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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food Tech News: Shelf Engine Raises $12M, Willie Nelson Does AgTech

There was much ado about food tech funding this week. Seriously. Between Cooks Ventures’ Series A, Zuul’s $9 million round, and all the figures in between, we barely had time to write about anything else. With that in mind, here are a few more bites of food tech news before another weekend of staying at home starts.

Shelf Engine raises $12 million.

Seattle-based Shelf Engine, whose AI tech manages grocery store inventory to cut down on food waste, announced this week it had raised $12 million. The round was led by GGV Capital and included participation from Initialized Capital, Foundation Capital, Correlation Ventures, 1984, Founders’ Co-op, and Liquid 2 Ventures.

Ikea sets launch date for plant-based meatballs.

This one’s for fans of DIY furniture who also happen to love plant-based meat. Ikea finally unveiled a plant-based version of its famous meatball made from yellow pea protein. Meatballs will be available on August 3 in the U.K. and September 28 in the U.S. in the frozen food section of its stores as well as in the cafeteria. That’s assuming, of course, that the pandemic hasn’t shut us all down again.

Image via Shock Ink/Pamela Springsteen.

Willie Nelson backs regenerative agriculture.

Last year it was CBD-infused coffee. This year, Willie Nelson is making his contribution to the food industry by backing regenerative agriculture. AFN reported this week that regenerative ag business TerraPuerzza has partnered with the country icon to bring regenerative land, water, and resource management techniques to Willie’s 500-acre Luck Ranch in Texas.

Domino’s launches a website for recycling pizza boxes. 

Domino’s and its main box supplier, WestRock, launched recycling.dominos.com this week to better educate consumers on how to recycle their pizza boxes. That includes clearing up some recycling myths (yes, you can recycle a box with grease on it) as well as helping folks understand what to do if their area does not accept recycling.

 

Food Tech News: Cell-Based Seafood and a New Documentary on Urban Farming

Whether your weekend plans involve golf, Instagram listening parties, or baking yet-another loaf of quarantine bread, add a side dish of food tech news to your agenda to get things started. Here are a final few bits from this past week. 

Call It Cell-Based Seafood

A consumer study by Rutgers University professor William Hallman has found that “cell-based” is the preferred term for describing seafood made from cells grown in a lab. Other labels up for consideration were “cultivated,” “cell-cultured,” “cultured,” and “produced using cellular aquaculture.” The final text of the study, which was funded by BlueNalu, a company in the cell-based fish game, will be published in the near future.

Stop & Shop Launches a Digital Nutrition Program

Joining in the trend of offering nutritionists for grocery shoppers, Stop & Shop this week announced its Nutrition Partners program. The free program will be 100 percent digital at first, connecting shoppers with registered dietitians. It will also offer webinars, recipes, cooking demos, and other nutritional education online. In the event we ever make it out of the pandemic, the program will eventually be available in-person.

JUST Heads to Canada

JUST, makers of the plant-based egg that uses mung bean as its main protein, announced its expansion into Canadian grocery stores. According to an email sent to The Spoon, the company will launch its frozen folded egg product in Whole Foods and Walmart stores in Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, and Ottawa. JUST is also working with regulators to bring its pourable egg product into Canada, too.

2-Min Trailer for "Hearts of Glass – A Vertical Farm Takes Root in Wyoming"

Watch: New Documentary Follows Urban Farm Workers With Disabilities

A new documentary, “Heart of Glass,” will air on over 200 TV stations this month to coincide the 30th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act (July 26). The film details the story behind the creation of Wyoming indoor vertical farm Vertical Harvest, which provides employment for persons with disabilities. Check the trailer above and mark your calendars.

Week in Restaurants: A Classic SoCal Diner Goes Off-Premises, Dom’s Still Checking Pizzas

Why are you reading this and not grilling up a delicious Beyond Burger this holiday weekend?

As long as you’re here, let’s take a quick look at the week in restaurants. And what a week it was. With states halting the reopening of dining rooms, it’s clear the effects of the pandemic are far from over in the restaurant industry. Yet business keeps on, and there were a number of noteworthy developments from this week around ghost kitchens, AI pizza checkers, and the greatest diner of all time.

