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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

CES

Meet Joe, The Oven-Shaped Brother of Bob the Dishwasher

Remember Bob the Dishwasher? He has a brother that likes to cook.

Daan Tech, the French-based startup behind Bob the Dishwasher, has created a small form-factor countertop oven called Joe. Joe is a multifunction oven with a steam/combi oven, convection heating/air-frying, and a microwave. As far as I know, this oven is the first countertop appliance with all three of these capabilities in one box.

Like Bob, Joe the Oven comes in a Smeg-ish design that looks cool on the countertop. Daan isn’t planning on releasing Joe until 2024, and, at this point, they haven’t revealed pricing, but since they are showing up at CES in about a week, we may know more soon.

We’ll be covering CES and what’s happening in food tech all the next week, so if you have a tip or story about a product you see or will be bringing to CES, drop us a line.

The Kitchen 2030: How Food & Cooking Will Change in the Future (Video)

If you’ve been following The Spoon since the early days of 2015, you might remember that our flagship event that started it all was the Smart Kitchen Summit. Dedicated to the quiet revolution that was happening in the consumer kitchen, SKS became the event to examine the tech disruption upending business models and changing the way we source, cook and eat our food forever.

So it was fitting that our opening panel at the first CES Food Tech Conference was “The Kitchen 2030: How Food & Cooking Will Change in the Future,” featuring some of the leading companies in the kitchen and appliance industries. The panel discussion was hosted by Michael Wolf, CEO and founder of The Spoon and included Khalid Aboujassoum, Founder & CEO of Else Labs, Dochul Choi, Senior Vice President at Samsung, Robin Liss, CEO at Suvie and Kai Schaeffner, executive at Vorwerk (Thermomix).

The panel talked about where and how cooking, storing and even shopping for foods has shifted in the last several years; with more transparency and information about the foods we eat, the digitization of the recipe, guided cooking features and a whole new wave of kitchen appliances that may change the entire layout and function of the consumer kitchen.

“The Kitchen 2030” panel can be viewed in its entirety below — leave a comment with your predictions for the next decade of innovation in the connected kitchen.

CES: Tackling Food Waste With Technology (Video)

The topic of food waste and innovation is so important — in the US alone, $408 billion worth of food is wasted each year. But the topic is too often overlooked when it comes to food tech conversations.

That’s why we invited experts to join us at the CES Food Tech Conference last month to talk about waste at different points in the food supply chain as well as the systemic issues plaguing the global food system.

We welcomed Vonnie Estes, Vice President of Innovation with the International Fresh Produce Association to moderate this panel with participants including Spencer Martin, CEO of Clew, Adian Mouat, Co-Founder & CEO of Hazel Technologies and Tim West, President of True West Ventures LLC.

The full panel — “Tackling Food Waste With Technology” is ready for viewing below.

CES 2022: Hazel Technologies Wants to Extend The Life of Perishable Food

Food waste startup Hazel Technologies started by creating solutions that could integrate into the existing global food chain by taking aim at food packages. In a sit down interview at CES 2022, CEO Aidan Mouat explained the way they think about their solution the way you would with a traditional tech stack. “Hazel is creating a chemical stack where our technology acts as the biochemistry layer to existing food packaging. The inserts are activated using atmospheric chemistry to control certain parameters in perishable food shelf life during storage and transit,” he added.

Today, Hazel Technologies are also working on the supply side, tracking as perishables get from distributors and farms to the grocery shelf. They’re also collecting data, looking at logistics and partnering with larger brands to optimize their own packaging and shipping procedures.

Food waste is clearly going to be a big part of the conversation in the world of food and tech this year. We’re not only seeing hardware and software innovation from food and kitchen companies but in biochemical innovation in places like packaging to keep food edible and safe longer.

Don’t miss this conversation on sustainable packaging tech and the impact on waste with The Spoon’s Mike Wolf and Hazel Technologies’ CEO Aidan Mouat at CES 2022.

CES 2022: The Spoon Interviews Hazel Technologies' Aidan Mouat.

