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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food Tech News: Fried Chicken-Scented Face Masks, Halloween Robot Delivers Candy

Hormel and Jack in the Box give away scented masks

If you love the smell of chicken and bacon, now you have the option to inhale these scents all day. To promote new product launches, Hormel and Jack in the Box are giving away free scented face masks. Jack in the Box will soon launch a new plant-based UnChicken Sandwich and is giving out free fried chicken-scented face masks to celebrate. To promote the launch of its Black Label Bacon, Hormel is giving away “breathable bacon” face masks.

Photo from PR Newswire

Reece’s to deliver candy bars through robotic door

This year’s Halloween will likely be sans trick-or-treating, but Reese’s brand came up with a festive solution to distribute its peanut butter chocolate cups despite the circumstances. The brand created a robot door that travels through neighborhoods via remote control, and will release smoke and play a Halloween soundtrack. To receive a king-size Reese’s peanut butter cup from the door, one must simply approach the robot and say “trick-or-treat”. To determine where the robot door will stop this Halloween season, you can pitch your request on Reese’s Instagram page.

$30K food and agribusiness prize for MIT and RaboBank competition

MIT and Rabobank are hosting IGNITE, a virtual kick-off on November 9th for its food and agribusiness competition. The 6th annual Rabobank-MIT Food & Agribusiness competition aims to support student innovators in the food tech and agriculture space based in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Winners of the competition will receive $30K USD, access to industry mentorship, and other resources. The kickoff event is free to sign-up for, and the applications for the competition are due in January.

Prime Roots launches plant-based meats and meals at Whole Foods

Producers of vegan, koji-based meat products, Prime Roots will be debuting its meat alternative products and prepared meals in Whole Foods next week. Koji is a type of fungus that gives Prime Root’s chicken, bacon, and beef a meaty texture and umami flavor. Some of the company’s plant-based prepared meals include bacon mac and cheese, Hawaiian shoyu chicken, and beef shepherd’s pie. The company’s products will be available starting on October 27th in Bay Area Whole Foods.

Nespresso Adds Touchless Features To Its Momento Machine

Since the start of the pandemic, the words “contactless” and “touchless” have become the new buzz words in food tech. Nespresso Professional is the latest company to accommodate this COVID-19-prevention protocol: Today, the company announced the release of three new touchless features for the Nespresso Momento machines.

The Nespresso Momento machines are commonly found in office settings, so these new features aim to provide a safer coffee-making experience for those returning to work. The Nespresso Momento machine and its new features are available for businesses on the Nespresso Professional website.

One of the machine’s new features is an app, which allows a user to control the machine from their phone. A user must insert a capsule (so it’s not completely touchless), and then they are able to select the cup size and choose the recipe without ever touching the screen. The machine has a QR code that users scan with their phones to connect to the app.

The machine can also be set to automatically brew a cup of coffee when a particular pod is inserted. A user can pre-set the machine to brew a certain size or recipe with different coffee pods that the machine will automatically recognize when inserted. Lastly, the machine can be set to force users to clean the touch screen before using it again. A “lock screen” appears after every use, and it must be disinfected to use the screen.

Amongst Nespresso Professional, countless other companies have also expanded to oblige with COVID-19 safety precautions in the workplace. Pepsico released a Sodastream Professional over the summer that allows users to select different unsweetened, carbonated beverages through a mobile app. Minnow’s pods, which are essentially Amazon lockers for food, can be placed in a workplace to provide a solution for contactless food pick-up and delivery. With no clear end to the pandemic, these new contactless features don’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

In November, Nespresso Professional will additionally be launching a single touch capsule filling dispenser that is compatible with the Nespresso Momento machine.

Food Tech News: Bee-Free Honey, Menu Items With Low Carbon Footprints

It was an exciting week in food tech with the annual SKS Summit happening earlier this week (if you missed it, check out the highlights of day one, day two, and day three). Outside of this week’s virtual event, a few other stories stood out to us, including bee-free honey, low carbon footprint menu items at Panera, Minnow partnering with two restaurants, and anti-stress nutrition bars.