New NORMS

NORMS, a much-loved diner chain in Southern California, this week debuted NORMS Junior, a new store prototype geared towards to-go orders. The company says NORMS Junior will be the model for future NORMS locations — no surprise, given the pandemic’s effect on dining rooms (see above). NRN has some great slides of what this new NORMS will look like.

Next Stop for Wingstop: Ghost Kitchens

Also riding the off-premises wave strong is fast-casual chain Wingstop, who this week opened its first ghost kitchen in its hometown of Dallas, TX. The new facility is less than 400 square feet and is for delivery-only orders. Wingstop says one of its goals is to digitize 100 percent of its transactions. A delivery-only ghost kitchen will aid in that.

Taco Bell Redoes Digital Rewards

Simply dubbed Taco Bell Rewards, the new app-based loyalty program comes five years after the band’s original rewards program. Apparently the idea of a new loyalty app was so popular it sent Taco Bell traffic through the roof and temporarily crashed the site. To access the new rewards program, customers can download the latest version of the Taco Bell app, which includes a beta version of Taco Bell Rewards.

AI Will Continue Checking Your Pizzas

Domino’s and Dragontail Systems said this week they will continue their partnership, which puts Dragontail’s AI tech in Domino’s restaurants to ensure quality. The smart scanner uses advanced machine learning, artificial intelligence, and sensor technology to check the quality of pies before the go out for delivery. (Dragontail’s tech can also be used to ensure proper sanitization in restaurants.) The continuation of the partnership means more of these pizza scanners across more Domino’s locations. So far, the partnership between the two companies has been limited to Domino’s locations Australia. They have not yet said if this extended partnership will bring the technology to stores elsewhere in the world.

A (High-Tech) Sign of the Times

Of all the reinventions the restaurant is undertaking right now, menus are one of the more fascinating. Between calls to action about paring down the size of their menus, offering disposable ones, or, preferably, going full-on digital and contactless, restaurants have a lot of choices and decisions to make when it comes to how they will present their menus in the future. It’s not a question of wanting to or not. The pandemic, social distancing guidelines, and new regulations for restaurants have, as I wrote a couple weeks ago, rendered the reusable menu null and void.

In some cases, a simple sign that connects customers to the menu might be the best way forward, at least for now.

A boat-load of third-party restaurant tech companies now offer contactless tech bundles that include digital menus, but I was intrigued this week after talking to Larry Oberly, CEO of SpreedPro.

SpeedPro isn’t a restaurant-tech company; it’s a large-format printing service with locations around the U.S. and Canada. Over the phone, Oberly explained that the company recently started offering these large-format signs with its new technology, called InfoLnkX, embedded into them. Customers just hold their phones up to the NFC-enabled decal on the sign, which pulls up the restaurant menu on that person’s device.

Oberly said the tech is highly customizable, which means different signs could take users to different digital places: the menu in one instance, a promotion coupon in another, a video somewhere else. Remember the days of strolling down the sidewalk and pausing at a random restaurant then asking to view their menu? Were a restaurant equipped with something like SpeedPro’s signage, a person could simply hold their phone up to a sign outside and pull up that info themselves instead of cramming around a bunch of other people to all view the same menu posted in the window.

Social distancing is obviously the motivator behind the tech. While an InfoLnkX-enabled sign isn’t quite as technically flashy as, say, a contactless dining bundle from a restaurant tech company, it could very well have it’s own place in the future of restaurants. Besides lessening the number of people crowding around to view the same menu, being able to browse a menu from their own device would help customers decide on what to order before they ever set foot in the restaurant, hopefully lessening the number of people in line and making the entire order process faster.

For restaurants struggling to stay afloat and trying to adjust to dozens of new operational realities, the best interim solution for the menu issue might be a case of simpler is better.

Disney, Dole Whip . . . Delivery?

At some theme parks, the food is as much a part of the experience as the rides. We’re getting neither at the moment, thanks to the pandemic, but that might change soon, at least where food is concerned.

This week, Disneyland asked its annual passholders if they would like theme park food items delivered to their home. Think funnel cakes, churros, and the ever-popular Dole Whip, not to mention more substantial meal items found at restaurants around the park.

