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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future Food

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.

DAIZ Raised $6M to Become ‘The Fourth Meat’

Japanese plant-based meat startup DAIZ raised a $6 million Series A round in the second half of May. According to a DAIZ press release, the round included participation from the Fisheries Growth Industrialization Support Organization fund and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. The $6 million figure marks DAIZ’s total funding to date.

While the actual funding was announced a couple weeks ago, it’s worth noting because of DAIZ’s ambitions and how the company plans to take on big-name players in the plant-based space with its so-called “miracle chips,” which are raw plant-based meat components created using DAIZ’s patented Ochiai High Pressure Method technology.

According to the press release, this germination method brings out the umami flavor of soybeans and lessens the unpleasant aftertaste that are found in a lot of vegan meat offerings right now. The soybeans are then put in an extruder, where molding technologies recreate the texture of actual meat.

With the new funds, DAIZ says it will build out one of the largest factories for plant-based meat in Japan in 2021. They also plan to raise Series B funds at some point in 2020. Initially, the company will focus on selling to major food manufacturers as well as distribution companies, and eventually wants to expand globally. 

Notably, DAIZ is aiming to become what it calls “the fourth meat” alongside chicken, beef, and pork. In other words, they have no plans to replace the real thing. Rather it aims to have plant-based meat co-exist on the table with animal-based meat. Many plant-based meat companies have similar goals that target the “flexitarian,” which means when DAIZ finally does expand internationally, it will be competing with the likes of Impossible, Beyond, Néstle, and a growing number of others in the space. 

Motif Foodworks Wants To Make Better Fat For Your Plant-Based Burger

While many people think fat is bad, it’s actually a critically important part of what makes many foods taste good.

That’s especially true when it comes to meat. The juiciness and wonderful mouthfeel you experience when you bite into a steak or burger is basically fat doing its job.

Makers of plant-based meat usually rely on coconut oil or cocoa butter to replicate fat and it does an ok job, but plant-based fat has a long way to go to become more animal-like in how it tastes and cooks.

Motif Foodworks, the food ingredient building-block spinout of Ginkgo Bioworks, wants to change that. The company just announced a new partnership with the University of Guelph where they will work over the next 12 months to find and develop ways to make plant-based fats more like the real stuff.

Their work will include making plant-based fat act more like animal fat so it solidifies at room temperature and recreates more realistic”marbling” in plant-based meat products. The company will also work on ways to make plant-based cheese more “meltable and elastic.”

Under the terms of the partnership, Motif has exclusive options to license or acquire any of the novel technologies developed during the 12 month period.

While partnerships like this usually fly under the radar, we’re still early in the game when it comes to plant-based meat, and the type of research Motif and the University of Guelph will be doing is critical to close the gap. Beyond, Impossible, and other plant-based household names have done a good job so far in making tasty replications of our favorite animal-based products, but the reality is we’re still firmly entrenched in the uncanny valley of fake meat where the end result is still at least 10 percent off from the real thing. That turns off many of those who would otherwise be converts to plant-based meat.

Hopefully this deal will help us close the gap and make the fake stuff tastier and more meat-like.

What’s Next for Vertical Farming? Proprietary Strawberries and Other Non-Leafy Produce

Agtech investment firm AgFunder announced this week that it has added agtech company SinGrow to its investment portfolio for an undisclosed sum. AgFunder founding partner Michael Dean wrote in a post that SinGrow “isn’t just looking to be another vertical farmer selling leafy greens.” Instead, the company uses a combination of plant biology, hydroponic vertical farming, and other technologies to grow what it hopes will be a range of produce types, starting with its own novel varieties of strawberries. 

As Dean lays out in his post, SinGrow has developed a vertical farming solution that addresses every stage of a plant’s agricultural journey, from breeding to harvesting. (Most vertical farm solutions do not address plant breeding.) It breeds strawberry varieties adapted to humid weather, and has two proprietary strawberry cultivators specifically developed for Singapore’s tropical climate. Both of those things mean SinGrow’s system uses less energy because it needs less air conditioning pumped in to cool the facility and reach the ideal growing temperature for the strawberries.

The company also grows the plants on a strawberry-specific rack it has developed, where the plants grow outward instead of upward. That in turn allows a harvesting robot to to drive alongside the rack and simply snip the strawberries off rather than pick them. 