Melibio is creating bee-free honey

Melibio is using microbial fermentation and synthetic biology to create honey without the use of bees. The process will mimic the process a bee would take to create honey and will use real flower nectar. Honey is often touted for its health benefits, and Melibio’s honey will contain small amounts of the amino acids, minerals, and enzymes found in real honey. The company plans on launching a product for food and beverage companies by late 2021.

Panera Bread releases climate-friendly labels on menu

Starting this week, Panera Bread’s menu will include “cool food” badges that signify which of its menu items have a lower carbon footprint. Around 55 percent of the chain’s existing menu items will have a cool food meal badge. Ingredients that are considered to have a low carbon footprint include vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes. Medium carbon impact ingredients include fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, and poultry, and beef has the highest carbon footprint. Last month, Just Salad also released a Climatarian menu that shows menu items with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions.

Minnow launches pilot program in fast-casual restaurants

Minnow, the recent winner of the SKS Startup Showcase, launched a pilot program for its contact-free delivery and pick-up solution. The Minnow Pickup Pods will be located at Crisp Salads in Portland, Oregon, and bNatural Kitchen in New Haven, Connecticut. Similar to the design of an Amazon locker, the pods disrupt the use of expensive third-party delivery services like Doordash or Postmates. Additionally, the pods have a touchless interface for pick-up, and the cubbies are insulated to keep food fresh.

myAir releases stress-reducing nutrition bars

Tel-Aviv-based startup myAir makes nutrition bars infused with different herbal compounds to manage stress. The personalized nutrition company offers a short three-minute quiz on its website to determine a customer’s level of stress, and then the customer’s heart rate, sleep quality, physical activity is tracked through smartwatches. This data is then used to determine what combination of bars would be most beneficial for the customer. The gluten-free and vegan bars cost $3 each, and are available in flavors like Calm Green (infused with lemon balm extract) and Sleepy Gray (infused with hops).

Food Tech News: Greenhouse Gas Straws, Improved Amazon Grocery Delivery

If you’re ready for a break from all those political memes, here’s your chance to catch up on some final pieces of food tech news from the past week. A few stories that stood out to us include foodware made from greenhouse gases, improved Amazon grocery delivery, PBR’s THC-infused seltzer, and a limited-edition plant-based tuna melt.

Straws made out of pollution

Newlight Technologies, a biotech company based in Southern California, launched commercial foodware and fashion lines made from pollution-eating microorganism secretions. In the company’s Huntington Beach facilities, ocean water conditions are recreated in vats, and then microorganisms are added. Then the vats are purposefully polluted with collected greenhouse gases. Microorganisms then gobble up greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and their excretions are gathered to be dried and formed into pellets. The substance that is molded into pellets in called AirCarbon, and it is then melted and molded to make things like straws, utensils, and wallets. The end products are actually carbon-negative since the gases did not end up in the environment.

Amazon adds feature to improve grocery delivery

If you tried ordering a grocery delivery through Amazon at the start of the pandemic, you might remember checking for available slots around 10 times a day with no luck. Or you might have been one of those people who woke up in the middle of the night to reserve a slot. Amazon just announced a new feature as a solution to this problem: if there are no available slots at the moment, a customer can sign up to wait for the next open delivery time. With the new feature, customers will be given an estimation of when the next available spot will be then notified when it opens. They will have two hours to place an order.

Photo from Npr

Pabst Blue Ribbon releases THC-infused seltzer

Last week Pabst Blue Ribbon announced the release of its 4.2 percent hard cold brew coffee. This week, the company’s new THC-infused seltzer hit shelves. The lemon-flavored seltzer contains no alcohol and has 5mg of THC. The new beverage is targeted at consumers who are curious about cannabis and would prefer eating or drinking it rather than smoking it. Apparently the product is already popular, with both the first and second productions selling out quickly. Priced at $24 each, four-packs of the seltzer are available at dispensaries and online.