Disney hasn’t made any promises or shared any plans beyond the survey question. And while I thought the news was odd at first, the more I sit with it, the more it actually makes sense. Hear me out.

Disneyland has yet to set a reopen date for its Anaheim, CA theme park, and a note on the site from this week said that date “has not been identified.” Giving diehards a chance to order their favorite foods from the park would in a small way keep fans locked into the Disney ecosystem. It would also help generate some sales for the theme park, which has obviously lost revenue since it closed up due to COVID-19. And if memory serves me correctly, much of the fare you get (sandwiches, salads, pretzels, popcorn) at Disneyland would travel well, making the items easier to deliver.

Again, there’s no official word this is happening, but if enough passholders are missing their Dole Whip and can’t adequately recreate it at home, Disney may have a new sales channel on its hands. That could in turn set a standard for other theme parks with memorable food items. Harry Potter World Butter Beer, I’m lookin’ at you.

Restaurant Tech Around the Web

DailyPay adds CYCLE to its instant pay app for restaurants. The app, which lets restaurant workers access their earnings immediately instead of waiting for a paycheck, now lets restaurants provide bonuses, termination pay, or other “off-cycle payments” to employees instantly.

To-go sales grew in May. Black Box Intelligence shared new data at the Restaurants Rise conference this week indicating an increase in sales for restaurant to-go orders for April (66.8 percent) and May (96.4 percent). “Everything that was lost in the way of dine-in sales, in some cases, was made up by … to go and off-premise,” Kelli Valade, Black Box Intelligence CEO and president, said during the conference. 

Popeyes is getting a makeover. Chicken chain Popeyes plans to open 1,500 worldwide that feature an updated design (see image above) and lots of high-tech bells and whistles to make its operations more efficient. 

In Sweden, Plant-based Meat Is Getting a Bit Fishy

It’s no secret the alternative-protein market is skyrocketing in terms of both growth and new innovations. Already today we’ve written about Motif Foodworks’ efforts to make better fat for plant-based burgers and Japanese startup DAIZ’s recent $6 million funding round. 

And here’s another one to watch: a Swedish startup called Hooked, which is developing the “world’s first” plant-based shredded salmon. Food Navigator ran a profile of the company today, detailing how the company wants to address the unsustainable nature of the seafood industry and why they chose shredded salmon and tuna as their first plant-based products. 

Demand for seafood is growing — and harming the health of the planet at the same time, Hooked founders Emil Wasteson and Tom Johanson told Food Navigator. 

“By consuming Hooked’s products, consumers can enjoy seafood without any of these negative consequences. We are meeting the rapidly increased seafood demand with healthy and tasty alternatives with a production that can scale without harming the planet.”

Those products include plant-based shredded salmon and tuna, which are made from soya protein isolate and meant to be used in pastas, pizzas, wraps, and more.

‘We want to mimc the real nutritional value of [conventional seafood]. Most of the plant-based meat the you see on the market…may have good texture and taste, but the nutrition is not there,” said Peter Liu, Hooked’s CTO.

Hooked is focusing on European markets to start, though they may find a greater demand for their seafood products if the salmon and tuna do indeed deliver on taste, nutrition, texture, and price point.

If 2019 was the year alternative protein infiltrated the mainstream, 2020 is shaping up to be the year companies improve these products, both in terms of taste and variety.

Third-Party Delivery Suspends Services to Comply With Curfews

Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Nashville, Philly, Atlanta . . . the list of cities under curfew goes on, and if you live in one of those places and were counting on some food delivery for your supper, you’ll have to look elsewhere. DoorDash recently told The Verge it is “pausing” operations to comply with those local curfew orders. 

From The Verge:

DoorDash, which has seen an increase in orders as restaurants have been forced to suspend eat-in dining during the pandemic, told The Verge it is pausing operations to abide by curfews. Its spokesperson did not provide details about which cities were affected as of Monday.

Uber has also suspended service in some cities, which extends to its Eats food delivery business. An Uber spokesperson told Business Insider that customers should use the app to learn more about these suspensions, and that they should use Uber/Uber Eats “for emergency purposes only during this time.”