We Tried Goodside Foods Meatless Crumbles Made by MycoTechnologies Mushroom Fermentation Technology

Having gone to numerous CES shows, I’ve developed a few survival strategies for the big tech conference: Bring hand sanitizer, wear comfortable shoes, and eat food whenever you get a chance.

While that last rule is mostly because food lines at CES are usually insanely long, as of late, it also applies whenever a company introduces a new plant-based food. And this year, three years after Impossible Foods debuted their second-generation plant-based burger at CES, we had a chance to try a new alt-meat in the form of Goodside Foods meatless crumbles.

Goodside Foods crumbles, a texturized pea and rice protein blend fermented by mycelia, debuted last week at CES 2022. The product is the first under MycoTechnology’s new consumer-facing brand. According to the company, Myco’s natural fermentation process makes their plant protein easier to digest and removes any off notes from plant-based meat alternatives. Interestingly, the product is packaged in a dry, shelf-stable form that is activated by water or broth. Once activated, the crumbles can be served in meat-based products such as pasta sauces or chili.

I decided to drop by the booth and give Goodsides crumbles a try. The company was serving up chili made with the new crumbles, the other usual chili fixings, and a plant-based cheese made by the company’s technology.

How’d it taste? Pretty darn good. I’ve tried both Impossible and Beyond ground beef alternatives in chili and pasta, and the Goodside Foods’ crumbles were on par with both of these products.

What I didn’t do was try the crumbles on their own in, say, a hamburger patty, so I can’t give a verdict on its standalone flavor. However, since the crumbles essentially gave me the same experience in chili as, say, a ground beef, it tells me Goodside Foods has really nailed the mouthfeel of a ground meat product (which is where many of the early plant-based meat products I’ve tasted fall down).

I also have to say, I like the idea of a dry, shelf-stable alt meat product (that isn’t, well, spam). While most plant-based meats freeze well and many – like Impossible – have pretty long refrigerator shelf-lives, the reality is sometimes we all get busy. Like others, I have forgotten to put a package of alt-meat in the freezer before it spoiled. With a shelf-stable product like Goodside’s crumbles, you can load up your pantry and not have to worry about spoilage.

If you’d like to try Goodside Food’s crumbles, you can order them online.

And, if you’re curious to try more mushroom-powered food, you may not have to wait long. The company was also showing off a mushroom milk at CES (ed note: it tastes like Oatly), which Goodside hopes to start shipping in Q1 or Q2 of this year.

You can see the chili made with Goodside’s crumbles in the video below.

The Spoon Tries GoodSide Foods Meatless Crumbles at CES 2022

The Auum Dishwasher Takes Aim at Single-Use Waste By Cleaning & Disinfecting a Glass Cup in 10 Seconds

Every year, the average office worker uses 500 single-use paper coffee cups, most of which end up in landfills. Plastic cup and bottle waste is even worse.

One obvious answer to reducing or eliminating all this waste is to replace single-use beverage containers with washable, reusable cups or glasses. The problem with this is many offices don’t have a kitchen, and even in those that do, most workers are either too busy (read lazy) to load or unload a dishwasher.

Enter the auum-S, a small countertop dishwasher that washes and dries a single glass cup in 10 seconds. The machine, which uses less than one ounce of water per wash, also disinfects the glass cups using high-temperature dry steam heated to 140°c (284 °F).

You can watch how the system works in the video below:

Unlike other small form-factor countertop dishwashers, the auum-S is targeted at offices, and because the system is for the professional market, the company uses an as-a-service pricing model. The standard setup price is €150 per month for the machine and one hundred 8 ounce glasses. The glasses, designed by Swiss company Bodum, are double-walled and can be customized for the customer with logos or names printed on the glass.

According to company spokesperson Léo Calvet, auum started selling the auum-S four months ago in its home market of France and has already shipped 1500 machines. Many customers are based in Paris and include such names as L’Oréal and Yves Saint Laurent. The company, which has raised one round of funding and is looking to raise more funds this year, plans to sell the auum-S into additional European markets this year and is eyeing a US market entry in 2023.