Veggie Grill launches Good Catch tuna melt sandwich

Gathered Foods, makers of Good Catch plant-based tuna, partnered with vegan restaurant chain Veggie Grill to release a limited edition tuna melt sandwich. Good Catch makes a protein-rich plant-based tuna from a blend of six legumes: peas, chickpeas, lentils, soy, fava beans, and navy beans. This January, Good Catch raised a $32 million Series B funding round, and Veggie Grill is the first restaurant that Good Catch has partnered with. The tuna melt sandwich will be comprised of a tuna salad, American cheese, pickles, and tomato on griddled rye bread, and it will be available until the end of the year.

Plant-Based Zero Egg To Launch On World Egg Day

Zero Egg will launch its plant-based egg powder alternative in the U.S. on October 9th, which, fittingly, is World Egg Day.

To celebrate the launch, Zero Egg invited me to join a virtual Zoom brunch and taste test products made with its plant-based egg replacement. It was certainly the highlight of my week to be shipped a large box filled with vegan brunch items; the delivery included muffins, a breakfast sandwich, cookies, caesar dressing, prosecco, OJ, and a sample of its flagship egg powder product.

The Zoom brunch included members of Zero Egg like co-founder and CEO, and Executive Chef, Mario Rodriguez, who explained how to use the Zero Egg products. Even though the breakfast sandwich sent to me came frozen, I was impressed that after warming up, the egg patty in the sandwich was fluffy and had the proper texture of a real egg.

The actual product that Zero Egg will be selling to foodservice operators and food manufacturers is a plant-based egg powder made mainly out of soy protein isolate and pea flour. The powder comes in two forms; EGG Basics as a direct replacement for scrambles or omelets, and BAKE Basics for specialty baking.

The company faces competition from Just Egg, which has been rapidly expanding this year. Just Egg has established itself with consumers through its plant-based liquid egg and frozen folded egg patties made from mung beans and has plans for international expansion. Zero Egg has partnered with Gordon Food Service for distribution to foodservice operators and food manufacturers, but will soon expand its offerings to directly target consumers.

Zero Egg has already partnered with several restaurants and bakeries in Israel, where the company was founded. Next year the company plans to launch a consumer version of the product at the retail level, as well as a plant-based egg patty sometime in the future. The company has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Unovis Asset Management-New Crop Capital, Strauss Group-The Kitchen Hub, and Valor Siren Ventures.

Danone North America Implements Latis To Determine Ingredient Sustainability

Danone North America recently announced that it is the first company to partner with HowGood to use the latter’s food sustainability platform called Latis, which helps determine the source location, sustainability standard, and environmental impact of ingredients.

Latis tracks factors like an ingredient’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, soil health, animal welfare, labor risk, and working conditions. The Latis data engine contains 30,000 ingredients, chemicals, and materials, and Takoua Debeche, SVP of Research and Innovation at Danone told me by phone last week that the company will use Latis to determine the sustainability of ingredients found in Danone’s existing products, as well as future offerings.

Danone North America is the world’s largest certified B corporation, and implementing Latis will further expand its sustainability efforts. Trends show that consumers have a heightened desire for products that align with their own values around sustainability, and are reaching for products that are both sustainable and transparent. At the same time, other food businesses are responding with their own initiatives: Just Salad recently launched a “climatarian menu” to showcase menu items with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions. Even quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s and Starbucks have pledged to increase sustainability efforts.

In addition to sourcing sustainable ingredients, Danone is also looking at uncovering more nutrition benefits of the ingredients it already uses. This summer, Danone also partnered with Brightseed to use its artificial intelligence (AI) platform to uncover phytonutrients of certain plants. Danone is currently using this technology to specifically analyze soy, but will soon also be analyzing the nutrition benefits of other plants as well.

After partnering with Latis and Brightseed, more plant-based products will be in Danone’s product roadmap according to Debeche. Danone will use these two technologies to improve the flavor, texture, and nutrition content of current and future plant-based products.

