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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future of Drink

What The Heck Happened to Drinkworks?

One of the stories I missed while I was out of the country in December was the shuttering of Drinkworks.

What makes the announcement so unexpected was, overall, things seemed to be generally going well: the company was expanding nationally, sales seemed on the uptick, and they’d even just announced the newest generation drink appliance in October of 2021.

Then, less than two months later, the joint venture between Anheuser-Busch and Keurig Dr. Pepper announced it was ceasing operations.

I don’t have to tell you how unusual it is for a company to announce a new product and then shut down just months later. And, now, almost a month after the news, we really don’t have a good answer for what happened, which is why it’s still worth asking: what the heck happened?

Generally, what that type of quick about-face tells me is that the higher-ups – and by that I mean the two companies involved in the joint venture funding – decided the project wasn’t working and pulled the plug.

So what does ‘not working’ mean? It could be any number of things: Appliance or beverage pod sales weren’t meeting forecasts. Customer satisfaction was low. The project was sucking up too many resources. Maybe the two companies didn’t like working together or their strategies diverged. As I said, it could be anything and we may never know (unless, of course, a former insider wants to tell us. Please reach out if you’d like to do so privately).

The end of Drinkworks also begs the question: is this the end for home cocktail appliances? Bartesian – and now Black and Decker – would argue no. As for me, I’m not sure I want a pod-making machine, but I would take a voice-enabled cocktail marking robot.

Watch my video look at the demise of Drinkworks below.

What The Heck Happened to Drinkworks?

Wine Critic Launches Jukes Cordialities, an Alcohol-Free Wine Fit for Oenophiles

If you consider the phrase “non-alcoholic wine” for a moment, it seems that this might just be referring to a glass of unfermented grape juice. Wine is defined as an alcoholic beverage made from grapes or other fruits, but a company called Jukes Cordialities has created wine – sans the fermentation process and alcohol content. Launched by wine critic and writer Matthew Jukes, the company is focused on providing the same complexities and nuances found in a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.

There are many reasons one might choose to avoid drinking alcohol – pregnancy, being the designated driver, religion, health reasons, or simply just not being in the mood for a buzz. We’re also entering the holiday season where alcoholic beverages are seemingly always poured, and it’s nice to take a break from the non-stop booze.

I had the opportunity to do a virtual tasting with Matthew Jukes, and try the company’s three different varieties of alcohol-free wine. The alternative wines come in small 30mL (~1 ounce) bottles, which contain two servings. To serve the wine, it’s recommended that half the bottle is mixed with 5oz of still or sparkling water.

The Jukes 1 varietal is meant to mimic a white wine with flavors of peach, citrus, herb, and cucumber. Jukes 8 is rosé-inspired, with flavors of melon, pear, rhubarb, and pomegranate. The dark purple-red Jukes 6 is fruity and spicy, with notes of berries and plum.

Matthew Jukes shows me how to enjoy Jukes 1

All of the varieties are made from a base of organic apple cider vinegar. Each flavor, or varietal, is comprised of over 20 ingredients, including various fruit juices, herbs, spices, flowers, and vegetables. For someone trying to count calories, each serving of Jukes contains 25 calories, while a glass of red wine typically has around 125.

Jukes blends all the ingredients, which are first macerated, in custom-made stainless steel tanks to produce the wines. Although the tanks look slightly similar to brewing equipment, no fermentation takes place. Other non-alcoholic wines are more complicated to create; some are produced just like a standard wine, but the last step is removing the alcohol through vacuum installation or reverse osmosis.

Although I could tell that I wasn’t drinking wine (a good thing because I did the virtual tasting at 9 am) due to the pungency of the apple cider vinegar, it still felt like I was drinking wine. When I drink wine, I often want more of the fruity, smoky, citrusy, and oak-y flavors to shine through. With Jukes, my favorite part was how much of the distinct flavors of fruit and flowers shone through. If I were at a social function where everyone else was drinking, I wouldn’t feel left out if I was sipping on a glass of Jukes.

The alcohol-free beverage space has rapidly expanded and taken a more elevated form in the past few years. Until recent years, you might have been able to snag an O’Doul’s to drink with dinner or while at a bar, but alcohol-free wine was virtually nonexistent. The Spoon has yet to try other 0.0% wines, but a few other brands in this space include AcidLeague, SipCozy, Gruvi, and TÖST.