The Auum Dishwasher Aims to Eliminate Single Use Cups at Work

The Minnow Pickup Pod

CES 2022: Minnow Shows Off Pickup Pod, an Unattended Cubby System Designed for Food Delivery

Food tech startup Minnow showed off their contactless, asynchronous smart lockers for food delivery at CES 2022 — and The Spoon got a demo and sat down to talk to CEO Steven Sperry.

Minnow began shipping the pods in the last four weeks through Hatco, a manufacturing partner who creates Minnow pods on demand. On one end of the spectrum, Hatco is serving customers where food is picked up, including restaurants, ghost kitchens, and cafeteria operators. On the other end, Minnow is focusing on selling their pods into commercial real estate including office buildings, residential spaces like apartments and condos, and college campus locations — basically, where food is delivered.

While delivery lockers aren’t a new idea, Minnow differentiates by being designed specifically for food. Each pod is insulated, lit from the inside, and includes UV lights and antimicrobial surfaces.

“We did research and found that people don’t like the idea of reaching into a dark space to get their food — they want to know that the space is clean and sterile,” said Sperry.

Not only is the Minnow pod designed for food and strong connectivity with 5G on board, it’s also providing a standardized and easier way for third-party delivery drivers to find a delivery location to drop off food without navigating secure lobbies and elevators, gated entryways or confusing campus maps.

When asked about Minnow’s support model and whether a multifamily property owner would be able to use the Minnow pod “as a service” versus a straight purchase, Sperry responded, “The purchase typically has a SAS component because the device is always connected to our servers and monitored in real-time. We monitor the food continually, we know what’s happening in every pod and in most cases, it’s considered an amenity for the residents of that building.”

The Spoon video crew was able to get a quick demo of a Minnow pod live on the CES show floor — check it out below.

CES 2022: Demo of the Minnow Pick Up Pod

MycoTechnology Mushroom Tech Drives New Shelf Stable Alt-Protein

A few years ago, it might have seemed bizarre to anyone to have meatless crumbles, vegan cheese, or molecular alcohol alongside smart home and digital health tech on the show floor. But with the launch of Impossible Foods in 2020, CES has started to embrace a wider definition of food tech — one that goes beyond the smart kitchen. That’s why it’s no surprise that MycoTechnology — a company that created a mushroom technology that turns mycelia into different forms of alternate protein — has chosen this week at CES 2022 to launch its consumer-facing brand.

Goodside Foods is debuting shelf-stable meatless crumbles made from plant protein powered by fermentation. While there are a good deal of alt meat products derived from plant protein, Goodside’s meatless crumbles stand out because they only include three ingredients and they’ll last a lot longer and without refrigeration.

Powered by MycoTechnology’s mushroom fermentation platform, Goodside Foods meatless crumbles contain a pea and rice protein blend fermented by shitake mushroom roots or mycelia. The brand claims that the natural fermentation process makes their plant protein easier to digest.

In a written statement, Lisa Wetstone, Director, Innovation and Growth Strategy at MycoTechnology, Inc. commented, “Consumers deserve plant-based protein that is delicious, clean and nutritious. Our protein doesn’t contain anything extra or unnecessary – just three simple ingredients that can work for a thousand and more of your favorite recipes.”

MycoTechnology and Goodside Foods are at CES showing off their mushroom tech platform and the first consumer product to come from said tech — if you want to try shelf-stable meatless crumbles and learn more, visit booth #53753 in the Venetian (formerly Sands) Expo Hall A-C.

Where to See Food Tech on the Show Floor @ CES 2022: Day 1

While CES 2022 will be smaller this year as the show returns to in-person after hosting an all-virtual show in 2021, we’re excited to see food tech as an official category on the show floor. The Spoon team will be in the Sands Expo in Booth 53752 talking to leaders from startups to funders and execs across agtech, robotics, future food and kitchen tech.

