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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future of Drink

Hop Robotics’ Beer Robot is Ready for Events This Summer

The U.S., it seems, has lagged behind Europe when it comes to automated beer pouring action. There’s EBar in the UK, Revolmatic out of Poland, and Macco Robotics in Spain. But fear not, proud Americans! There’s a homebrewed, as it were, beer robot coming to market courtesy of Hop Robotics in South Carolina.

Dubbed Walter, Hop’s beer robot uses an articulating arm and bottom pouring cups to automate beer dispensing. The robotic arm is built on a kegerator with four dispensers. Walter can take an order, dispense and serve a drink in roughly 25 seconds, and do roughly 140 cups of beer an hour.

Pint 2 Pint Time Trial-Hop Robotics

As Grayson Dawson, Founder of Hop Robotics, explained to me by phone this week, his company is still pretty early on and is in the pre-revenue, commercial prototype phase. Hop Robotics has one robot available that Dawson shuttles to events at cities around the Carolinas and Georgia. Right now, Walter isn’t tied into a payment system, so Dawson manually takes cash or drink tickets and enters the order into the machine himself. Additionally, while Dawson has some age verification capabilities, he is instead relying on venues to do age and overconsumption checks.

With more people than ever vaccinated in the U.S., activities like sporting events, fairs and concerts are opening back up. Crushes of people with pent up demand for mass entertainment will probably want a frosty beverage during the summer heat, and having an automated system to churn out beer after beer could come in handy. The question is how Hop Robotics could handle any potential surge in demand.

The company has proven out the basics of its technology, but Dawson is currently seeking funding or strategic partnerships to scale the business up beyond just one machine and the one person operating it.

Heineken B.O.T. Follows You Around With Ice Cold Beer in Tow

I live in the Pacific Northwest which, as you may have heard, is experiencing a record-breaking heatwave. It is hot, especially for a region that lives under cloud cover for most of the year. What we really could have used up here over the past few days is the Heineken B.O.T. (Beer Outdoor Transporter), an autonomous little robot that will literally follow you around carrying a cooler full of ice cold beer (or whatever).

Hat tip to Hype Beast for bringing the B.O.T. to our attention. The robot is autonomous and uses motion sensors to follow you around and avoid obstacles. As the promotional video points out, lugging coolers around on a hot day is heavy and no fun. The B.O.T.’s cooler holds 12 cans of beer and ice and since it goes where you go, a frosty beverage is always within arm’s reach.

Heineken B.O.T. (Beer Outdoor Transporter)

The idea of autonomous robots bringing refreshments to people isn’t new. A couple years back, Pepsi was using Robby robots to being snacks to students at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. More recently, Cheetah Mobile in China launched FANBOT, which is like a mobile bodega — though it’s used indoors in places like hotels and malls. And Yo-Kai Express is currently developing an autonomous ramen vending machine for students to hail on college campuses.

But don’t expect to see Heineken B.O.T.s scurrying around public sidewalks anytime soon, however, as this appears to be a promotional play from Heineken. It’s holding a contest in July where you can enter to win your own B.O.T. and stay refreshed through the hot summer months.

Better Juice Raises $8M for Tech That Reduces the Sugar in Natural Juices

Better Juice, a company that uses enzymatic technology to reduce the amount of sugar in natural juices, has raised $8 million in seed funding. The round was led by iAngels with participation from Maverick Ventures, Food Tech Lab TFTL, The Kitchen Hub, NEOME, Schestowitz Group, and Semillero.

The company’s tech comes in the form of a simple machine that can be integrated into the juice-manufacturing process. This “column” contains immobilized non-GMO microorganisms. When juice passes through the column, the food-grade microorganisms convert juice sugars (fructose, glucose, sucrose) into dietary fibers and non-digestible sugars. Better Juice says this process can reduce up to 80 percent of all sugars in the juice.

A single column can produce 1000 liters of juice per 1 liter column.

Health experts, consumers, and many others have debated the merits of juice for years now. Increasingly, critics have pointed to the amount of sugar in juices — even natural ones — and said there’s as much sugar in a glass of OJ as in a soda.

Better Juice’s technology is currently designed to target orange juice’s specific sugar composition. However, the company says seed round of investment will allow it to expand into other product lines, including ice cream, soft drinks, and jam. Funding will also go towards building a full-scale manufacturing plant in Israel, which will increase production capacity “by 40-fold.” Additionally, the company will expand its sales and marketing teams as it moves into commercialization stage.

