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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Food Tech News Show

The Food Tech News Show: Is Smell-O-Vision Finally Ready for Prime Time?

Welcome to the Food Tech News Show!

This week, Mike and Carlos discuss the following stories:

Osmo is trying to digitize the world of smells and use AI to finally help us create Smell-O-Vision

The company’s The Principal Odor Map (POM) created by Osmo’s model, outperformed human panelists in predicting the consensus scent of molecules, marking a significant advancement in olfactory science and demonstrating that AI can predict smells based on molecular structure better than individual human experts in many cases.

How’d You Like a Nice Glass of 2D Printed Oat Milk?

This week, Milkadamia, known for its range of macadamia-based milks, announced its first oat milk. However, this isn’t just any oat milk; the company is introducing Flat Pack oat milk, which are printed sheets of plant-based milk that are designed to be rehydrated in water overnight or blended for an instant beverage.

According to the company, these sheets are created by printing oat milk paste onto flat sheets using a proprietary 2D printing process. Each package contains eight of these lightweight sheets, reducing both packaging and weight.

Anova Informs Community Its App Is Going Subscription, and It’s Not Going Well

Last week, Anova CEO Steve Svajian announced that the company will begin charging a subscription fee for new users of its sous vide circulator app starting August 21st, 2024. However, existing users who have downloaded the app and created an account before this date will not be impacted by the change. These users will be grandfathered into free access to the app’s full features.

Svajian explained that the decision to introduce a subscription fee stems from the fact that “each connected cook costs us money,” a cost that has become significant as the number of connected cooks now numbers in the “hundreds of millions.” The new Anova Sous Vide Subscription will be priced at $1.99 per month or $9.99 per year.

Unsurprisingly, the news has sparked discontent among Anova users. 

We’ve got a new humanoid robot that not only performs kung fu, but will also make a meal.

The S1 robot assistant is claimed to have unparalleled agility, dexterity, and accuracy, which help it perform all kinds of tasks. Launched by Stardust Intelligence, a Chinese company, the robot has a human-like upper body structure mounted on a wheeled base. In a video, the robot can be seen feeding cats and making waffles.

Chick-fil-A Is Launching a Streaming Service. Yes, You Read That Right

Extra sauces and some unscripted content, please. Chick-fil-A — yes, that Chick-fil-A — is looking to launch a streaming platform. The fast food chain has been working with Hollywood production companies and studios to create family-friendly, mostly unscripted original shows. The chicken house is also in talks to license and acquire content, according to a source that’s pitched a project.

You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, clicking play below or wherever you get your podcasts.

Food Tech News Show: Blackbird Launches Pay, DoorDash Delivers Big Numbers

This week on the Food Tech News Show, we are joined by Kristen Hawley, long-time restaurant tech journalist who writes for Fast Company, Eater and her own site, Expedite.

The Food Tech News Show

Blackbird Launches Blackbird Pay

This week, Blackbird, founded by Resy and Eater’s Ben Leventhal, launched Blackbird Pay. Blackbird is a blockchain-based guest loyalty and payments platform designed to better connect restaurants and diners. Diners can use the app to pay at participating restaurants with stored credit card information or loyalty points, and Blackbird charges a 2% processing fee per transaction, lower than standard restaurant POS systems.

Andrew Simmons Ends Pizza Automation Experiment

Andrew Simmons announced the end of his Pizza Roboto project after investing over $300K. His post on Linkedin details the challenges he faced around spinning up new locations and the mixed success of his pizza subscription plan. This news coincides with RestoGPT launching a pizza subscription program based on Simmons’ plan.

DoorDash Sees Digital Orders Surge Despite Industry Headwinds

Amid financial pressures, DoorDash reported a 19% year-over-year increase in total orders and a 23% rise in revenue in its Q2 2024 earnings report. The company noted that digital ordering remains resilient compared to declines in other restaurant industry channels.

Yum Brands to Expand Voice AI Across Taco Bell Locations

Yum! Brands announced plans to expand Voice AI technology to hundreds of Taco Bell drive-thrus in the U.S. by the end of 2024, with future global implementation across KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. Currently in over 100 Taco Bell locations, the company believes the technology will enhance operations, improve order accuracy, and reduce wait times.

Amazon Unveils New Just Walk Out AI Model

Amazon revealed details of its new AI model powering the Just Walk Out platform, despite removing the feature from Fresh stores earlier this year, indicating the platform’s continued development and potential.

You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,, or by clicking play below. Don’t forget to like, rate, and review!

The Food Tech News Show: Food Tech Funding Down in 1H 2024

The Spoon has launched a new podcast!

As listeners of the Spoon Podcast know, it’s been both a long-form interview show and a news show. Since those who listen to interviews aren’t always the same as those who want their weekly dose of food tech news, we thought a dedicated news show made sense.