We’ll have videos and reports as the show goes on. To start, here’s a quick list of booths where you’ll see food tech and smart kitchen innovations and the companies behind them:

  • Bear Robotics — Booth #53755 — Bear Robotics is utilizing AI and autonomous robot technology, deploying bots to take care of everything from drink and food serving to bussing. Bear Robotics works with top chefs and restaurants, providing front of house labor support.
  • MycoTechnology — Booth #53753 — MycoTechnology harnesses the metabolic engine of mushrooms, known as mycelium, using natural fermentation to create novel ingredients that solve the food industry’s biggest challenges. (Stay tuned for a story on their consumer facing brand launching at CES.)
  • Yo-Kai Express — Booth #53758 — Yo-Kai debuted as a robotic ramen vending machine and announced a 2021 expansion into other autonomous food and cooking devices at the Smart Kitchen Summit Japan.
  • Edamam — Booth #53860 — Edamam structures and organizes food and nutrition data and sells it as a subscription to businesses in the food, health, and wellness sectors. They have worked with food and retail giants include Nestle, Amazon, and The Food Network and according to the company have close to 100,000 developers using Edamam’s APIs.
  • Northfork — Booth #53959 — Northfork is a Swedish-based startup that enables shoppable recipes online, bridging the world of digital recipes and food retail.
  • Apex / “OrderHQ” Smart Food Locker — Booth #53958 — Apex Order Pickup Solutions is the creator of the OrderHQ smart food locker, a secure, contactless solution for food pickup and delivery services. The lockers combine front and back of house technology, including hot and cold storage as well as integration with fully automated order fulfilment.
  • Uvera — Booth #54058 — Uvera is a Saudi cleantech startup that wants to reduce food waste with a device that claims to increase the shelf-life of fresh food up to “97% on average within only 30 seconds of using the device, without any chemicals.”
  • Yangyoo / Armored Fresh — Booth #53761 — Yangyoo is a Korea-based food tech company launching Korea’s first vegan cheese alternative first developed by its US subsidiary, Armored Fresh. The future food brand uses a similar fermenting process that produces natural cheese on plant-based protein milk.
  • Endless West — Booth #54061 — Endless West is a beverage technology startup founded by biotechnologists using science to create a blend of wines and spirits; its first product – Glyph – is the first molecular-made whiskey, created without aging or barreling.

(Shared) Booth #51830

  • Picnic — Robotic pizza machine designed for back of house operations in restaurants; they first launched onto the scene at CES 2020 and started filling orders in the middle of 2021.
  • iUNU — iUNU (you knew) is a Seattle agtech firm creating an AI-based platform for greenhouses and vertical farms that assists indoor growers with yields, farming waste and overall operations.
  • Minnow was the winner of the 2020 Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase for their contactless food delivery solution called the Minnow Pickup Pod. An IoT-enabled locker for businesses and multifamily properties, Minnow streamlines food delivery on site.

We’ll add more companies to the list as we cover news and discover additional companies! Follow us at @TheSpoonTech on Twitter and LinkedIn as well as hashtags #CES2022 and #CESFoodTech for social updates.

CES 2022: Samsung & Others Launch Home Connectivity Alliance to Foster Appliance ‘Cloud to Cloud’ Interoperability

This week at CES, Samsung, Haier (and its subsidiary GE Appliances), Electrolux, and others announced the formation of the Home Connectivity Alliance, a group focused on fostering cloud-to-cloud interoperability across different home appliances.

The organization, which was incorporated in September 2021, is focused on solving a big problem for the smart home: incompatibility across different brands’ smart appliance products. Anyone with smart home appliances from different brands knows why this is a problem. Connected appliance product lines typically have their own proprietary app that only works with that brand. The end result is multiple apps and products that don’t talk to each other.

Here’s how the group’s website describes the benefits of interoperability: A consumer may purchase a connected washer and dryer from Brand A and benefit from features like notifications that alert the user when their wash or dry cycle is complete. Unfortunately, these notifications can only be enabled via Brand A’s platform. Interoperability enables consumers to purchase a washer from Brand A and a dryer from Brand B (or vice versa) and still receive the convenient wash or dry cycle completion notification either from Brand A’s platform or Brand B’s platform.

To achieve that type of cross-brand interoperability, the HCA’s focus is on making sure member companies’ data and service clouds connect. This focus on cloud-to-cloud interop makes sense in 2022, a time well into the smart home revolution where interoperability in the lower parts of the network stack – like physical layer communications (i.e. Wi-Fi, Zigbee, etc) – has largely been solved.

