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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future of Drink

Somabar Adapts to Pandemic, Adds Booze, Coffee and Juice to its Drink Menu

When I last checked in with Somabar at our Food Tech Live event in 2019, the company was making an eponymous automated drink dispenser that served up low-proof cocktails. The idea was that it could be used by bars and restaurants to create alcoholic cocktails without the need to get a full liquor license (think: Soju-based mixed drinks).

A lot Everything has changed since January 2019, including Somabar. Since the start of 2020 the company has been expanding the capabilities of the machine and positioning it as a more contactless way for restaurants, cafes, hotels and other hospitality locations to serve a wider variety of drinks around the clock.

“What SomaBar does, is it’s a professional mixologist of all things,” Somabar Co-Founder and CEO Christopher Hameetman told me by phone this week. “We’re now living in a world where we want to broaden our use.”

To that end, Somabar will now mix up just about any kind of cold drink you want. Low-proof cocktails, high-proof cocktails, cold brew coffee drinks, iced tea drinks, juices and, well, the list could go on.

The Somabar has six 750 ml and one 150 ml cannisters. Fill each cannister with whatever liquid you want: coffee concentrate, tequila, oat milk, orange juice — whatever. You then let the accompanying app know what you’ve loaded in each cannister. The app then tells you all the kinds of drinks you can make. Tap the button and voila! The Somabar dispenses your desire drink.

Or, don’t tap anything at all. The company has also added Siri and Alexa integrations to provide voice controls. Hameetman provided me a Zoom-based demo where he asked Alexa to mix him a drink, and while there was the occasional slight hiccup (which seems to come with any Alexa demo I’ve ever seen), it did work.

The idea with all this new functionality is to make Somabar more attractive in our modern, pandemic-stricken world. The expansions of Somabar’s drinks menu means that a restaurant could serve non-alcoholic drinks during the day (and to kids), and then swap out the canisters and serve boozey concoctions at night.

The voice-control features make Somabar part of the contactless 2.0 wave of restaurant tech, though I’m trying to figure out exactly how well voice control would work in a drinks scenario. You wouldn’t just have it out for anyone to use, because nowadays you can’t have lots of people putting their paws all over the same device. Having it behind a bar or counter seems too noisy for voice control and you would theoretically have only one person handling the cup, so they could presumably be the only person operating the app on a tablet.

Regardless, I could actually see the Somabar finding a place in restaurants, cafes and even small grocery stores/bodegas. The ability to make a wide variety of customized drinks throughout the day without needing to bring on a mixologist of some sort could prove very useful.

However, that versatility doesn’t come cheap. The Somabar is ~$4,800 (you can get a refurbished one for $2,800). The nice thing is — that’s it. There is no subscription for the software, so you get the drink library as part of that hefty price tag. And the open nature of the device means you can use your own ingredients instead of the pods that come with other automated drink machines like Drinkworks and Bartesian (though both of those are geared more towards consumers).

Somabar’s open nature could also help it further adapt, because 2020 isn’t done yet and a lot more everything could change.

BrüMate Guzzles $20M in Funding for its Insulated Adult Beverage Containers

Summer parties may be over, but BrüMate, which makes insulated containers meant to keep adult beverages properly chilled, is probably celebrating today as it announced (registration required) that it has received a $20 million strategic investment from the San Francisco Equity Partners private equity firm.

Denver-based BrüMate creates various lines of multi-purpose, insulated metal koozies. BrüMate’s Hopsulator Trio holds a 12 or 16 oz bottle of beer with a removable, re-useable, freezable ice pack that sits at the bottom of vessel to keep the drink cold. There is also a removable lid that can be snapped on for drinking liquids straight out of the container. The company also makes insulated bottles and cups to hold wine and flasks for holding your spirit of choice.

BrüMate sells direct to consumer, and while the price depends on the make and model you get, the typical cost for a BrüMate seems to be somewhere in the mid-$20s price point. The company says that in 2018, it had 300,000 customers and sold one million units.

BrüMate is also another example of the D2C trend we’re seeing across the food tech landscape. By going direct to consumers, BrüMate is able to own the relationships it has with its customers. And while the company’s website gives off certain Fyre Festival vibes with its party branding, it’s definitely interested in fostering a drink-based community and creating a lifestyle brand around its products.

Whenever we get out of this pandemic, it’s easy to see where the BrüMate could come in handy. Being able to pour your pinot greeezhe into a stainless steel bottle would let you bring your booze to beaches and parks where glass containers aren’t allowed.

As a bonus for all you BrüMates out there, combine that special container with the Chilled Drink Caluculator and you’ve got the perfect mix for frosty beverages. Well, for next summer, at least.

Time to Recirculate the To-Go Cup Debate

Since we now live in a world where the to-go order is the main attraction at restaurants, we need to start treating the issue of excess single-use packaging with a whole lot more urgency.

Clearly I’m not the only one to have that thought, as two major QSR chains made sustainability announcements of their own this week. Both are aimed at reducing the amount of plastic that winds up in landfills and the ocean — no small feat considering the billions of single-use cups, straws, and containers we throw out each year, thanks in no small part to the convenience-driven delivery and to-go craze. 

On Thursday, Starbucks, sent out an update saying its “strawless lids” are now “the standard for iced beverages” at stores in the U.S. and Canada. The lids use roughly 9 percent less plastic than the normal lid-and-straw combo. The rollout of these lids applies to company-owned and licensed Starbucks stores, and is expected to be completed by the end of the month. Straws will still be available upon request. 

It’s an important milestone, especially considering Starbucks is arguably responsible for the populace’s current fixation with fancy drinks in plastic or plastic-coated cups. But it doesn’t actually remove single-use plastics from equation.

The latest initiative from McDonald’s does. This week, the company announced a partnership with zero-waste platform Loop to create a reusable cup program at McDonald’s locations in the UK. Users can opt for a reusable cup, for which they leave a small deposit that’s retrieved when they return the cup. Loop collects the empties, washes and sanitizes them, and puts them back into circulation. The concept is reminiscent of Dishcraft Robotics’ “dishes-as-a-service” model, which recently added reusable takeout containers to the items it collects, washes, and returns to the foodservice loop.

The obvious drawback here is that putting down a deposit at McDonald’s and then taking the time to return the cup is inconvenient. Inconvenience doesn’t sell with many consumers these days (which is another separate issue itself). 

A reusable cup system is, however, a bolder move than simply reducing plastic, and bold moves are what we need right now to get excessive packaging out of the foodservice world. That the McDonald’s pilot is coming from a multi-billion corporation with a $4 billion digital business is encouraging. But to become widespread, the entire restaurant industry is going to have to pitch in, from the major chains and supply companies to delivery services, mom-and-pop stores, and consumers themselves.

That’s no small ask at a time when the restaurant industry is utterly crippled from the pandemic and small chains and independent restaurants are permanently shuttering at an alarming pace. But with off-premises orders being the future of restaurants for the foreseeable future, no one can afford to shelve the glaring issue of single-use packaging for much longer, not without risking further environmental consequences.

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Zomato Raises $100M, Plans IPO

Zomato, one of India’s largest food delivery services, announced this week it has raised $100 million from Tiger Global and is preparing for an IPO in 2021.

The news is just another layer of development to what’s been a very busy year for Zomato. The company bought Uber Eats’ India business in March, raised a $5 million Series J round in April, and unveiled a grocery delivery service in the same month. It had to cut 13 percent of its workforce in May (thanks, pandemic), but things are clearly looking up for the service, as it raised $62 million from Temasek and just days ago said in a blog post that “recovery trends are strong.”

A prospective IPO is another sign of that recovery. In a letter to employees reviewed by TechCrunch, Zomato co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal set “sometime in the first half of next year” as a timeline for said IPO. At the moment the company has “no immediate plans” on how it will spend the investment from Tiger Global, if it spends it at all. Goyal called the cash a “war-chest” for future M&A and for fighting price wars from competition.

Given that Zomato competes fiercely with Swiggy for the Indian food delivery market, and given the consolidation the entire third-party delivery industry is undergoing, having a war chest doesn’t seem like a bad move right now.

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

Fast-casual chain Sweetgreen this week launched Collections, a new digital-only menu available through the restaurant’s app and website. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, menu items are curated according to specific themes and dietary preferences/restrictions, and will make recommendations that are unique to each individual customer.

Order-ahead platform Allset has teamed up with digital ordering platform Olo to streamline the pickup order process for participating restaurants. Olo’s system lets restaurants manage menus, pricing, and order fulfillment across multiple third-party platforms, thus creating fewer manual workflows for restaurant staff.

Starting Sept. 30, NYC restaurants will be allowed to operate indoor dining rooms at 25 percent capacity. The announcement, made by Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week, comes just as the city gears up for the colder days ahead that will limit outdoor seating for most businesses.

Bruvi Raises $2.2M in Seed Funding for it’s Single-Serve Drink System

Bruvi, a startup that makes its own pod-based single serve coffee/drink system, announced today that it raised $2.2 million in Seed funding at the end of July. This brings the total amount raised by Bruvi to $3.15 million.

Bruvi makes an internet-connected Keurig-like coffee system that uses eco-friendly “B-Pods” to brew individual cups of coffee, espresso, cold brew, teas and more. The Bruvi sells directly to consumers through the company’s website, with the Bruvi Bundle (brewer, 24 B-Pods and water filter) that will sell for $198. But you’ll have to wait before you buy, according to today’s press release, the Seed funding will go primarily towards manufacturing with a projected launch of Q3 2021.

There are two big hang-ups with B-Pods, K-Cups and any capsule-based single-serving system. First is the proprietary nature of the capsule itself. B-Pods won’t work in other devices and non-B-Pod capsules won’t work with the Bruvi. So buying a Bruvi means you’re locking yourself into an entire coffee drink ecosystem.

Second problem with these systems is the potential waste. Bruvi claims that it is overcoming this issue because its B-Pods are “Landfill Friendly.” The Orwellian-style nomenclature seems counterintuitive, but according to the Bruvi FAQ:

Our Bru-Pods are 100% recyclable and have been designed to be landfill friendly. That means no wasting resources with cumbersome rinsing or separating capsule parts; all you have to do is throw the whole capsule in the trash. When they hit the landfill, they will substantially degrade in 5 years instead of 500 years.

On the coffee side, Bruvi says that the coffee and tea inside those Landfill Friendly pods will offer “ethical and sustainably sourced coffee as well as licensed brand partners,” so there’s a chance your favorite roaster could have their own B-Pod if this device takes off.

Because the hardware itself is connected, the accompanying Bruvi app will let you brew your drink remotely, re-order pods and look at your drinking patterns, if that floats your coffee boat.

Bruvi is just the latest in a line of companies looking to improve your morning cup of coffee through fancy gadgets, access to specialty roasters, or creating molecular coffee in a lab. The good news for all you coffeeheads out there is that the pandemic has not actually impacted coffee crops so far. The bad news is that the pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon, but if you’re stuck at home this time next year, perhaps buying a Bruvi could make it a little more manageable.

Trade Raises $9M to Get More People Into Specialty Coffee

Trade, the online specialty coffee marketplace and subscription service, announced today that it has raised a $9 million round of funding. The round was led by Madrona Venture Group with participation from JAB and Launch. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Trade to $21 million.

Trade’s mission, as company CEO Mike Lackman explained to me by phone last week, is pretty straightforward: “Our goal is to create platform to get people to pay for specialty coffee,” he said. He lamented that a lot of people currently still treat coffee like a commodity even though there are a ton of other great roasters to choose from.

Launched in April of 2018, Trade offers coffees from more than 55 roasters across U.S. 38 states. Customers can get recommendations based on factors like roast or taste preferences, and order bags a la carte or via subscription. Trade facilitates all the payment, logistics and packaging, while the individual roasters actually ship the coffee. In May of this year, Trade sold its millionth bag of coffee.

I asked Lackman if the pandemic, which has forced more people to stay and work at home, has had an impact on Trade’s business. “We saw strong volume through Q2,” Lackman said, though the company didn’t see huge, panic buying-induced surges. “We were able to handle it, and much of that demand has sustained.”

Getting coffee online is not exactly difficult nowadays, and there are plenty of players already in the space including subscription services like Craft Coffee and Misto Box, broader online marketplaces like Seattle Coffee Gear, and roasters themselves like Stumptown.

With its new funding, Lackman said that Trade is looking to broaden the appeal of its services. “Making the tent bigger for specialty is important,” he said, “Our audience was very well versed in the world of specialty, but skewed more male.” Trade aims to balance out that gender gap and serve up specialty coffee to more people, no matter their taste or price point preferences.

Meet the World’s First Travel Mug Made From Paper

Playing its part in fighting the world’s gigantic coffee cup waste problem, UK-based Circular&Co. today unveiled its Circular Travel Mug made from recycled single-use paper cups and designed to last a decade. The company currently has a Kickstarter campaign where backers can pre-order the mug.

This isn’t the company’s first foray into sustainable consumer products. As Ashortwalk Ltd., it created what it claimed to be the world’s first reusable cup, the “rCUP,” made from single-use coffee cups. One rebrand later, and the company is furthering its mission of creating and selling more sustainable products for consumers’ on-the-go coffee habits.

According to the Circular&Co. Kickstarter page, the newly unveiled travel mug is made from paper cups collected from coffee shops and grocery stores. The mug is fully insulated, dishwasher-safe, and, according to the company, built to last for 10 years (at which point you can recycle it). It’s also “100% leak proof” and features a handy spring-loaded lid that makes it easier to open.

One thing that is not clear from the Kickstarter page is whether the entire travel mug is made from recycled paper cups. Reviews of the aforementioned rCUP on Amazon UK suggest standard plastics are used in the lid and main body. We’ve reached out to Circular&Co. to get the details the exact materials used for the new travel mug.

It’s a weird time right now for reusable coffee mugs, with Starbucks and other major retailers “pausing” the use of reusable cups because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the disposable coffee cup culture means millions of cups, straws, lids, and other drink paraphernalia go into landfills and oceans each year. Pandemic or no, building a more sustainable coffee culture, especially here in the U.S., can’t stay de-prioritized for long without significant environmental consequences. 

Those interested in Circular&Co.’s cup can head over to the company’s Kickstarter page to pre-order. A 12-ounce mug is currently available for $13, and a $16-ounce version goes for $15. Mugs are estimated to ship in November of this year.

Will Pure Over’s All-Glass, No-Paper Filter Coffee Device Win Over Crowdfunders?

There is no shortage of solutions out there promising to improve your morning cup of coffee. But that hasn’t stopped Pure Over from throwing its hat into the ring with a new pour over solution that launched on Kickstarter today.

Pure Over’s is pitching an all-glass pour over system that doesn’t require anything beyond ground coffee and water. In other words, no filters. The Pure Over uses a “cake filtration” system, so traditional filters are not necessary.

I spoke with Etai Rahmil, CEO and Founder of the Portland, OR-based Pure Over this week by phone. During our call, he explained the benefits of his all-glass setup. First, it cuts down on waste because you don’t need single-use paper filters. But also, “Paper filters are superfine, they filter out the oils,” Rahmil said. “The glass filter brings out more bold chewy mouthfeels. Like a french press.” Additionally, Rahmil said that since glass does not impart any flavors, like a metal filter might, you get a more unadulterated drink. “The only thing in your cup is coffee,” he said.

As noted above, we’ve written about a ton of coffee\-related Kickstarter products over the years. Many of these have suffered huge delays. (Hello, Spinn and Kelvin!) Others never reached their backers. (Hello Rite Press!) I asked Rahmil why his product would be different and why he’ll be able to make the difficult leap from prototype to full-scale production.

“We’ve been working on this for two years,” Rahmil said of the product, “I think that me being a glass artist, I’ve been able to prototype and design this in a way that makes manufacturing easier. There are no electronics. No plastics.”

Rahmil said that they’ve already done a small manufacturing run of 100 units to send out to friends and family and coffee influencers.

As with backing any crowdfunded hardware, caveat emptor, buyer beware. You can get your own Pure Over for pledge of at least $35, with units expected to ship in December of this year.

Drizly Raises $50M for Booze Delivery to Your Door

Drizly, the online booze shopping and delivery service, announced yesterday that it has raised a $50 million Series C round of funding. The round was led by Avenir with participation from Tiger Global and other existing investors. This brings the total amount raised by Drizly to $119.6 million.

The funding comes during what appears to be a bit of a boom time for Drizly. According to the company’s announcement, Drizly “has grown over 350% in 2020 as compared to 2019 while achieving sustained profitability.”

It’s not hard to believe those numbers for one big, awful reason: the pandemic. COVID-19 shut down bars and restaurants around the country, and even when some re-opened, they can be hotspots for virus transmission. The pandemic, of course, has kept more people at home and drove them into the arms of e-commerce for things like food and drinks and, evidently booze.

And of course, with the world as it is these days and anxieties running high, who could blame vast swaths of the population for taking the edge off with a little pinot greeezh.

It seems like all these factors are contributing to Drizly’s aggressive prediction that 20 percent of off-premise alcohol purchases will be online within the next five years, up from less than two percent in 2020. Actually, given everything going on in the world, 20 percent does not seem that outlandish.

Drizly is definitely scaling up to help facilitate those online sales. The company said it’s now up and running in 235 markets across North America via a network of 3,300 retail partners.

Of course, there are plenty of startups ready to take their shots at the online alcohol biz. There are wine services like Winc and Drinks.com, GrapeStars lets celebrities hawk their booze, and grocery delivery services like Instacart let you add booze to your weekly order.

With this pandemic showing now signs of slowing down, chances are good that Drizly’s drink delivery won’t be doing so either anytime soon.

2050 Company Kickstarts Powdered Smoothies Made from Upcycled Produce

Ugly fruits and veggies can be pretty appealing (and delicious) when you grind them into dust. That’s the basic pitch for the 2050 Company, which launched its line of instant smoothies made from upcycled produce via Kickstarter today.

Sourced from farms and distributors across the West Coast, 2050 takes cosmetically imperfect fruits and vegetables and runs them through a proprietary drying process that removes the water but retains the nutrients in the items. The resulting dried produce is then ground into dust, which is packaged up and can be mixed with ice to make a smoothie.

2050 will start with three flavors: Rainier Berry, Seattle Summer, and Evergreen. A minimum pledge of $35 gets you 10-pack bag of smoothies with the first 350 backers getting Rainier Berry flavored smoothies in September and the rest being fulfilled in November.

Ugly produce has actually become quite the belle of the ball in recent years. In addition to it being turned into soups, sauces and ice creams, a number of startups are selling it outright. The aptly named Imperfect Foods (née Imperfect Produce) started off by selling surplus and ugly produce direct to consumers. Same goes for Misfits Market. And FoodMaven sells the ugly stuff to restaurants.

While we haven’t yet had a chance to try the 2050 smoothie, reducing ugly produce down to a powder is an intriguing idea. It’s lightweight, so it’s easy to ship, and will last on a shelf for up to one year.

Another company doing something similar is BlendJet, which sells a portable blender and packs of freeze-dried fruits for smoothies ($3.95 each).

2050 got its name because of its mission to improve the way we treat the planet before the environmental disasters (ice caps melting, rain forests gone, etc.) predicted to happen by the year 2050 arrive. We’ll see if that kind of foresight extends to its first year of business in 2020.

Heineken UK Beer Packs Ditch Plastic Rings in Favor of Cardboard

Heineken UK is now tackling the problem presented by all those plastic rings connecting their bottles of beer by ditching them for a more environmentally friendly cardboard topper to hold those cans together.

Heineken UK today announced the Green Grip, its new cardboard packaging that is 100 percent plastic free. It will first be used by brewer on Heineken, Foster’s and Kronenbourg 1664 multi-packs before being rolled out across the company’s entire line of beverages.

Heineken says that between the Green Grip and the removal of shrink wrapping on consumer packs, the company will eliminate more than 517 tons of plastic annually.

Plastic waste has been a big problem for us and our planet, with more than 8 million metric tons entering our oceans every year. Then along came the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated our plastic problem as people go through millions disposable gloves, and, more relevant to Spoon readers, single-use restaurant takeout containers.

Heineken UK isn’t the only beer company looking to get rid of the plastic rings on its multi-packs. A couple years back, Carlsberg started gluing cans of its brew together into a Snap Pack instead of using the plastic rings. And last year Coca-Cola and AB InBev announced plans to use the KeelClip paper-based multi-pack topper to be rolled out across Europe this year.

Admittedly, these are small changes, but if enough companies can follow suit, these small changes to the way we carry a six-pack into our next party (whenever those are allowed again), could make a really big impact on our planet.

The Food Tech Show: An Almost All Coffee Pod: Spinn, Coffee Robots & Atomo

The Spoon team has a heavily caffeinated conversation for this week’s podcast. Here are the stories we discuss:

I also suggest new names for both Chris and Jenn (let us know what you think of Jenny Donuts).

As always, you can find The Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. You can also download direct to your device or just click play below.

Atomo Raises $9M in Seed Funding for its Molecular Coffee

Atomo, the Seattle startup that re-creates coffee on a molecular level, announced today that it has raised a $9 million in seed funding from S2G Ventures, AgFunder, Bessemer Venture Partners and existing investor Horizons Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by Atomo to $11.6 million.

While Atomo’s molecular coffee was started in a lab, it certainly isn’t lab-made coffee. The company’s formula uses a combination of upcycled (vegan) ingredients that go through various biochemical and thermal processes to recreate the look, taste, smell and mouthfeel of coffee. The result, according to Atomo, is a smoother coffee that is less bitter.

In addition to the funding itself is what the funding will go towards. Atomo is building out a pilot production facility in Seattle that when opened in 2021 will be capable of producing thousands of servings of its coffee per day.

There are three phases on Atomo’s roadmap. The first phase, which the new facility will be producing, is a concentrate that will be used in ready-to-drink cans of Atomo cold brew coffee . The second phase involves using the concentrate as well as a grounds product in something like a Keurig style cup. The final phase will be using 3D printing to create an Atomo “bean” that could be used in grinders.

Atomo isn’t the only company looking to recreate drinks on a molecular level. Endless West makes whiskey, wines and sake spirits by deconstructing the originals and reassembling them.

The coffee industry is getting pinched from both ends during this pandemic. The virus is impacting the labor force in places like Brazil from being able to pick beans, and it is causing shut downs of cafes, which are big buyers of coffee. Just as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat could potentially bring stability to production of (plant-based) “meat” that avoids the wild swings of pandemics, the Atomo’s production capablities could potentially do the same for coffee.

We’ll have to see what the company brews up next.