurants is just part of an overall increase in interest and sales of plant-based meat. The Good Food Institute’s latest U.S. market research shows that the plant-based meat category grew by more than $430 million in sales from 2019 to 2020 and the category is now worth $1.4 billion.

Sea-Related Food Tech Startups Starting to Make Waves

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World Ocean Day was this week and, look, I’m not going to spend this newsletter bumming you out about the rampant plastic pollution problem in our oceans, or how we’re going to run out of fish. No! I’d much rather take this time to highlight some of the cool startups that are diving into our water systems and in doing so might just save them and our planet.

Perhaps the best place to start is with Saudi Arabia-based Red Sea Farms, which raised $10 million this week. The elevator pitch for Red Sea Farms is pretty straightforward: grow crops with sea/saltwater. The benefits to this technology are obvious: seawater is abundant, using it would allow areas without much freshwater to become more agriculturally self-sufficient, and freshwater could be redistributed for human consumption. Red Sea Farms already grows and sells tomatoes using its technology, and said it will be using its new funding to to build and retrofit more than six hectares of commercial farming in Central and Western Saudi Arabia.

Over in South Korea, Seawith isn’t using seawater, but rather something that grows in it. Seawith uses algae in the development of cell-based meat. I spoke with the company recently and they explained that algae can be used for both the serum and the scaffolding when creating cultured meat. Not only is algae plentiful, but it also allows for the creation of thicker cuts of meat.

Speaking of cultured meat, Finless Foods, which up to now has been best known for developing cell-based seafood, announced this week that it is adding a plant-based tuna to its product portfolio. The company didn’t specify what ingredients make up this new tuna, but it’s meant to be a fish replacement in dishes like poke bowls and spicy tuna rolls. Finless said its new plant-based tuna should be available to restaurants and food service operations by next year. Finless Foods wasn’t alone in the plant-based seafood space this week. Over in Hong Kong, OmniFoods announced its own line of plant-based seafood, including OmniTuna. If these companies, and other players in the space like Good Catch and New Wave Foods can successfully re-create fish with plants, perhaps we can prevent overfishing and the world’s fish stocks from being depleted so quickly.

Finally, lemna may not grow in the ocean, but this waterborne duckweed could prove to be a plentiful new base ingredient in plant-based protein. Over this past Memorial Day weekend, we ran an excerpt from Larissa Zimberoff‘s excellent new book Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat. In the section Zimberoff provided, you can learn all about lemna, and Plantible, the startup developing it as a food source.

With all of this positive activity happening with our waters, hopefully in five years’ time there will be a lot of good news to celebrate on World Ocean Day.

More Headlines

Float Foods Secures $2.2M for Alternative Whole Egg Product – The startup’s proprietary product is called OnlyEg, which is made from legumes, and contains both a yellow yolk and the whites like a regular egg.

Better Meat Co. Completes Its Production Facility for Fermented Mycoprotein Ingredients – The new fermentation plant in Sacramento, California, will produce Rhiza.

SIMULATE, Maker of NUGGS Plant-Based Chicken, Raises $50M – SIMULATE says it will use the new funding to triple its team, speed up the development of new products, scale up manufacturing, expand its retail presence and expand internationally.

Rebellyous Brings Plant-Based Chicken to 200 Safeways in the Pacific Northwest – The company, which launched its retail product early this year after the pandemic put a serious dent into food service sales and school program channels, has seen its consumer business surge in 2021.

Imagindairy Using Precision Fermentation to Create Animal-Free Dairy Proteins

Imagindairy, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that re-creates dairy proteins without the cow, publicly announced itself and its technology today.

In a press release emailed to The Spoon, Imagindairy said that its micro-flora, precision fermentation technology re-creates nature-identical, animal-free versions of whey and casein proteins. These proteins can be used to develop analogs of dairy products such as cheese, milk and yogurt. Imagindairy says these analogs will have the same flavor, texture and nutritional value as conventional dairy products, and will also be lactose-free, and won’t carry the environmental and ethical complications around raising dairy livestock.

There is certainly an appetite for animal-free dairy products. Recent data from The Good Food Institute found that U.S. sales of plant-based cheese grew 42 percent over the past year and the category is now worth $270 million. More than 162 million units of plant-based yogurt were sold in 2020, up 20 percent over the last year. Meanwhile, sales of plant-based plant-based ice cream and frozen novelty was also up 20 percent with 88 million units sold in 2020.