Since the HCA was founded only three months ago, it’s not surprising there are no technical details on how it will work (and by no details, I mean no details: The technical info page simply says “more info to come!”). One of the big unknowns will be how the group will work with other efforts to create cross-compatibility in the smart home, including the much-discussed Matter standard founded by Amazon, Apple and, yes, Samsung’s SmartThings Group.

In Samsung’s announcement about the group, they make no mention of Matter or other smart home interoperability standards (though they mention their own platform SmartThings), instead talking up the importance of interoperability across appliance brands.

“It is the support of global manufacturers like Samsung that makes HCA uniquely qualified to establish interoperability guidelines for long-life appliances and systems in the home, ultimately delivering safe, simple and elegant consumer experiences,” said Yoon Ho Choi, President of Home Connectivity Alliance (and Samsung employee).

While the group has an impressive initial roster of members, a few notable absences include BSH Appliances, Whirlpool, and LG Electronics. BSH is particularly interesting because the group has its own smart home interoperability standard it has been pushing for some time called Home Connect.

In many ways, it’s this absence of other big names that is the HCA’s (and really any interoperability effort’s) biggest challenge; any semblance of full cross-brand compatibility is, by definition, out of reach unless all of the industry’s biggest stakeholders buy in. Whether or not that happens for HCA is yet to be determined, but it’s still early days and the group is off to a good start. Let’s hope they can make it happen so we smart appliance owners can finally have products that reach their full potential.

CES 2022: As LG and Others Embrace Steam, Could 2022 Be The Year of Steam Cooking?

When asked at Smart Kitchen Summit in 2017 what appliance he was waiting for to make its way to the consumer kitchen, award-winning chef Philip Tessier said, “the combi oven.”

As it turns out, Tessier wasn’t the only chef that day who thought a steam-powered consumer kitchen was a good idea. When asked the same question a couple of minutes later, Serious Eats’ Kenji López-Alt agreed.

“I was going to say combi ovens too,” said López-Alt.

The combi oven, also known as combi steamer, combines traditional convection (dry) heating and moist heat using steam to enable the cook to do all sorts of things they can’t do with traditional ovens: Sous vide cooking, steaming vegetables, and baking moist delicious bread to name a few.

While steam cooking has been a long-time fixture in pro kitchens, it has never taken off in a big way in the consumer kitchen. But that might be changing. In 2020, Anova finally started shipping their countertop Precision Oven, and the critics embraced it. Since that time, the company has had trouble keeping the $599 appliance in stock.

Other upstarts such as Tovala and Suvie are also bringing different spins on steam-powered cooking to consumers. And LG, which introduced steam cooking into their convection ovens in 2018, is now adding Steam Cook functionality to the microwave.

In some ways, steam cooking is following the same early path pioneered by sous vide circulators. Like sous vide, steam cooking is a technique long-embraced in the pro kitchen, and it is also finally reaching consumer price points and showing up in friendlier form factors.

However, while sales of sous vide circulators eventually hit a wall because most consumers didn’t have the patience to cook meat in water baths for hours on end, my guess is steam cooking has a much wider appeal. A big reason is that unlike sous vide, steam cooking arrives in the kitchen via traditional-looking appliances (not to mention steam ovens like Anova’s allow you cook sous vide without the water bath or the plastic bag).

If 2021 was the year air-fry was everywhere, I suspect in 2022 we might begin to see the year the chefs get their wish and steam cooking begins to enter the mainstream.

Four Food Tech Gadgets We’re Excited to See at CES 2022

We’re prepping our floor walk plan for CES 2022, figuring out what food tech gadgets (other than robots, that is) we want to check out. We thought we’d share four of them with you.

CES 2022 Preview: Four Food Tech Gadgets We're Excited to See at CES

The products previewed are The Fresh Portal home delivery storage locker, the Bru smart tea maker, the Keddle baby milk warmer from Bisbee Baby, and the Tetra dishwasher from Heatworks.

The Spoon will be here all week reporting on all the food tech innovation we can hunt down, so make sure to check back often and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin.