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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Food Storage

Tomorrow Wants To Reinvent The Refrigerator to Make Fresh Food Last Longer

If there’s one appliance category in the kitchen that’s stayed stuck in time, it’s the refrigerator. Sure, cool new features like see-through doors and touchscreens have been added to some models, but in reality, the fridge has largely remained the same for most of the past century: a big, cold box where we put food inside and hope we remember to eat it.

A new Seattle-based startup called Tomorrow hopes to change that with their eponymous new refrigerator, the Tomorrow Fridge.

So how is the Tomorrow Fridge different? The company is keeping most details under wraps for now, but according to CEO Andrew Kinzer, the main difference is in how the Tomorrow Fridge treats fresh produce. Kinzer says the typical modern refrigerator is built to extend the life of produce through dehumidification, or the drying out of air to slow spoilage.

“What most people don’t know is that that stuff’s actually alive,” Kinzer told The Spoon. “It’s got metabolism, it’s breathing, it’s generating heat and carbon dioxide.”

In fact, pretty much all modern refrigerators function like dehumidifiers, drying out fruits and vegetables. While this helps eliminate mold, it also leads to more rapid spoilage.

“Anytime you see carrots that get really bendy, broccoli that gets kind of floppy, or lettuce that looks sad, that’s water loss,” Kinzer explained.

Kinzer says the Tomorrow Fridge will be able to adjust the environment in different storage spaces within the fridge to better preserve fresh produce.

While Kinzer and Tomorrow aren’t sharing specific details about their cooling system, he did reveal that they’ve filed for a patent and plan to release more information as they approach the fridge’s 2025 delivery date.

Another big feature of the Tomorrow Fridge is its ability to track what’s inside. Kinzer says the fridge will have overhead cameras to monitor inventory and help households plan meals. By leveraging AI-based large language models, the fridge can suggest recipes or notify users of what’s running low. This feature will be accessible through the Tomorrow Fridge app.

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a clear picture of what the fridge will look like, feature specifics (such as whether it will include a freezer), or pricing. The company is keeping most details secret for now. One feature it won’t include, according to Kinzer, is gas-detecting sensors like those hinted at in Amazon’s patent or found in products like BlakBear food storage containers.

No matter what features the Tomorrow Fridge ultimately offers, we’ll be keeping an eye out. Readers of The Spoon know I’ve often bemoaned the lack of innovation in refrigerators. Sure, there are occasional new takes, like Samsung’s Family Hub or futuristic patents, but for the most part, fridges remain big, cold, air-drying boxes where a large percentage of our food goes bad.

Let’s hope the Tomorrow Fridge delivers on finally bringing some fresh ideas to the fridge.

Spoiled Opportunities: How Tupperware Could Have Reinvented Itself Before It Was Too Late

In recent weeks, news reports about the struggles of the housewares brand Tupperware have surfaced.

It’s unfortunate to see such a storied brand on the brink of bankruptcy, but it raises the question: was this avoidable? Could Tupperware have saved itself by embracing new ideas to modernize its brand and products?

We’ll never know for certain, but a household name like Tupperware might have had a chance if it had explored new products and business models a little sooner. Here are a few ideas of how the company could have reinvented itself:

DTC Housewares Rollup

Tupperware could have transitioned to a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model sooner, either natively or through acquisition. Although Tupperware products are available for purchase on its website, the company still largely relies on its direct sales model, which is based on the party plan concept. While some companies can still make this model work (like Thermomix), the Tupperware Party is a relic of the past that does not resonate with modern consumers.

One approach the company could have considered is a brand rollup strategy, similar to what we have seen from Pattern Brands. Pattern has been gradually acquiring successful DTC brands like GIR, Yield, Poketo, and Onsen. Each brand already had its own loyal following, and Pattern was able to achieve operational scale by consolidating back-office, marketing, and distribution. Tupperware could have also considered larger deals with successful social media-driven brands like Caraway.

Focus on Eco-conscious and Toxin-free Housewares

Tupperware is primarily associated with its plastic storage containers for fridges and freezers. Although the company has diversified into other materials, it has not made a name for itself in eco-friendly products. While some silicone-based products can be found on their website, it is surprising that Tupperware did not embrace this popular material, known for its heat resistance and toxin-free properties. The company could have developed Stasher-like bags and sets of GIR-like kitchenware.

Smart Food Storage and Management

As Spoon readers may know, the current state of home food storage has not embraced technology to address a significant issue: food waste. While startups like Silo, Uvera, and Ovie have attempted to rethink home food storage by incorporating smart technology, they are all still in various stages of development. Tupperware did experiment with crowdsourcing ideas for new container approaches a few years ago, but it seems nothing ever materialized from that effort.

If Tupperware had developed a smart storage platform that leveraged connectivity standards and smart home technologies like Alexa and HomeKit, it might have gained traction. Although the company’s home ambassador model is not ideal, a high-end storage “system” like a smart food container product could have benefited from hands-on sales.

Additionally, Tupperware could have created a food storage management app for use with either conventional food storage or a smart storage system. The company could have also collaborated with established appliance brands like Samsung to integrate a smart food management system into their devices.