Building The Next Great Food Tech Company? Apply for the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase!

Are you working on a new alternative protein product that you think will change the world? Building the cooking appliance or food robot of the future? Have an idea for AI could reduce the amount of food we waste?

If so, you’ll want to apply for the sixth annual Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase!

Alumni of the SKS Startup Showcase have gone on to raise raise tens of millions of dollars in funding, appear on Shark Tank, and make some of the most exciting and well-known products in their categories.

And because North America’s leading food tech summit is going virtual this year, the 2020 Startup Showcase will be a truly global launchpad for your food tech company.

Just submit your application no later than September 15 to enter your company for consideration. We’ll be selecting 10 startups to tell the world about their ideas at the Smart Kitchen Summit from October 13 – 15, 2020.

We look forward to hearing about your company and helping you tell your story to the world!

Some (Bittersweet) Personal News

The coronavirus pandemic is leading to massive shakeups everywhere you look. But my life change was already in motion long before the words “social distancing” even entered our vocabulary.

I’m going to business school! Which, sadly, means that this is my last day with The Spoon. I’m headed to school with plans to continue on in food tech. After graduation, I’ll work to make the way we eat more equitable, sustainable, and delicious. I hope you’ll keep in touch.

Cue the sappy music! It’s flashback time.

I was the Spoon’s first full-time employee when I joined the team over two years ago. My colleagues have been the best part of working here: Mike Wolf, fearless leader, never without his backpack; Chris Albrecht, sharp-witted editor and lover of 90’s alt-rock references; and Jenn Marston, a silver-haired elf who also just happens to be a kick-ass writer.

This team has taught me everything I know about tech reporting: how to always think critically, and most importantly how to get to the point. (Yes, I’ll do that soon, I promise.) I will be forever grateful for their guidance, humor, and wisdom.

I feel especially blue that I’m leaving the Spoon at such an exciting time. We just launched Spoon Plus, which is our premium content platform full of deep-dive interviews, analytical hot takes, and surveys revealing the current state of the food system. Obviously I’m biased, but I think it’s worth subscribing to if you haven’t already.

SKS, our global foodtech summit, is also going virtual this fall! That means you may not get those coveted soft t-shirts (so soft!), but taking SKS online opens up so many possibilities in terms of attendees, speakers, and networking. It’ll be awesome. 

Considering the state of the world right now, we need innovation around food — and people shedding light on the innovators — more than ever. I’m sad that I won’t be able to join the team as they move forward to catalyze and report on the future of food.

But I’m not disappearing into the ether! I hope I can continue to be a resource for The Spoon and our broader community. I really love the group of foodtech nerds we’ve built at The Spoon and will be an active member for life. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn to stay in touch.

Stay safe and stay hungry.

Miss you already,
Catherine

Meet Spoon Plus, Our New Deep Dive Insights & Virtual Events Membership Program

When we launched the Smart Kitchen Summit in 2015, an event all about the rethinking of cooking and our kitchens, we soon realized innovation was happening everywhere across the food system: at the farm, in our favorite restaurants, at the corner grocery store and, yes, in our kitchens.

It felt necessary, almost urgent, to tell these stories. After all, I’d spent a good chunk of the decade prior working for one of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech blogs, where I discovered how crucial it is to nascent markets to find those betting big on turning their world-changing ideas into a changed world. Back then it was technologies like cloud computing and IoT upending established industries like digital media and communication, but it didn’t take me long to realize the reinvention of the food system would be an even bigger deal.

After all, everyone eats, right?

So we started The Spoon in 2016 because we had this idea that we would tell the stories of a new generation of innovators working to reinvent the food system. Now, almost four thousand stories later, we are more convinced than ever about the impact of innovation on food.

Which is why we created Spoon Plus.

What’s Spoon Plus? In short, it’s our paid membership community where we’ll be bringing you deep dive insights in the form of research reports, long-form conversations with innovators, and exclusive online events to help you better understand the world of food tech and food innovation.