Why strawberries? Well, first, they’ve been a hobby of SinGrow cofounder Bao Shengjie, who has been cross-breeding strawberry seeds since 2016. That particular fruit was of interest to the founders because it’s difficult to actually get in Singapore, at least at an affordable price point. SinGrow lists expense, poor taste, and an unstable supply chain as reasons strawberries are difficult for the average consumer to buy in that region.

The company has this neat explainer video that delves more into the specifics on how it grows its strawberries.

Singapore also relies on imports for about 90 percent of its foods, hence the Singaporean government’s 30x30 initiative launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Singapore should have 30 percent of its foods produced domestically by 2030. 

On that note, SinGrow hopes to soon move beyond strawberries to grow grapes, saffron, and other crops, according to Dean’s post.

A (very small) handful of companies are also exploring what else they can grow beyond the leafy green. UK-based Phytoponics is trialing a system for plants like cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. And a while back, San Francisco startup Plenty said it wanted to grow “exotic” produce on its farm Tigris. To date, though, the company’s website still offers only leafy green varieties.

If a company like SinGrow can show others how to use biology, technology, and farming to grow a greater assortment of produce items, it could change vertical farming’s role in our system from an add-on method to a primary source for getting certain fruits and vegetables. It’s early days yet, but the technology looks to be moving in that direction. 

How a Materials Scientist Invented an Edible Way to Keep Your Avocados Ripe for Longer (Spoon Plus)

Apeel just raised $250 million from investors including celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Katy Perry. I spoke with Rogers a few days before they announced the funding to learn more about how he, a materials scientist, got the idea to switch from creating solar panels to developing produce technology. We also got into bigger discussions around food waste, how tech is mitigating it, and the ways in which COVID is affecting our relationship with food (and waste).

The interview is an exclusive offering for Spoon Plus members. You can learn more about Spoon Plus here. 

Court Rules That Nestlé’s ‘Incredible’ Burger Name Infringes on Impossible

A European court ruled that Néstle must change the name of its Incredible burger because it infringes on Impossible’s trademarks, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

For now, the ruling only applies to European countries. Swiss CPG giant Néstle will change the name of its patty to Sensational Burger, which unfortunately doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily but also won’t potentially confuse customers — something the court cited in its ruling. 

According to the WSJ, Impossible claimed Nestlé was “trying to impede” its entry into the European market by using a similar name for its product.

A spokesperson for Néstle said that they believe “anyone should be able to use descriptive terms such as ‘incredible’ to explain the qualities of a product.” The company is planning to appeal the decision.

Néstle launched its Incredible meatless patty last year under its Garden Gourmet brand. The burger is made of soy and wheat protein and meat to compete with the new wave of plant-based meat companies, namely Beyond and Impossible. As of right now, Nestlé’s patty sells in 15 European countries as well as Australia, and in 2019 also landed in McDonald’s stores in Israel.

Impossible doesn’t actually sell its products in Europe yet. It filed with the EU in 2019 for regulatory approval. A spokesperson for the company last year told The Spoon that Impossible plans to “sell plant-based meat in every single region of the world.” That said, one of the hangups with Impossible getting its products in Europe is the company’s use of soy hemoglobin in its products, which is the molecule that gives the patties their “bleeding” flavor and appearance. As Catherine Lamb noted last year:

While technically heme isn’t genetically modified — it’s the output of genetically modified yeast — it could still throw up some red flags for the European Food Safety Authority.

Plant-based meat’s other major player, Beyond Meat, announced a new manufacturing facility in The Netherlands last year, and more recently said it would increase availability and speed for getting its products around Europe and the Middle East.

All of which is to say, the fight over Nestlés naming underscores how competitive the plant-based meat market has gotten recently. Even if Nestlé successfully appeals the court’s decision, the company has its work cut out in terms of carving out a dominant spot in the European alt-protein market.

 

COVID Could Usher in a New Trend: Frozen Food as Medicine

It seems that Americans are turning to frozen food during the coronavirus pandemic. Last month, the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) reported that sales of frozen food jumped 94 percent in March of 2020 compared to a year before, and continued to rise by 30 percent in April.

Granted, considering the source it’s best to take the report’s numbers with a grain of salt. But this growth actually makes a lot of sense. Frozen food keeps for a long time. Americans are wary of grocery stores and worried about feeding their families, so it follows that they’d stock up on staples that can last for months and be ready when needed.

Curious to see if this was an opportunity for more curated frozen meals, this week I spoke to Christine Day, CEO of healthy frozen meal company Performance Kitchen, about how COVID has affected their sales.