These are just a few ideas for how Tupperware could have avoided its current fate. While the brand might survive, either by navigating a restructuring or through the sale of its name and assets to a buyer (who, let’s hope, would not turn it into a Zombie-brand like Polaroid), one can’t help but wonder what might have been if the company had embraced one or two ambitious ideas for reinventing itself before it was too late.

Do We Really Need a Self-Heating Soup Can?

Here’s a question: Do we need a self-heating soup can?

Believe it or not, it’s a challenge startups have been trying to tackle for decades.

And while it may seem like an odd question, there is definitely a need for meal-heating solutions among outdoor adventurers, first responders, and military personnel on-the-go, all of whom periodically need a hot meal but don’t have immediate access to a kitchen or campfire.

The reason I’m even asking is a pitch that landed in my inbox from a company out of Germany called Canboy. The company was founded by a brother team who have been working on the idea for the past decade and are finally beginning to commercialize their invention.

The Canboy and other self-heating solutions work through what is known as an exothermic chemical reaction. You’ve probably used this technology without knowing, possibly through a portable hand-warmer or similar products. The products typically use a chemical compound called calcium oxide, released through a button push into the water inside a triple-walled container that separates the consumable from the chemical cocktail. The resulting heat generated in the surrounding cavity is enough to heat the food for consumption.

You can watch the Canboy in action below:

Of course, there are alternatives to this approach, including flameless heater packets (which use another chemical process involving magnesium). And then there are high-tech approaches like those created by Ember, which can heat food like soup.

And while the whole idea of self-heating cans seems silly, consider this undeniable truth: no one likes cold soup (and yes, I know gazpacho fans might want to have a word, but you are an exception and a little weird). And considering we live in an ever-more-uncertain world where the doomsday prepper market is becoming a sizeable industry, there might finally be a big enough market for a company like Canboy to make a go of it.

According to Freddy Arnold, whose brother Uwe invented the concept (and has a US patent), the company is gaining some traction in their home country of Germany. They’ve begun to see their Canboy containers to their local fire department, and the “THW” Technisches Hilfswerk (state organization of Germany) has requested product samples. The company is also looking for customers in the food and beverage space interested in a self-heating food containers.

Those interested, they can order from the company’s website. The products aren’t cheap – about € 9,50 a can – but hey, if you’re looking to hike Mt Everest or building that million-dollar doomsday bunker, you might be ok with spending a little for a hot soup.

PARC Spinout EverCase Uses Electric & Magnetic Fields to Store Food in Freezers Without Ice Crystals

If you’ve ever put meat or fish into a freezer, you’ve probably noticed it doesn’t look nearly as fresh once you thaw it out.

That’s because the process of freezing food alters and damages its structure at a cellular level. As the temperature drops, water molecules slow down, and ice crystal embryos form ice nucleation sites. From there, the ice spreads to freeze the entire piece of food. Water within the food expands by up to 9% when frozen, causing food cells to rupture. When frozen food thaws, nutrients and flavors leach out from the food, often in the form of drip loss (that red liquid dropping from a warmed piece of red meat).

But what if you could store and preserve food in a freezer at sub-zero temperatures and avoid the damage incurred by traditional freezing? That’s the idea behind a new startup called EverCase, a spinout from storied research and business incubator Xerox PARC.

The new company, announced on June 15th, is the result of almost a decade of research that started when Dr. Soojin Jun, a professor at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, got a three-year research grant from the USDA in 2013 to research the technology dubbed “Supercooling.”

Jun’s Supercooling technology utilizes pulsed electric and oscillating magnetic fields to cause water molecules within food stored at sub-zero temperature to vibrate, inhibiting the formation of ice crystals. The result is food that, when pulled out of a Supercool equipped freezer, has almost the exact look and texture of food that is fresh and not riddled with ice crystals.

Image Above – Left: Drip Loss from thawed traditionally frozen meat. Right: EverCase’s comparison of meat using different preservation techniques

Jun would eventually take his ideas to Xerox PARC where he would get help incubating them and preparing them for commercialization. The end result of that move is EverCase, a new spinout that plans to build systems with Supercooling that can be used in existing freezers.

You can watch a demo in the video below where EverCase shows a piece of frozen meat compared with a piece of meat stored using Supercooling technology.

EverCase Demo Video

The company is pitching nothing less than a revamp of the traditional “cold chain” supply network, where freezers, from packers to the retail storefront (and possibly even to the home), use Supercooling technology. The company’s pitch deck talks of a new category of smart packaging and a new preserved food category of ‘Supercooled foods.’ They also plan to work with refrigeration manufacturers and other OEMs to build Supercooling technology into freezers and refrigerators.

It’s an ambitious plan, but there’s no doubt there could be a market for technology that helps food sidestep some of the downsides of traditional cold chain freezer technology. The company does say its technology is “inexpensive to make,” but it’s still unclear to me what the total cost of upgrades for a restaurant, retailer, or food packer would be. Nevertheless, it is encouraging that EverCase says its technology works with existing freezers because forklift upgrades for the massive amount of installed freezer systems throughout a mature cold-chain network is a non-starter.

The company is headed up by Chris Somogyi, a former co-founder of cell-cultured seafood startup BlueNalu and business development exec at PARC, and other executives from IBM, Xinova, and PARC. According to the announcement, EverCase is in the process of a Series A funding round.