We’ll have new content every week, and to start we’ve got a great report from our own Catherine Lamb analyzing the emerging market for air protein. We also have a new report by me analyzing the survey results of food-industry executives about the impact of COVID-19 and their go-forward plans for the rest of 2020.

That’s not all. Early next week, I’ll publish my first weekly intelligence brief looking at COVID-19 disruption on new product launches in the kitchen and housewares space. After that, our editor-in-chief Chris Albrecht will soon have a report on the emerging market for next-generation food vending machines, and our restaurant tech expert, Jenn Marston, will have a strategy guide for cloud kitchens in the post-COVID world.

As part of Spoon Plus, we’ll also have deep dive conversations and interviews with industry executives like this one with Chris Young, the coauthor of Modernist Cuisine and founder of ChefSteps, who opened up to me recently about what happened with the company he founded and where he thinks the next big opportunities are in the world of food.

As part of our launch of Spoon Plus, we’re also announcing that Smart Kitchen Summit 2020 is going virtual, and that every Spoon Plus annual membership will include a ticket to SKS 2020. Our belief is that our events and online content have a symbiotic relationship, where our community engages with the same innovators we are writing about and where we often find the next big story at The Spoon. As we go deeper with Spoon Plus, we want our SKS community to be a part of that.

Of course, part of the reason for going virtual with our flagship event is we now live in a world where in-person events that thrive on a global mix of interesting people are going to be difficult, if not impossible, for the next 1-2 years. That said, we’re really excited about the SKS reaching even more people. We’ve been working hard at building our virtual event capabilities (we had a virtual COVID-19 food summit last month with over 1500 attendees), and are becoming more excited by the day about the possibilities of SKS 2020 and other exclusive virtual events through Spoon Plus.

So if you want to go deeper with us through research and reports, if you want to attend SKS 2020, if you want to support The Spoon as we grow, subscribe to Spoon Plus. As a way to help you get started, we’re offering Spoon Plus annual memberships for 40% off for the next ten days only. This one-time discount includes our company plans (that’s right – you can get Spoon Plus for your entire team). Just use the discount code LAUNCH when you are checking out and Memberful (the technology powering our membership offering) will deduct the amount from the total.

And of course, if you want to try out Spoon Plus for a month, you can subscribe to our monthly plan (monthly plans do not include a ticket to SKS). We also offer substantial discounts for students and for anyone who is in the midst of job transition.

If you’d like to learn more about those, just drop us an line.

For those of you wondering about The Spoon’s free coverage, don’t worry. We’re more committed than ever to bringing you the same daily news and analysis of those changing the food system for free on our main site. Spoon Plus is for those who, like us, also want to go deeper and access content that connects the dots from our daily reporting.

Thanks for your support. We look forward to building Spoon Plus together as we look to better understand and engage in the future of food.

Restaurants and Partners Innovating to Survive During the Coronavirus

The COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent social distancing are affecting many folks, but one of the groups that’s been the hardest-hit is the hospitality industry, especially restaurants. So we at The Spoon are putting together a list of companies in or adjacent to the food and restaurant space who are offering ways to help foodservice establishments struggling during the coronavirus.

Please feel free to leave any additional companies in the comments section or email us at tips@thespoon.tech. We’ll be updating the list. Stay safe and healthy out there!

SOFTWARE HELPING RESTAURANTS

Photo: Foodetective

Switzerland: Foodetective

Plenty of restaurants are trying to focus more on takeaway and delivery, but third-party delivery services can charge high fees that cut into restaurants’ already razor-thin margins. Foodetective is trying to let restaurants keep more profits in their pockets by offering free takeaway and delivery platform for restaurants — in Switzerland. Swiss restaurants can go onto Foodetective’s website and set up a profile to sell their food online without having to pay commissions to delivery services.

Maybe (more) third-party delivery services here in the U.S. will take note.