Postmates, which is the biggest service in Los Angeles, is also abiding by local curfews. Grubhub said it is “pausing operations when needed.”

Delivery companies aren’t being specific about which cities have suspended which services. Even in places where an order goes through, they are then cancelling orders. For ones that actually go through, some drivers are having trouble actually getting the food to customers:

How long these suspensions and changes to service last will, most likely depend on when the unrest subsides. To find out if food delivery is a realistic prospect in your city, best to check for updates directly in these services’ apps.

Food Tech News: Recipe Personalization, Curbside Pickup, and Cultured Seafood

Happy food tech news day! I hope it’s a sunny one where you are.

This week we’ve got stories on a new partnership for DNA-based personalized recipe suggestions, funding for cell-based seafood, and ALDI’s expansion of curbside grocery pickup. Enjoy!

Side note: This will be my last foodtech news dispatch for The Spoon! I’m moving on and will miss you all greatly.

GenoPalate and Edamam team up to further personalized dining
Personalized nutrition platform GenoPalate has partnered with Edamam, a nutrition data service, to make the world’s largest food and recipe database for those trying to eat a healthier diet. Through the partnership, GenoPalate customers will be able to better recommend recipes to their users, and Edamam will move “more seriously into the nutrigenomic space.” Beginning in the fall of 2020, GenoPalate members will be able to access information Edamam through both mobile and web.

ALDI to expand curbside pickup to 600 stores
Grocery chain ALDI announced this week that its Curbside Grocery Pickup service would be available in 600 stores across 35 states by the end of July. Customers shop for groceries online, select the closest location which offers curbside pickup, and choose a time for pickup. They drive into their designated parking spot and a grocery employee will put their groceries into their car. Maybe next they’ll start exploring geofencing?

Photo: BlueNalu

Sumitomo Corporation of America invests in BlueNalu
Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (SCOA) has joined the Series A financing round for ‘cellular aquaculture’ company BlueNalu. The startup, which makes cultured seafood from fish cells, announced a $20 million Series A round back in February of this year. SCOA will help BlueNalu expand its production capacity and create global distribution partnerships.

Food Tech News: Nestlé Opens Plant-based Meat Factory in China, Home Chef Data Breach

It’s certainly an odd Memorial Day weekend, what with most of us unable to travel or gather on beaches or rooftops or invite our friends over to grill. But hopefully it’s a relaxing one for you, nonetheless.

Did you know that a proven way to make any holiday weekend better is to kick it off with some food tech news? This edition has stories on Home Chef’s data breach, Nestlé’s first plant-based meat factory in China, and some new celebrity investors for vegan tuna company Good Catch. Enjoy!

Home Chef confirms data breach
Meal delivery service Home Chef confirmed this week that it had indeed suffered a data breach (h/t Techcrunch). The company stated that the names, email addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses of some of its customers were hacked, along with the last four digits of their credit cards. Not all of its users were affected. The stolen information was published online, along with other hacked data from 10 other companies.

Photo: Nestlé

Nestlé to open plant-based meat factory in China
CPG giant Nestlé announced plans this week to build a new plant-based meat manufacturing site in Tianjin, roughly 72 miles outside of Beijing (h/t Fortune). This will be Nestlé’s first production facility for plant-based products in Asia. The company noted that the food sector has undergone a “quiet revolution” over the past few years, as consumers turn to more environmentally friendly foods — like plant-based meat.

Photo: Good Catch Foods

Plant-based seafood company reveals celebrity investors
Gathered Foods, the company behind plant-based seafood company Good Catch, announced a new group of celebrity investors this week. The list includes big names like Woody Harrelson, Paris Hilton and Lance Bass. Good Catch’s vegan tuna is available at 4,500 retailers in the US and UK, and the company plans to expand to more international locations in 2020. The celebrity investment news comes four months after Good Catch announced a $36.8 million Series B financing round with investors including General Mills.

Food Tech News: Chefling Increases Personalization Offerings, More Whole Foods Go Dark

This weekend you might be trying out a new banana bread recipe, tackling a crossword or just leaving your house for some fresh air (with a mask, of course). We celebrate the small victories.