“Every week the volume is picking up,” Day told me. While they had to halt their business with Delta Airlines, for whom they provided some meals for first-class passengers, she said that their online business is up over 200 percent.

Day said that when the pandemic first hit, consumers were stocking up with lots of bulk food. Then there was a phase of over-indulgence: there was “a lot of lasagnas,” she said. Now, Day thinks we’re at a phase when consumers are shifting away from bulk and comfort food to seek out healthier choices.

At the same time, consumers are still looking for convenience. Meal kits can offer that to some degree, but they require preparation and also have a relatively short lifespan in terms of how long it takes for the food to go bad. Frozen meals offer more flexibility. “When you buy a frozen meal you have a choice if your plans change,” said Day.

Performance Kitchen has two branches: Performance Kitchen and Performance Crafted (formerly called Eat Local). Both focus on providing nutritionally balanced frozen meals for specific dietary needs: keto, maternity, vegan, etc. Performance Kitchen makes wholesale meals for sale in 10,000 grocery stores nationally and online. Performance Kitchen Crafted, on the other hand, is a physical store where consumers can come and shop for branded frozen meals. It has six brick and mortar locations in Seattle.

Since COVID has forced those stores to shut their doors, Day said that Eat Local has pivoted to D2C sales and curbside pickup. Before the pandemic they only delivered to the West Coast, but they rolled out national shipping three weeks ago.

Performance Kitchen is not only positioned to tap into the rise in frozen food demand, but also new interest in a burgeoning trend: food as medicine. “People are really focused on immunity health, recognizing that issues like diabetes, hypertension, etc. increase our risk,” Day said. She credited this focus with one of the reasons they were seeing so many more sales during the COVID pandemic.

What’s remains to be seen is if the success of frozen meals, specifically those offering a food as medicine angle, will continue post-coronavirus.

IntegriCulture Raises $7.4M for Cell-based Meat Development

Cellular agriculture startup Integriculture has raised a ¥800 million (~$7.4 million USD) Series A round to further the development of its cell-based meat, according to AgFunder News. The round was led by AgFunder, Beyond Next Ventures, Hiroshima Ventures, Hiroshima Venture Capital, NH Foods, Real Tech Fund, and VU Venture Partners. It also included participation from several other investors, including Caygan Capital CEO Naruhisa Nakagawa. This brings IntegriCulture’s total funding to date to ¥1.1 billion, or about $10.2 million USD.

The company will use the new funds for further research and development around its cell-based meat and also for building a production facility and the company’s first commercial-scale bioreactor. 

Integriculture’s first edible product will be its cell-based foie gras, which is grown in a bioreactor rather than in, well, an animal, thereby eliminating the ethical issues surrounding foie gras. Last year, company CEO Yuki Hanyu told my colleague Catherine Lamb that it plans to launch the cultured liver in restaurants by 2021 and in retail by 2023.

Hanyu is also the founder of DIY cultured meat community Shojinmeat which he started with the idea of “democratizing meat.” The aim was to give every household the ability to grow their own cultured meat in their own homes. IntegriCulture spun out from Shojinmeat in 2015. IntegriCulture’s new CulNet system, which it unveiled earlier this month, is geared towards that, allowing businesses and even (very ambitious) individuals to culture their own animal tissue.

While that sounds a little more involved than, say, growing a garden or even making your own yeast at home, it’s possible the pandemic will accelerate this idea of democratizing meat. 

In the future, IntegriCulture hopes its CulNet system will be able to culture any type of animal cell, so that they can branch out into other types of alt-meat production and even move into non-food industries like medical and skincare. 

We Tried the Plant-based Chicken Nuggets from High Tech Startup Rebellyous

Even though I technically have more time to cook during quarantine, there are some days when my motivation to scrounge up a meal is exactly zero. On those days, I turn to my freezer — frozen burritos, pre-made meals, and ravioli are always ready to go when I need them. Now I have a new staple to add to my freezer: plant-based chicken nuggets from Rebellyous Foods.

If you’re not familiar, Rebellyous is a plant-based meat company that’s reinventing manufacturing technology to make meat alternatives more scalable. After launching in 2017, the Seattle-based startup began selling its first product, a plant-based chicken nugget, to hospital and office cafeterias.

But with COVID-19 essentially closing down their marketplace, Rebellyous quickly pivoted to begin offering its nuggets on retail shelves. Last week the vegan nuggets hit the freezer sections of several small retailers in the Seattle area. A pack of 30 nuggets costs $5.99. The plant-based nuggets have a protein content comparable to regular chicken nuggets and are meant to be just as easy to prepare — whether in a corporate dining hall or a home kitchen.