Jukes are available on the company’s website, and at a few alcohol-free retail stores. A box of nine bottles of Jukes costs $48.50 which is equivalent to three bottles of wine.

Restaurants, Welcome to the Metaverse

Restaurants, welcome to the metaverse.

It’s not just a vision that’s 5 or 10 years away. It’s here now. 

For Halloween, Chipotle created a virtual restaurant inside the online game platform Roblox to give away $1 million in free burritos. Fans and gamers could enter the restaurant, experience a Halloween-themed Chipotle, and get a promo code for a free burrito in the real world.

This is a preview of what we can expect to see in the years to come. The next generation of diners will order their food and discover where they are going for their next night out from inside augmented and virtual worlds created by the likes of Epic, Roblox, and Facebook. And the best hospitality companies (and hospitality tech companies) will not wait too long to adapt.

Here are seven ways that restaurants will change in the metaverse:

  1. Marketplaces – apps won’t be the primary ordering channel anymore once more people begin to participate in the metaverse. Companies like Doordash, UberEats and GrubHub will need to rethink their strategy as ordering and discovery will be embedded in more interoperable experiences. Doordash moving to become a pure logistics API is smart because they will be protected if they lose the ordering portal in the metaverse — someone still has to deliver the food after all.
  2. Marketing – brands will start integrating food into virtual experiences. Instead of traditional email marketing, restaurants will be able to recreate their physical space in the metaverse and invite guests from around the world. The metaverse will create new opportunities to test promotions and loyalty programs, just like Chipotle showed by launching their Boorito promo as digital-only this year.
  3. Reservations – the interface for booking a table will completely change. Diners will do a quick virtual tour before booking the specific table they want. Pricing will be dynamic for the very best tables.
  4. Delivery – ghost kitchens will be the building blocks of group ordering in the metaverse. You’ll be able to share a meal with your friends delivered to you at the same time even if you are halfway across the globe.
  5. QR codes – QR codes will be more than just menus. They will be the access point for augmented reality. Friends from the metaverse who can’t make the night out will be able to join in on the fun and send your party a bottle of champagne to celebrate.
  6. Payments – while we expect restaurants to always take dollars, we think the metaverse will have a few different major cryptocurrencies that rise to the top over the next 5 years. The currency that a restaurant accepts will be part of its identity and marketing efforts.
  7. Membership – members-only hospitality experiences like SOHO house will extend their house into the digital realm. Members will have access to exclusive digital worlds if they own the right (non-fungible token) NFT to get in the front door. These NFTs will be traded on open marketplaces as keys to different clubs.

Most of us love sitting down with friends at a restaurant with a chill vibe and having a great conversation in the real world. The metaverse will not change that. Restaurants will continue to provide those unique experiences. But within the metaverse, restaurants will be able to reach more guests that might not always be able to show up in person.

Steve Simoni is CEO of BBot, a maker of smart ordering technology for restaurants and the hospitality industry.

Bruvi Raises $7 Million as it Sets to Ship Its Pod-Coffee Brewer in 2022

Bruvi, a maker of a single-serve pod-based brewing system, has raised a $7 million pre-Series A round as it prepares to launch its brewer and direct-to-consumer pod marketplace in 2022.

According to an announcement sent to The Spoon, the company plans to use the funding to “pay for manufacturing, software development, brewer inventory, and digital advertising expenses, as it prepares for pre-orders in November 2021 and national launch in Q1 2022.”

While many of the new coffee systems coming to market nowadays seem to be grind and brew systems that do away with the pod altogether, Bruvi is bucking the trend by rethinking the pod-brewer. The Bruvi brewer, which is Wi-Fi connected and app-controlled, adjusts heating parameters and brew-strength depending on the pod, which the system scans when inserted. The app will set brew schedules, monitor usage, and allow you to reorder.

The company claims the Bruvi system is differentiated by being the only pod-brewing system that brews coffee in the pod itself. This is debatable, especially considering Nespresso’s Vertuo pod system, which uses centrifugal force to extrude a crema espresso from the pod.

The company says its pod is more eco-friendly because it is made of treated polypropylene, which it claims will biodegrade up to 63% in about 600 days, compared with just 2% biodegradation of a normal pod. While that’s better, a more biodegradable pod is still a pod, something that adds to the waste stream. But for those coffee lovers that insist on using a pod-brewer, Bruvi’s system could be a way to reduce the mountain of plastic their coffee habit leaves behind.