We also celebrate our weekly food tech news roundup! This edition has stories on Chefling’s new partnership with Edamam, Whole Foods continuing to go dark, Postmates’ new curbside pickup, and Impossible Foods’ upcoming cookbook. Enjoy!

Chefling teams up with Edamam for more personalization
Smart kitchen startup Chefling announced this week that it would work with Edamam, a nutrition analysis company, to improve its offerings. Chefling currently has an app that suggests recipes to users based on ingredients they have in their kitchen. Now it will use Edamam’s food and nutrition database to help better tailor said recipe suggestions based on lifestyle and diet, such as keto, gluten-free and vegan. 

Photo: Impossible Foods

Impossible Foods to unveil cookbook
Plant-based meat company Impossible Foods has opened preorders for its cookbook, which will debut on June 16. The cookbook has 40 recipes from well-known chefs, like Michael Symon and Traci Des Jardins, all featuring Impossible’s “bleeding” meatless beef. The book will retail for $21.82 on Amazon and $3 of each sale will be donated to No Kid Hungry.

Photo: Whole Foods

Whole Foods marches forward with “dark” stores
This week Whole Foods opened its sixth “dark” store since the pandemic in Chicago (h/t GroceryDive). To meet unprecedented demand for online groceries, Whole Foods has been converting its locations to delivery-only stores, also known as “dark” stores. Some of these locations had not yet been opened to the public, while others have transformed to allow some foot traffic while reserving most space for delivery grocery fulfillment. 

Postmates introduces curbside pickup
On-demand delivery service Postmates announced this week that it was instituting curbside pickup. The new service is meant to help businesses who are reopening navigate the bumps and serve consumers who might be hesitant to go inside the store. To use the feature, sellers can turn on the curbside pickup option from their Postmates dashboard. Consumers can then “Check In” to let the merchant know they’re outside. Postmates is also making the curbside pickup option available for their own delivery drivers.

Food Tech News: Plant-based Meat Making International Moves, Plus a New Fermented Sweetener

The world keeps turning, the sourdough starters continue to demand our attention, and food tech news is always popping up. So it goes.

This week’s roundup is heavy on the plant-based protein. We have stories about Cargill’s moves to expand alt-meat in China, a Spanish plant-based meat startup’s new funds, as well as innovations in sugar-free sweeteners and sunscreen for plants. Enjoy!

New Crop Capital invests in plant-based meat startup Heura
Unovis Asset Management announced this week that it had made an investment in plant-based meat startup Heura via its New Crop Capital fund, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. The investor led the convertible note round, and the exact amount of funding was not disclosed. Heura makes plant-based meat analogs, specifically chicken and meatballs, which sell in Europe and Canada. With its new funding, the startup will focus on international expansion.

Cargill expands plant-based meat offerings in China
Starting next month, Cargill will offer its plant-based meat alternatives to consumers in China (h/t Reuters). Called PlantEver, the new line will be available both in brick-and-mortar retail as well as online. This announcement comes just a week after Cargill partnered with several KFC locations in China to sell their plant-based fried chicken for a three-day trial. According to Cargill, the trial was a success and the chicken quickly sold out.

Cultiva gets $2.94 million in funding for plant preservation coating
Las Vegas-based biotech startup Cultiva announced this week it had raised $2.94 million from Advantage Capital (via AgFunder). The company makes a biofilm product, called SureSeal, which coats plants to help regulate their moisture and keep them from drying out or getting burned (sort of like sunscreen). SureSeal is meant to increase produce lifespan and reduce spoilage. It’s already used commercially on several crops. With its new funding, Cultiva will grow its team and develop a new line of produce coatings.

Ingredion unveils new fermented sugar substitute
This week ingredient company Ingredion’s EMEA branch launched Erysta, a new zero-calorie sweetener made from erythritol (h/t FoodIngredientsFirst). Erythritol is made through fermentation and can be found naturally in some fruits and vegetables. The new sweetener is 70 percent as sweet as sugar and apparently has a similar mouthfeel, so companies can use it to help reduce the sugar content of their products.

Food Tech News: Kroger to Accept SNAP for Pickup, KFC China Goes Plant-based

It can be a bright spot to think that even when everything is turned upside down in the food world, companies are still coming up with creative ways to stay afloat and help folks have access to healthy food.

In this week’s food tech news roundup we’ve got stories on just that. There are bits about Kroger ramping up SNAP acceptance for pickup, healthy meal services pairing up with fitness classes, and KFC in China dipping its toe into plant-based meat. Enjoy!

Kroger to accept SNAP payments for grocery pickup
Kroger will accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments at all 2,000 of its grocery pickup locations by the end of the month (h/t FoodDive). Consumers can select the “SNAP/EBT” option when ordering groceries online, then use their EBT card to pay for covered items when they pick up. Thus far, the service is only available at the chain’s Ohio stores. This comes as Kroger bulks up its pickup service, adding slots, hiring workers, and waiving pickup fees.

Photo: Trifecta

Meal service Trifecta partners with Basecamp Fitness
Trifecta, an organic premade meal delivery service, is teaming up with Basecamp Fitness to deliver healthy meals to their members’ doors. Per an email sent to The Spoon, Trifecta will offer subscribers six types of meals — keto, paleo, vegan, etc. — as well as an à la carte section that operates like a miniature online grocery store. Trifecta is already geared towards healthy, fit people looking to eat to sustain their workout, so it makes sense to partner with a fitness service that’s essentially a captive audience (literally and figuratively).

Photo: KFC

KFC to offer plant-based fried chicken in China
Yum China, the parent brand of KFC, announced this week that it would begin selling plant-based fried chicken at select KFC locations in China. The nuggets will come from Cargill, which only recently launched its own alternative meat brand, and will be available in three locations from April 28-30th. A five-pack of the nuggets will cost 1.99 yuan ($0.28 USD).

Food Tech News: CRISPR Blackberries and a New Nordic FoodTech Fund

Are you baking bread this weekend? (Hot tip: Even if you can’t find yeast at the store, there’s a simple way to make your own at home.)

In between your dough prooves is a great time to catch up on your latest dose of food tech news. This week we’ve got stories on fresh varietals of gene-edited berries, a new Nordic FoodTech VC fund, Burger King’s trouble over its plant-based burger ads in the UK, and more.

Pairwise partners to breed new type of berries
Agriculture and biotech company Pairwise forged a partnership with Plant Sciences Inc (PSI) this week to create new types of berries (via WRAL TechWire). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Pairwise uses CRISPR gene editing to develop new varietals of food that are optimized for nutrition, have longer shelf lives or grow more quickly. First up, Pairwise and PSI will focus on black and red raspberries, as well as blackberries. They’re hoping to have their first round of berries on shelves within the next few years.

Lyft launches delivery program for orgs affected by COVID-19
Rideshare and last-mile logistics company Lyft launched a new COVID-19-related initiative this week. Essential Deliveries is a program that partners with businesses and nonprofits to help them deliver staple goods like groceries, prepared meals, and cleaning and medical supplies (h/t Techcrunch) to consumers. Partners can tap into Lyft’s platform to set up deliveries or schedule rides. The program will be available in at least 11 cities nationwide and drivers will be alerted about the nature of the goods they’re delivering. All deliveries will be contact-free.

Nordic FoodTech VC launches with €24.55 million
Nordic FoodTech VC, a new venture fund targeting early-stage tech companies making the food system more sustainable and nutritious, has launched this week. The fund will begin investing with €24.55 million ($26.7 million USD) in capital. It’s the first fund in the Nordic countries and plans to invest in “dozens” of companies innovating to improve the global food system.

Burger King’s Rebel Whopper (Photo: Burger King)

Burger King’s plant-based Whopper ads banned in UK
Three ads from Burger King in the UK promoting its Rebel Whopper have now been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority. Burger King launched the Rebel Whopper, which features a plant-based burger from Unilever-owned Vegetarian Butcher, back in January 2020. Since then, complaints came in stating that the ad was misleading consumers by suggesting that it could be eaten by vegetarians, vegans, and people with egg allergies, despite the fact that it’s cooked on the same grill as meat products and features mayonnaise. The ASA has sided with the complaints, stating that the small print at the bottom of BK’s ads stating that the Rebel Whopper is cooked alongside meat products was not sufficiently in informing consumers.