A bag of Rebellyous plant-based nuggets. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

This week I was able to put that assertion to the test when I received a sample of Rebellyous’ frozen nuggets. I reached for the nuggets when I was feeling especially hangry, hoping that they wouldn’t take forever to cook. The package suggests three cooking methods: Bake, Pan Fry, or Deep Fry. It explicitly notes not to consume the nuggets raw or microwave them, which I assume would be bad for their texture.

I decided to bake my nuggets. I preheated the oven to 425°F, shook out a some nuggets onto a bare baking sheet, and popped them into the oven. Eight minutes and one flip later, and the nuggets were ready. They did stick to the baking sheet a little bit, so next time I would line the pan with parchment paper.

I’ve tasted Rebellyous’ nuggets before, so I knew what to expect. But in the past they’ve always been prepared by an air fryer; I was skeptical that my oven would provide the same crunchy exterior.

Happily I was wrong. The nuggets had a crisp, crunchy coating and a juicy interior that almost exactly mimics the nuggets I grew up eating in my elementary school cafeteria. It’s almost uncanny. The nuggets were tasty enough that I didn’t even feel the need to use a dipping sauce, though a side of barbecue would have been delicious.

Rebellyous’ nuggets post-bake. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

I just enjoyed one serving, which is six Rebellyous nuggets. One serving has 160 calories, 7 grams of fat and 14 grams of protein (Rebellyous uses wheat protein). The serving didn’t look like a whole lot on my plate, but they actually filled me up quite nicely. Since they have a relatively low calorie and fat count, you could double the serving size or just eat them as a snack.

Rebellyous is certainly heading to retail at an opportune time. Sales of plant-based meats have increased dramatically during the pandemic, as meat prices spike and people search for healthier foods. A handful of plant-based companies have also raised funding over the past few weeks, including Rebellyous itself.

Rebellyous is actually cashing in on three food trends right now: plant-based meat, comfort food, and frozen food. Consumers are looking for food that keeps well, prepares easily, and satisfies. Rebellyous ticks all of those boxes, and has the bonus that it’s kid-friendly (a boon for parents working from home).

I may not be a kid, but after trying them I’m a fan of Rebellyous’ nuggets. The fact that they cook in ten minutes, require no prep, taste satisfying and provide a hearty serving of protein means that they’ve definitely earned a spot in my freezer rotation.

Rebellyous’ nuggets are only available in the Seattle area for now. If you buy a pack, please leave us a comment and let us know what you thought!

First Beer, Now Meat: How Yeast Can Help Us “Reinvent Our Food Structures”

Yeast is a hot topic of conversation these days: where to find it, what you’re baking with it, and how to create your own at home.

Sudeep Agarwala, a yeast geneticist at Ginkgo Bioworks, has you covered for that last one. He rose to Twitter fame not long ago after tweeting DIY instructions for how to make yeast out of what’s hiding in your cupboard.

But Agarwala knows a lot more about yeast than just how to hack it to make your own sourdough. For that reason, we invited him to speak at our latest virtual event, From Sourdough to The End of Meat.

Agarwala started off his presentation with a massive timeline outlining the evolution of humans. He specifically pointed to 10,000 BC — the time when we first started to use yeast to ferment food and drink. Our newfound love of yeast completely changed the trajectory of how we ate food, ushering in new foods like bread and beer. “We’re now at an age when we’re thinking about reinventing our food structures yet again,” Agarwala said.

If you’re curious about how yeast will shake up our food system, you should watch the whole conversation. You can find the recording here. Here are a few big takeaways (featuring a guest appearance by yours truly!):

Yeast could mean the end of meat
Ginkgo Biowork’s spinoff company, Motif Foodworks, uses microbes like yeast to create the flavor elements that can better mimic meat. According to Agarawala, technology can help make meat alternatives taste even more like the real thing.

Only recently, said Agarwala, has yeast technology evolved to the point where it actually has a shot at replacing the key flavors of meat. “I may get in trouble for saying this,” he said. “We’re on the verge of eliminating meat from our diets altogether.”

Yeast isn’t the only microbe out there
“I love yeast, but there are other microbes that are working for us as well,” noted Agarwala. He pointed to air protein, which can sequester carbon from carbon dioxide, as well as microbes that can fix nitrogen. These technologies leverage microbes to not only produce an output, such as protein, but also reduce the ecological cost of creating food.