Meet the Food Tech News Show podcast! You can subscribe to the new The Food Tech News Show on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, iHeart Radio, and via RSS.

On this episode, Michael Wolf and Carlos Rodela welcome Peter Bodenheimer, a longtime food tech investor and operator, to discuss the current state of food and ag tech funding. In this episode, they delve into:

Tune in to The Spoon’s new dedicated weekly food tech news show!

Those who would like to watch the video version of the show can check it out below.

The Food Tech News Show

The Food Tech News Show: A Look at Our Food Lives in The Year 2055

Welcome to the Food Tech News Show! You can watch the show live here at 1 Pacific/4 Eastern or on Streamyard, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

Fast Food Facial Recognition? - FTNS

This week Mike and Carlos be joined by Future Market’s Mike Lee to talk over some of the most interesting stories of the week. Mike Lee will also talk about his new book Mise,  which paints four different scenarios depicting the potential direction of our future food system.

Here are all the stories we’ll be talking about.

Bored & Hungry Closes – Food & Web3: A check in on where things are

In March 2022, NFT and crypto investor Andy Nguyen purchased Bored Ape #6184 along with three Mutant Apes and soon decided to establish a Bored Ape-themed restaurant named Bored & Hungry. The restaurant opened its doors on April 9, and by the end of its first day, it had served 1,500 burgers and had lines stretching around the block.

Two years later, Bored & Hungry has closed.

Last week, Nguyen announced on Instagram that the restaurant’s original location in Long Beach, California, was closing. He shared that they had sold the concept to a franchising company from Asia known as HUNGRY Dao.

Is AI-Powered Customer Interaction at Fast Food & Retail Giving Up too Much Privacy?

A Fast Company article titled “How fast food is becoming a new surveillance ground” looks at how new customer interaction layers using things like bio-authentication, cameras, profile information, and more are a new risk for gathering information about the public. 

And earlier this week, we saw Steak n Shake launch facial recognition nationwide for check-in.

Are we going through an airport or going to buy a surf and turf?

Vow Thinks Imitating Meat We Eat is Bad Approach. Enter the Quail Parfait. 

Green Queen: The Syndey-based startup is today launching its cultivated Japanese quail in Singapore’s Mandala Club, after the country’s regulator gave it the go-ahead to sell the product. But unlike other rollouts of cultivated meat, where chefs are supplied with the meat itself (which they then incorporate into dishes), Vow is taking a novel approach. What restaurant kitchens get is a parfait containing its cultivated quail.

Mike’s Book about The Future of Food

The four future visions in Mise (pronounced “meez”), which range from the year 2033 to 2067, are created to help people understand the potential long-term impact of things that are happening today in the world on our food system. The book identifies 5 major happenings in society, technology, the economy, the environment, and politics (abbreviated and referred to as the STEEP factors) that will have a profound impact on the way the world produces and consumes food.

The Food Tech News Show: Apple’s Building Home Robots!

Join us at 1 PM Pacific where we’ll be talking about the food tech stories of the week!

This week, we’ll be joined by Scott Heimendinger, former founder of Sansaire and current builder of the next big idea in home knives at Seattle Ultrasonics.

The live stream can be watched below.

We love robots - FTNS

Here are the stories we’ll be talking about:

Apple is working on robots for the home! – From Bloomberg: “The original concept for the robot was a device that could navigate entirely on its own without human intervention — like the car — and serve as a videoconferencing tool. One pie-in-the-sky idea within Apple was having it be able to handle chores, like cleaning dishes in a sink.

Google has used its latest AI to create a new tool that creates a fusion recipe between two culinary cultures. Lifehacker: “According to Google,  Food Mood can provide creative inspiration for your next meal. Select two countries and this fusion recipe generator will create one for you. You can choose whether you would like to cook a starter, a soup, a main course or a dessert. For example, why not try a unique blend of flavors from Sri Lanka and Uganda or mixing influences from Oman and Belgium? This experiment was created by artists Emmanuel Durgoni and Gaël Hugo, and uses Gemini 1.0 Pro via Vertex AI.”

Whirlpool has let the entire Yummly team go. Appliance giant Whirlpool has laid off its entire Yummly team. According to industry sources, the company recently laid off all the employees for the recipe and cooking app and website. These sources tell the Spoon that it’s unclear what the company plans to do with the property it acquired in 2017.

Amazon Pulling ‘Just Walk Out’ from Amazon Fresh Grocery Stores – According to a story published in The Information, Amazon is planning to pull its Just Walk Out cashierless technology from its large-format grocery store, Amazon Fresh.

One Robot Pizza Chain Operator Breaks Down the Cost Each Part of the Pizza-Making Process – For small operators (and big ones as well) in the pizza business, Andrew Simmons’s posts on Linkedin have become must-read material.