Bruvi’s founders include longtime coffee industry executives Sung Oh and Mel Elias. Oh is the technical cofounder, having spent five years inventing a single-pod system for his company Touch Coffee and Beverages. Elias brings the coffee industry connections from his prior stint as the former CEO of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

Customers can pre-order the Bruvi bundle, which features a brewer, 24 B-Pods and water filter, for $198 starting in November. The company says it will begin shipping the brewer in the first quarter of 2022.

A Cuppa Joe Grown in a Lab? That’s Right, Cell-Cultured Coffee Is Now a Reality

Cellular agriculture has given us hope about the future of sustainable meat production, but what about coffee? After all, many of us (this author included) would happily give up that great steak or burger to make sure we get that first cup of coffee in the morning.

Well good news, caffeine addicts: A research lab in Finland announced they have made coffee using cellular agriculture techniques. According to an article today in Phys.org, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland “is developing coffee production through plant cells in its laboratory in Finland. In the process, cell cultures floating in bioreactors filled with nutrient medium are used to produce various animal- and plant-based products.”

The process by VTT includes establishing the cell lines in the lab and then transferring the cell cultures to a bioreactor where they produce biomass. Once harvested, the biomass is roasted into something resembling the coffee we purchase from the store.

“In terms of smell and taste, our trained sensory panel and analytical examination found the profile of the brew to bear similarity to ordinary coffee,” said VTT Research Team Leader Dr. Heiko Rischer. “However, coffee making is an art and involves iterative optimization under the supervision of specialists with dedicated equipment. Our work marks the basis for such work.”

While we’ve seen a few startups such as Atomo working on building “molecular” coffee, those approaches use upcycled plant-based ingredients with similar compounds to coffee beans. VTT’s research project is the first example we’ve seen of cellular agriculture techniques used to replicate coffee bean cells in a bioreactor.

Whether it’s cell-ag coffee beans or derived using molecular magic, discovering new approaches to create coffee is urgent given the state of traditional crop farming. Mega-producers like Brazil face severe droughts due to climate change, which has resulted in big jumps in coffee bean prices.

But don’t expect coffee from a bioreactor to show up on store shelves anytime soon. First, researchers must figure out how to scale the process, and regulatory approval would be needed.

You can see the full article on Phys.org here.

Beer Made With a Beer Brewing Robot Wins Gold Medal

In July, a homebrewer using a BEERMKR home beer brewing appliance won gold at the National HomeBrew Competition.

According to a release from BEERMKR, a beer brewed by Christian Chandler of Phoenix, AZ, won the gold medal in the Porters & Stouts category, beating out 164 entries in the contest put on by the American HomeBrewers Association.

The win was an important milestone in that it’s the first time that a homebrewer used an automated beer brewing countertop appliance to help develop an award-winning recipe at the HomeBrew Competition.

So how did Chandler use the BEERMKR to develop his beer? From the release:

Chandler says that BEERMKR’s small batches and ease of use let him make multiple iterations of a recipe and “really tweak things on the fly.” Chandler was able to fine-tune his recipe into a national gold medal winner.  The repeatability of BEERMKRs process also helped him make consistently good beer as he advanced from the first to second rounds of the competition.

Chandler used the BEERMKR to do quick batches, which he later scaled up using a higher capacity brewing system called the Grainfather to increase batch size. While The Grainfather automates some parts of the brewing process, it still requires the user to monitor readings manually and transfer the wort to a separate container for fermentation after the brew. The BEERMKR, on the other hand, automates much more of the process of beer brewing. The brewer chooses the ingredients and builds a recipe, but from there the sensors and software of the BEERMKR monitor much of the process, from brewing through fermentation to carbonation.

In short, Chandler, an experienced brewer, integrated the BEERMKR as part of his recipe development process. He iterated recipes and brewed quick small batches with smaller portions of ingredients on the BEERMKR, and used his bigger machine to brew larger quantities once the recipe was dialed in.

So will it soon become commonplace for homebrewers to use brewbots like the BEERMKR to develop recipes for brewing competitions? I imagine so, in part because the machines essentially act as a tool for serious homebrewers to develop recipes faster. While purists might resent any use of technology when it comes to brewing up a batch, technology like the BEERMKR helps them get better at their craft by automating the boring parts like temperature control and leaving the creative parts up to them.

You can watch a video of Chandler below talking about developing his award winning recipe with the BEERMKR.

BEERMKR beer wins gold at National Homebrew Competition

Soon You Will Be Able to Buy Bubble Tea From a Robot and Pay With Your Face

If having a boba drink made by a robot wasn’t futuristic enough for you, soon you will be able to pay for that bubble tea with your face.

That’s because Bobacino, the maker of eponymous boba-making robots, announced today it has partnered up with PopID to let boba lovers pay for their drinks using facial recognition technology.

The way it works is customers can choose to opt-in and register using the PopID app. The app will scan the user’s face during registration, and from there, they can preorder and pay for the boba tea on the app. The customer can also choose to verify their ID once at the Bobacino kiosk to retrieve the drink. Once scanned, the drink is dispensed.

The PopID app integrated with Bobacino

If this all sounds like technology piled on technology, it is. That said, there’s no doubt biometrics as a form of payment has its advantages. Face-pay and other biometrics do add additional security beyond that of the traditional debit card PIN or even NFC-powered mobile payment, since, after all, it’s tough to fake someone’s face (or retina).

The big challenge for face-pay systems will be convincing some customers to use them. The rollout of face-pay in China raised privacy concerns and left some customers confused by the onboarding process. Because PopID’s system is opt-in, it may sidestep privacy concerns, but the two companies will still have work to do educating customers on the benefits of face-pay.

PopID’s move into automated beverage kiosks is a logical evolution given the company’s early traction integrating with payment kiosks as restaurants looked for ways to mitigate consumer fear about COVID. Last year, the company established its pay-by-face network in Southern California and had since taken it nationwide, riding the wave of interest over in contactless payment.

For Bobacino, partnering with PopID adds one more interesting tool in the toolbox for its operator partners when the company rolls out the machines. Last year, the company said it planned to roll out its machines in the second half of 2021, and they are currently raising funds on StartEngine to help fund the rollout. Bobacino is backed by Wavemaker Ventures, the same fund backing Miso, Piestro (who also partnered with PopID), and other food robotics startups.

You can see what the Bobacino looks like in action (face-pay not included) on the video below:

Bobacino Brand FINAL3

Bartesian Brings Its Cocktail Robot to Williams-Sonoma & Macy’s

Home robot bartender Bartesian has made the (retail) big time.

According to a release sent to The Spoon, the long-time maker of countertop cocktail makers has announced that its machines are now available at Williams-Sonoma and Macy’s.

Bartesian, which shipped its first machine in 2019 after years of development, has seen a 300% increase in revenue in 2021, which follows a nearly 10x increase in sales in 2020 over the previous year. While the company saw its growth accelerate in 2020 with bars closed due to COVID, its fast growth predated the pandemic, according to company CEO Ryan Close.

From our post in April about Bartesian’s $21 million funding round:

Close said that while his company did get a COVID bump, it was already experiencing triple growth rates prior to the pandemic (they got off to a nice start by being an Oprah pick in the winter of 2019). Close said that the company has generated more sales in the first quarter of 2021 than during the first half of 2020.

Bartesian’s growth stands in contrast to the rough-sailing experienced by others in the home booze appliance business. Somabar, which saw early adulation at CES for its home cocktail bot, has struggled to fulfill its Kickstarter commitments. Barsys suffered early negative reviews for its cocktail robot and has recently emphasized its smart coaster.

Bartesian’s success is perhaps a validation of the company’s early strategy of partnering with larger companies such as Hamilton Beach (for manufacturing) and Beam to gain access to channels and resources in a business. It also was the first home booze-bot maker to build a business around a consumables with its pods, ensuring recurring revenue beyond the initial hardware sale.

Since its launch, Bartesian has witnessed other pod-based drink systems come to market. Drinkworks, the joint venture between Dr. Pepper/Keurig and AB InBev, continues to roll out new cocktail-related partnerships and products as it expands into new states. European startup Smart Spirits is trying to convince folks to use pods to create base-liquor drinks like gin or whiskey.

But now, with its entrance into Williams-Sonoma and Macy’s, Bartesian hopes to gain a leg up on the competition. By securing prime brick & mortar real retail real estate to sell to customers who still buy things brick & mortar retail, the company looks like it may be positioning itself as the market leader in the still-nascent but fast-growing home cocktail-making appliance business.

I Tried Underground Cellar’s Gamification Tech for Online Wine Shopping

Not all of us are lucky enough to have a wine cellar within our homes to store bottles at the perfect temperature, humidity, and darkness. Most of us don’t casually reach for a $70 bottle of wine. A Napa Valley-based company called Underground Cellar is looking to change that. Through its e-commerce platform, users can virtually store up to 500 bottles and receive free upgrades to more expensive bottles of wine.

The Shark Tank-backed platform has existed for about five years, and in June 2021, the company raised $12.5 million in funding. Underground Cellar recently reached out to me and offered site credit to test out its platform. As someone that typically only buys a $10 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from Trader Joe’s, I was excited to give it a try.

Example of how the upgrades work

Every day, the Underground Cellar’s platform features different wineries, regions, or varietals. A bottle price is listed for each select deal, and the minimum purchase number is three bottles per order. However, most of them are upgraded to more expensive bottles after you purchase wine, but the user still pays the lowest price listed. On top of this, every deal includes a “top upgrade,” which means you have the chance of receiving a rare or expensive bottle of wine.

My CloudCellar and the wines I received

I ordered three bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, and each bottle cost $35. I did not know exactly what brands or vintages I would be receiving until after I placed the order. I actually ended up with bottles of wine valued at $45, $60, and $85. Two of my bottles were ready to ship right away, and the one took about a week to become available. The bottles are stored in my “CloudCellar,” which means that Underground Cellar is storing them in its Napa Valley facilities until I am ready to ship the wine to my house.

Other platforms that sell and recommend wine exist, like Vivino and Winc. However, Underground Cellar’s gamification feature sets it apart from the other sites. Buying wine on the platform feels like a safer, tannin-infused version of gambling. As the user, you know you will at least get a bottle worth what you paid for. The chance of getting upgraded to something like a 1975 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque (worth $2,000) is what keeps the user hooked and coming back for more deals.

I liked the platform because it forced me to try completely new wines that I normally would not have reached for in-stores. As a 25-year-old millennial on a tight budget, I would never spend $85 on a bottle of wine, but I was given this opportunity with the upgrade technology. I definitely don’t have a wine cellar, and I liked knowing that my bottles of wine were being stored in perfect conditions.

On the flip side, some people might not like that they cannot choose exactly what wine they want. On top of this, most bottles on the platform start at around $30-$35 (except for the occasional $20 blowout deals). Certain people, like myself, typically stick to the $5-$20 range when it comes to buying wine. Shipping is a bit pricey, costing $21 for ground shipping for three bottles of wine. To receive free shipping, 12 bottles must be shipped together.

Overall, I found Underground Cellar to be a neat platform I would recommend to my wine-loving friends. Since its recent funding round, the company has been growing its team, improving its gamification tech, and making more connections with wineries.

Smoothie Robot Blendid Joins The Equity Crowdfunding Crowd With $2 Million Raise

Blendid, the maker of smoothie-making robots, announced today it had raised $2 million via crowdfunding platform StartEngine. According to the announcement sent to The Spoon, the raise brings the company’s total funding to $20 million raised through venture capital, strategic funding, and crowdfunding. The company raised funds over a four month period from over 1475 individual investors.

From the release:

Blendid is currently focused on growing its location footprint to increase its reach across the United States and perfect its food automation platform. Recently announcing its expansion plans to two new geographic areas, Blendid will use the additional funds to accelerate its expansion into the Southern California and Georgia markets with openings in a variety of venues such as malls, airports, hospitals, universities and retail stores.

The company counts Walmart and Jamba as its customers and, according to company sources, has served over 50 thousand customer orders.

Blendid isn’t the only robotics company to use crowdfunding in recent years. In fact, it seems like food robotics equity crowdfunding space has become downright crowded .

So why the interest in equity crowdfunding? There are a few reasons:

The first reason is the shine of traditional rewards-based crowdfunding has dimmed in recent years after several high-profile failures like the Coolest Cooler. By offering equity in the company, smaller investors feel they have a stake in the company and may be more forgiving than those who came to see rewards-based crowdfunding platforms as merchandise marketplaces.

Second, equity crowdfunding also gives small companies a way to sidestep traditional venture and strategic investors who a) might have higher oversight requirements or b) ask for too much of a stake than a founder(s) is willing to give up. It also opens up an entirely new pool of funding from small investors who have been shut out of the more traditional venture funding ecosystem.

Finally, robotics is a category that resonates with smaller investors. It’s an easy-to-understand space, and the investment thesis undergirding many of the proposals is largely correct: the food space is ripe for more automation and robotics, so why shouldn’t I put some skin in the game.

Long term, I expect the food robotics equity crowdfunding momentum to continue as smaller investors look for places to put their money outside of traditional investment vehicles. How these investments pay off for these investors is another story worth watching.

Compound Foods Raises $4.5M to Make Synthetic Coffee

Coffee, without the bean, is what startup Compound Foods promises, and the company just raised $4.5 to help make that goal a reality. TechCrunch was first to report today that Compound has raised $4.5 million in Seed funding from investors including Lowercarbon Capital, SVLC, Humboldt Fund, Collaborative Fund, Maple VC, Petri Bio and angel investors. This brings the total amount raised by the startup to $5.3 million.

Instead of growing and harvesting coffee beans, Compound uses synthetic biology to recreate “coffee” on the molecular level. Compound Food Founder and CEO, Maricel Saenz, didn’t provide much detail to TechCrunch as to how the company re-creates coffee, but did they use sustainable ingredients and far less than the 140 liters of water it takes to grow one cup of joe.

Compound isn’t the only company using such synthetic techniques to recreate particular food and drinks. Seattle-based Atomo is also in the molecular coffee biz, making its synthetic java out of upcycled vegan ingredients. Atomo introduced a ready-to-drink cold brew canned coffee last year. Endless West makes molecular whiskey. And Climax Foods uses data and plant-based ingredients to re-create cheese.

Though it’s rather grim to think about, as the pandemic and climate change highlight how fragile our agricultural and supply chain logistics are, there is a real opportunity for synthetic food and beverage makers to grow. These companies can recreate foods we know and love with fewer land and water resources. Additionally, because these foods are manufactured in facilities and not grown outdoors, they aren’t reliant on growing seasons and are less susceptible to catastrophic weather conditions.

Of course the most important factor for any synthetic food and drink company is taste. If the finished product doesn’t taste good, all the molecules in the world won’t convince people to buy it.

Kickstarter: Bottle+ is a Waste-Free Thermos That Gives You Fizzy Water on the Go

We drink an insane amount of bubble water in our household. And while it’s all from recyclable aluminum cans, it still feels… excessive. Which is why the new Bottle+ project on Kickstarter caught my eye. The SPARK Bottle+ is a travel thermos with a built-in, re-usable CO2 chamber to fizz up your water while you’re on the go. In addition keeping your drinks as maximum fizz even as the thermos jostles around in your backpack, the Bottle+ is also waste free.

There are three main components to the SPARK Bottle+, the main drinking vessel, a portable CO2 chamber that attaches to the vessel, and a refilling station. Just like a SodaStream, you place a CO2 cylinder inside the refilling station. When you’re ready to go, affix the chamber to the thermos and press it down onto the refilling station to load your Bottle+ with CO2. When you’re out, press the button on the CO2 chamber to carbonate your water. A full chamber can make produce 15 bottles of sparkling water before needing a recharge.

The whole system is circular and reusable so there is really no waste. The bottle itself is obviously reusable, and like the SodaStream the CO2 canisters can be swapped out and turned in for refilling. Plus, there are no pods to be packaged and shipped.

Launched on August 24th, the Bottle+ campaign has already blown past it Kickstarter goal of $29, 510 and has raised more than $77,000 as of this writing (with 31 days still to go). Early backers can pick up a complete Bottle+ system for €139 (~$164 USD). According to the campaign page, the Bottle+ system will cost €179 (~$211 USD). Units will ship in June 2022.

According to Grandview Research, the global market for sparkling water is valued at $29.71 billion, and projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.6 percent from this year to 2028. So Bottle+ is certainly launching at the right time.

The entire hydration space is actually chock-a-block with companies vying to improve the water you drink and how you drink it. In March of this year, Pani launched a crowdfunding campaign for its water filter/mineralizer/flavor pod system. Earlier this month, Cirkul raised $36 million for its reusable water bottle and flavor cartridge combo. And just last week, drink giant PepsiCo announced that it was bringing its SodaStream Pro fizzy water dispenser to college campuses.

As with any Kickstarter project, backing it is definitely buyer beware. There is a big difference between developing a prototype and scaling up to mass production — just ask the backers of Rite-Press and iGulu. However, if Bottle+ can pull it off, that will be a definite plus for the planet and for soda water addicts like me.