Algae and bacteria are also able to make other foods (like your kombucha SCOBY). “There’s a whole microbial world sitting in your kitchen cupboard,” Agarawala pointed out.

What about my sourdough starter???
Bread makers, don’t worry — Agarwala had plenty of insight into how we’re all working with yeast during the pandemic. But he also had some thoughts on why sourdough starters could be an important tool for the future of fermentation in general.

“Yeast is a technology,” he said. “Maybe now that we’re seeing this technology growing on our counters, it is going to be more comfortable to think about, ‘What else can this technology do for us?'”

Perhaps since we’re all obsessed with yeast now, consumers will be more open to new foods grown from microbes — such as meat — down the road.

Our next Spoon Virtual Event is on May 28th at 10am PT, where Spoon founder Mike Wolf will speak with the Design for Food team at IDEO about how we design for a more resilient food system in a post-COVID world. Sign up here.

If The End of Meat is Here, What’s Next?

The New York Times ran an Opinion piece this morning entitled ‘The End of Meat is Here” that soon had that phrase trending on Twitter. The piece was written by Jonathan Safran Foer, novelist and author of the book Eating Animals.

The full article is definitely worth a read, but here, I’ll just summarize Safran Foer’s key points:

  • Animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of global warming.
  • We don’t need animal protein to survive and thrive.
  • Family farms will not suffer if factory farming goes away.

He also dives into why COVID-19, in particular, is shedding light on the problems that come with industrial meat farming. He points to the high amounts of infection within meat slaughterhouses, and how farmers are forced to euthanize animals as said slaughterhouses close. For these reasons, Safran Foer states, the sun might finally be setting on meat.

“Our hand has been reaching for the doorknob for the last few years. Covid-19 has kicked open the door,” he writes. “At the very least it has forced us to look.”

If the time of meat is ending, what’s next?

That’s where foodtech will come in. Here’s what I envision the End of Meat could look like, based on recent shifts we’ve seen during COVID-19:

Mostly plant-based

If traditional factory-farmed meat goes away, plant-based meat certainly seems like the most viable replacement. Consumers are already familiar with it, from industry veterans like Tofurky to disruptors like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. It’s so ubiquitous that you can even get an Impossible Whopper at a Burger King drive-thru.

In fact, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, sales of meat alternatives have skyrocketed. In response that growing demand — and the fact that its restaurant partners are struggling — Impossible Foods has rapidly increased its retail footprint. Big Food companies like Cargill are also entering the space with their own plant-based plays. And smaller startups, like Rebellyous and Plantible, are taking new funding to accelerate their commercialization timelines.

Right now companies are developing technologies to make realistic plant-based versions of everything from steak to raw tuna. Are they perfect? Not yet. But with more investment, within the next decade or so consumers could theoretically buy any and every type of meat — just made from plants. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more consumers turn towards meat alternatives, the better they will be.

Finally time for blended meat?

Blended meat, which is made from a combination of animal meat and plant-based protein, could be a stop-gap on the transition away from factory-farmed meat. Consumers who aren’t ready to switch over to a diet of Impossible burgers and Rebellyous nuggets could wean off meat with blended beef burgers and chicken nuggets.

Right now there aren’t a ton of companies offering blended meat products. However, two of the biggest meat producers in the world — Tyson and Perdue — launched lines of hybrid products over the past few months. If the pandemic continues to throw a wrench into meat production, it would make sense for more leading meat companies to develop blended products to both stretch their own meat supply and lower their costs.

Photo: Raised & Rooted blended burgers from Tyson Foods

Futuristic protein sources

Not all meat alternatives will rely on plants as their protein source. Companies like Motif Foodworks are using fermentation of microbes to create bespoke proteins — and other elements — to more accurately mimic meat. Some companies, like Air Protein and Solar Foods, are even using carbon dioxide to create protein.

As the popularity of meat alternatives grows, producers will likely explore new inputs beyond just pea and soy protein. Fermentation could be a key to unlocking more evolved, more affordable alt-meat.

Coming soon: cell-based meat

We’ll know that the End of Meat is truly here when cell-based meat comes to market. Or at least when it becomes semi-affordable and accessible.

After all, if consumers can buy a steak that tastes like a cow, cooks like a cow, and is made of cow cells, will they really care if it came from a cow or from a lab? There is certainly some consumer resistance to the idea of cultured meat. But as COVID-19 sheds light on some of the less savory aspects of meat production — especially in slaughterhouses — I’m guessing that eating meat grown in sterile lab conditions could seem a lot more appealing.