Photo: Bbot

Nationwide: Bbot

Steve Simoni, founder of smart ordering software provider Bbot, told The Spoon that they would be providing discounted setups of their software to help restaurants better support delivery and pickup. Simoni said that they won’t charge the monthly fee for their software until June 1.

“We’re trying to make it cost effective and easy for them,” he wrote to us. However, participating restaurants will need to figure out their own delivery service to partner with to actually get the food to diners’ doorsteps.

Photo: Lavu

Nationwide: Lavu

Restaurant PoS system provider Lavu Inc. just released its Corona Virus Relief plan. According to a Linkedin post by Lavu’s CEO Saleem S. Khatri, the company is no longer charging software payments to restaurants that are shut down in response to the outbreak.

Lavu is also waiving fees for Menudrive, its online ordering platform, so restaurants focusing more on delivery don’t have to pay as much to third-party services.

Finally, Khatri wrote that Lavu has partnered with an undisclosed capital partner to help restaurants in dire straits gain access to short-term capital.

RESTAURANTS REINVENTING THEMSELVES

Seattle: Addo

Chef Eric Rivera is known for his wacky, creative theme nights at his Seattle restaurant addo. But in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, he has started diversifying addo’s offerings to cater to diners who might be cautious to dine out in a group setting.

Seattlites can order to-go meals from addo @ home, which includes three pre-prepped meals plus wine, for pick-up or delivery. Rivera has also created addo pantry, a source of dry goods, hot sauces, and more made in-house which people can pre-order for pickup or delivery (delivery comes with a flat fee). Pick-ups and deliveries for addo pantry start on 3/22.

If you’re looking for a way to pay it forward in these uncertain times, Rivera just launched addo for the people. Through the program you can purchase $9 bowls of take-and-heat food either for yourself or as donations to local charities. The bowls are currently available for pickup at addo and Rivera and his team are in the midst of partnering with charities to coordinate food drop off.

Photo: Canlis restaurant in Seattle

Seattle: Canlis

James Beard Award-winning fine dining restaurant Canlis is completely reinventing itself in the wake of the coronavirus. The restaurant will shut down its dining room starting on Monday, March 16 and will pivot the following day to offer three new dining options: takeout-only breakfast option The Bagel Shed, pickup lunch offering Drive On Thru, and a meal delivery service called Family Meal.

All new offerings will be based on the Canlis restaurant site in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle, and the delivery range for Family Meal will be roughly 7 miles away from the restaurant. “Fine dining is not what Seattle needs right now,” reads Canlis’ new website. “Instead, this is one idea for safely creating jobs for our employees while serving as much of our city as we can. We’ve got this, Seattle.”

CREATOR GOES TAKE OUT

San Francisco’s hamburger restaurant, which already has robots that make its food, has gone to take out and delivery only. The restaurant has also taken on what seems like sci-fi level measures, as the company told us via email:

Our engineers have worked around the clock to create a transfer chamber that protects the inside of the restaurant from outside air yet still allows us to transport completed meals, in their hermetically sealed bags, out to customers. The chamber uses a positive pressure system combined with a self-sanitizing conveyor.

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Do you know of other restaurants/online platforms/services that are helping foodservice establishments survive during the coronavirus outbreak? Comment below or send us a tip at tips@thespoontech!

Save the Date: Smart Kitchen Summit 2020, the Leading Food Tech Event In North America, Returns on October 15-16

Mark your calendars: the Smart Kitchen Summit, North America’s leading event for food tech executives, is back for a sixth year on October 15th and 16th in Seattle.

As the first event to bring together executives across the food, appliance, technology and retail industries to explore how digital technologies and innovation in science will reinvent the world of food, SKS has grown to become a must-attend global summit where leaders connect and map the future of their businesses.

And SKS 2020 will be no different as we continue to dive deep into the future of the kitchen as well as explore how advances in food science, AI, IoT and other innovation spaces will bring about a fundamental reinvention of every part of the food value chain over the next decade.