Precision fermentation has been called the third pillar of alternative protein, alongside plant-based and cultured meat. Last year, the Good Food Institute reported that there were 44 companies working on fermentation-based alternative proteins, up from 23 in 2018. The best known is Perfect Day here in the U.S., which already has products made with its technology out in the market via the Brave Robot ice cream brand. In Germany, Formo (formerly Legendairy) said it will unveil its first precision fermented cheese this year. And over in the Asia-Pacific region, Change Foods is working on its own brand on animal-free cheese.

In its press announcement, Imagindairy said its technology can be “readily integrated” into existing dairy food production facilities. The company has raised $1.5 million in Seed funding, led by The Kitchen FoodTech hub with participation from the Israeli Innovative Authority, CPT Capital, New Crop Capital, and Entrée Capital.

Cultured Seafood Company Finless Foods Expands into Plant-Based Tuna

Finless Foods, which is primarily known for its work creating cell-based seafood, announced today that it is expanding its product portfolio to include a new plant-based tuna offering.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the new plant-based tuna uses nine whole, plant-based ingredients that are cooked and seasoned to recreate the taste and texture of tuna. The new product is meant to act as a fish substitute in dishes like poke and spicy tuna rolls. The company said it plans to have its plant-based tuna in restaurants and food service channels by 2022.

Though it wasn’t specified in the announcement, the ability to get a product to market next year is most likely the driving factor in Finless Foods’ decision to expand into plant-based products. The cultured meat space is still very new and as of right now, there is only one company (Eat Just) selling cultured meat in one country (Singapore). In a story out today on iNews, Michael Selden, Finless Foods co-founder and CEO said that regulations in the UK and the EU were too restrictive, and that “there doesn’t seem to be a path to market at all” for cultured meat and seafood there.

Adding a plant-based tuna allows Finless to actually start selling something and generate revenue and is also being introduced at a time when sales of plant-based foods are on the rise. According to the Good Food Institute, the plant-based meat category grew by more than $430 million in sales from 2019 and 2020 in the U.S., and is now worth $1.4 billion.

Finless Foods isn’t pivoting away entirely from cultured fish, however. The company said it “will continue to build out the technology and undergo regulatory approval for their cell-cultured tuna” with plans to bring a full portfolio of plant- and cell-based products to market in the coming years.

Finless Foods’ move comes on the heels of another plant-based fish announcement this week. Hong Kong’s Omnifoods, maker of the plant-based Omnipork, announced its own line of vegan fish products this week, including an OmniTuna. These products will start rolling out in Hong Kong starting this month. Here in the U.S. we’re starting to see the plant-based fish space heat up with products like Good Catch already in stores and New Wave Foods launching its plant-based shrimp with food service companies this past spring.

Today is World Ocean Day, which aims to generate awareness around ocean conservation issues, including overfishing. Through its plant- and cell-based fish, Finless Foods, and other companies like it, can hopefully ween people off conventional fish stocks, which are being rapidly depleted and on to a more sustainable alternative.

SIMULATE, Maker of NUGGS Plant-Based Chicken, Raises $50M

SIMULATE, the company behind the NUGGS plant-based chicken brand, announced today that it has raised $50 million in Series B funding. The round was led by SEVEN SEVN SIX, with participation from Chris & Crystal Sacca, NOMO Ventures, McCain Foods, Imaginary Ventures and Day One Ventures. This brings the total amount of funding raised by SIMULATE to $61 million.

The company’s first product, NUGGS, is a pea protein-based “chicken” nugget the company launched through mail order two years ago. In March of 2020, SIMULATE launched its nuggets at retail, and in July of last year it introduced its second product, the DOGGS faux hot dogs. SIMULATE has since expanded its lineup with SPICY NUGGS and DISCS (fake chicken patties). According to the press announcement sent to The Spoon, NUGGS are now available at more than 5,000 retail locations. The company will add another 10,000 retail locations by the end of this year.

SIMULATE’s funding comes at a time of growth for the plant-based meat category. According to the Good Food Institute, U.S. sales of plant-based meat increased by more than $430 million from 2019 to 2020, with the market now worth $1.4 billion.

However, it also comes at a time of increased competition, especially in the fake chicken nugget space, and SIMULATE will need its bulked up warchest to compete. The company faces pressure from smaller players such as Nowadays, which just raised $2 million, and Rebellyous, which just expanded its retail presence throughout the Northwest. Then there are the larger players such as Target, which recently launched its own line of plant-based nuggets. Meat giant Tyson has its own line of plant-based nuggets as well.

SIMULATE says it will use the new funding to triple its team, speed up the development of new products, scale up manufacturing, expand its retail presence and expand internationally.