Regulatory issues are the biggest hurdle for cultured meat right now. We’re at least a year from cell-based meat hitting the market, and likely a decade away from it reaching price parity with real meat. But if COVID-19 continues to cause meat prices to spike then cultured meat could actually reach price parity sooner than expected.

Photo: Impossible Foods

So what’s next?

Safran Foer’s piece argues why it’s time for the End of Meat. But how exactly will it come about? That’s a lot more complex.

Meat won’t disappear all at once with a fiery bang. Instead, we’ll likely see a gradual transition from traditional meat to meat alternatives, including plant-based and blended meat. That’s actually good news for the disruptors making alternative protein. Plant-based and cell-based meat will have to increase production astronomically to fulfill consumer demand for protein left behind by industrial meat. And once cultured meat comes into its own, the need for factory farmed meat will be all but gone.

That will be when the End of Meat can indeed transition into the Dawn of Meat Alternatives.

Pico, the Mini Indoor Garden that Can Grow Herbs and Tomatoes, Busts Through Kickstarter Goal

With quarantine keeping us all at home, people are growing plants both for mental health and as a food source. But even if the enthusiasm is there, there are still plenty of pitfalls to accidentally kill your plant friends — overwatering, underwatering, not enough light, etc.

For those reasons, plus a growing (ha!) interest in food sovereignty, coronavirus could actually present a real market opportunity for smart gardens; automated indoor grow systems to manage the health of your plants. But, as Mike Wolf noted in his piece last month, one big hurdle standing in smart gardens’ way is their cost. The systems can range in price from hundreds to even thousands of dollars.

That’s where Pico, a new automated indoor garden currently making a splash on Kickstarter, could really distinguish itself. Early Backers can secure a Pico for only $32. The intended MSRP is $45.

When we say Pico made a splash on Kickstarter, we’re not exaggerating: at the time of writing the company has raised $1.3 million on Kickstarter (its initial goal was $10,000). The small self-contained grow system that can be affixed to walls and features an LED light mounted on an adjustable arm, which can be moved up as plants grow. It can also self-water, provided someone fills up its tank once a week.

Like most indoor garden systems, Pico is limited in terms of what plants can grow. The Kickstarter says it can be used for decorative plants, like succulents, as well as to grow herbs and leafy greens. It even claims it can grow cherry tomatoes and chili peppers, though its small size could limit the amount.

Photo: Pico’s grow system, by Altifarm

Pico may be extremely affordable, but it doesn’t have quite the same stramlined user experience as some of the pricier home gardens. For one, Pico has to be plugged in to work. It’s powered with a USB Type-C cable, so it can plug into a phone or computer charger. Pico comes with a 3-meter long cable with magnetic organizer loops to more easily route around kitchen appliances, so that helps. But it still seems like kind of a pain to set up. That said, Pico is small enough to fit pretty much anywhere, and can also be mounted on walls to position it closer to a wall outlet. You can also connect three Picos together at a time and power them with the same charging cable.

The Pico price only includes the device. Users have to add in their own soil and seeds. To be fair, that’s not a huge lift, but it does mean the Pico isn’t a straight plug-and-grow option, like Aerofarm or Click & Grow.

It also isn’t 100 percent automated. Users have to manually turn the LED light on and off to imitate the rise and fall of the sun. They can also purchase a timer to automate the process for an additional cost.

Altifarm, the company behind Pico, has some experience making automated grow systems. They’ve already launched Herbstation, an indoor farm that was also funded by Kickstarter. The company has just concluded fulfillment of Herbstation preorders after a self-admitted “share of delays, mixups, and drama.” Buyer beware.

Photo: Altifarm

As of now, Pico is slated to begin shipping in May/June, though a small disclaimer at the bottom of the campaign notes that that could be delayed due to stay at home orders. Buying a product off a crowdfunding site is always a risk — especially now, when COVID-19 is disrupting manufacturing supply chains across the globe. However, Altifarm states that since Pico is their third global product launch, they’ve learned how to efficiently get a hardware product to market.

Despite the risks, Pico couldn’t be hitting the market at a more opportune time. With COVID nudging consumers to be more aware of where their food comes from — and people consequently gaining an interest in food sovereignty — home gardening is blooming (okay, last plant pun).

Pico’s stellar Kickstarter campaign illustrates just how enthusiastic consumers are about finding ways to easily grow their own food at home. Now we’ll have to see if they can follow through to make all those backers happy home gardeners.