A sample of some of the topics we plan to explore at SKS 2020 include:

  • Personalization across food retail, restaurants, nutrition and the home kitchen
  • AI, robotics and automation’s impact on food in the home, restaurant and food retail
  • Future food innovation (Plant-based, lab-grown, from the air, molecular, etc)
  • Smart kitchen evolution towards a reinvention of core cooking, interfaces and kitchen business models
  • How innovation could help reduce food waste and build more sustainable food systems
  • Ghost kitchens and the changing restaurant and food delivery market

In addition to dozens of sessions exploring the areas critical to today’s food tech exec, SKS 2020 will also add new opportunities for attendees to discover innovations and connect with one another. This year’s event will feature expanded workshops and how-tos from makers to help you better understand and catalyze creation in your business. We will also include a bigger and better SKS Connect meeting platform where we will no doubt top the 1000 plus one-on-one meetings that took place last year.

Personally, I am more excited than ever for SKS. When we started the event back in 2015, I’d just spent much of the previous decade watching large-scale forces completely change the world of entertainment through digital technologies. We suspected disruptive tech was about to have a much bigger impact on the world of food and – as we can plainly see now – we were right. Everywhere along today’s food value chain — on the farm, in the factory, at food retail, in the restaurant and the consumer kitchen — we’re witnessing a radical reinvention of how business is done and how we prepare, sell and consume food.

And yet so much opportunity lies ahead of us. While we’ve seen food tech join other areas as a key focus area for many forward thinkers, the reinvention of the world of food is still in the very early stages. We have yet to find our Spotify or Netflix for food, and I really believe that it’s just a fairly short matter of time before companies emerge that will become huge platforms upon which the future of food is built.

Chances are these companies will be at SKS, so I’d love to invite you to join us in Seattle on October 15-16th as we figure out the future. Please check out our website to get access to early winter sale tickets, let us know if you want to speak or sponsor, or just sign up for more information.

See you in Seattle!

A Sneak Peek at Customize, The Spoon’s Personalized Food Summit

This week UBS published a report that personalized nutrition could generate annual revenues of $64 billion, and that companies large and small should take note. But how are companies capitalizing on the personalization trend across the food system, from CPG to restaurants to the home kitchen?

That’s exactly the question we’ll explore at Customize, The Spoon’s NYC summit on food personalization coming up on February 27. We’ve recruited an amazing list of speakers to discuss some of the most cutting-edge topics in the future of personalization.

We’d love to see you there! Here’s a sneak peek at what to expect at the event:

  • Personalized Nutrition & Wellness. How will biomarkers — like the microbes in your gut or your DNA — shape your diet? What’s the deal with food as medicine and how do grocery stores tap into it? We’ll have experts from Kroger, Viome, Genopalate and more weigh in.
  • Making Mass Food Markets Personal. CPGs and retail giants want to personalize their products, but how do they reshape the value chain to make hyper-personalization on a large scale? That’s what we’ll talk about with Walmart, Spoonshot, and Halla.
  • AI & Big Data in the Kitchen. A big piece of the personalization puzzle is data. How are companies collecting that data, keeping it safe, and applying AI to better understand us and shape our food? Folks from Whirlpool, evolv, and more will weigh in.
  • How Personalization Shapes Foodservice. Restaurants and catering operations alike are trying to figure out how to better customize consumer dining options. That’s what we’ll discuss with Compass Digital Labs (part of the massive Compass group) and Sevenrooms.
  • What’s Next for Food Personalization? Finally, we’ll have experts from Mintel, Food-X, and Alpha Labs weigh in on the future of food personalization.
  • … and lots more.

If you’re curious about how customized dining will affect your business — or want to tap into this cutting-edge trend — you’ll want to be at the show. We’ll have plenty of time to network, make connections in the space, and even try cool personalized food samples like 3D printed vitamins.

Spoon readers can get a 15 percent discount if they use code SPOON15. If you’re media and would like to attend drop us a line.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be publishing a series of Q&A’s to introduce you to the Customize speakers. Keep an eye out for those.

Grab your tickets here. We’ll see you in New York!