In the next few months, Better Juice plans to bring its product to market. How seamlessly it can integrate its technology into existing manufacturing processes will be a key factor. The company has said in the past that its column is easy to install and doesn’t require special training or a specific set of skills. Once the column actually comes to market, we will see how well this assertion holds up.

The company opened its pilot production facility in January of this year and currently has partnerships with “leading beverage companies.”

Switzerland: Smyze’s Robot Barista Makes Coffee and Mocktail Drinks

Switzerland-based robots startup Smyze is a lot like other robot baristas already out on the market. It’s eponymous robot is a self-contained kiosk installed in high-traffic areas, users order drinks from an on-board touchscreen or via a web app to order and an articulating arms swing and swivels around to make those drinks.

So far, this sounds a lot like other robo-ristas on the market from the likes of Cafe X, Crown Digital and Blue Hill coffee. What makes Smyze a little different is that it also offers a variety of mocktail-type drinks, making it more of a full beverage station rather than just a high-tech, sci-fi latte machine. Measuring 2 meters by 2 meters, the Smyze station has a menu of 60 drinks, split 50/50 between coffee drinks and mocktails, and can churn out 120 drinks per hour.

“We didn’t want to just be a robot barista,” Daniel Adamec, Co-Founder of Smyze told me by video chat this week. “We have a broad range of drink possibilities, you don’t want to restrict yourself to just coffee.”

I asked Adamec why his company went with an articulating arm for its design, as it might not be as fast as more of an industrial machine type of approach. “We want the robot experience,” he said, highlighting the arm’s theatricality. “We don’t want to have a vending machine. It doesn’t add a huge cost, and it’s just an experience. People love it.”

There are currently three Smyze robots up and running in Switzerland with two more set to go online in that country in the next couple of months. The robots are owned and operated by Smyze, so it is responsible for stocking, cleaning and maintenance (which Adamec said happens once a day). When they install in a new location, Smyze negotiates a revenue sharing deal with that location rather than renting space or leasing the machine outright. Adamec said that Smyze will continue that owner/operator model as the company grows across Europe, but will also use more of a franchise model for its forthcoming customers in the middle east and Asia, where Smyze is not physically located.

As noted, there are currently plenty of robot baristas coming to market in different places around the world. But Smyze is part of a larger movement of startups looking to automated all kinds of commercial beverage experiences. Blendid and Alberts make smoothies. Rotender and Celia make actual cocktails. And Drinkbot makes a variety of juice-based mocktailers. Right now, Smyze sits somewhere in the middle of all these, offering a broad array of drinks, which just might help its robot stand out in an increasingly crowded field.

Underground Cellar Raises $12.5M for its Gamified “Upgrade” Wine Service

Underground Cellar, which aims to entice wine buyers with the promise of random upgraded bottles of wine, announced today that it has raised a $12.5 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Accomplice, with participation from Golden Ventures and Bling Capital.

There are plenty of players in the online wine space such as Vivino and Winc that recommend and sell wine, but Underground Cellar’s hook is its gamification of the wine-buying process. Rather than discounting wines, it offers customers the chance for free upgrades. For example, someone might purchase three $20 bottles of wine through Underground Cellars. However, after purchase, Underground Cellar upgrades one of those bottles to a randomly selected, more expensive wine. So the customer could receive a bottle worth $50, $200 or much more.

In addition to its upgrade program, Underground Cellar also offers customers the ability to store up to 500 bottles of wine in the company’s temperature- and humidity-controlled facility in Napa Valley. This “Cloud Cellar” holds the purchased wine, and when customers are ready, they select bottles from their collection and Underground Cellar ships them off for delivery.

Underground Cellar’s funding could be coming at just the right time. Wine Spectator wrote back in December of 2020 that the U.S. wine market grew just 0.1 percent last year, with 328.9 million cases sold. However, Rob McMillan, executive vice president of Silicon Valley Bank’s wine division, told Wine-Searcher in April of this year to expect a wine boom over the next year as the pandemic recedes. Wine-heavy events like weddings, which were put on hold last year, will be back and there will be pent-up demand to celebrate.

With its new funding, Underground Cellar says that it will enhance its gamified platform, deepen relationships with wineries and triple the size of its team by the end of the year.


Cooler Screens Expanding its Dynamic Screens to Stores Nationally

Cooler Screens, the company that turns the doors of grocery coolers and freezers into full-motion display screens, is expanding outside of Chicago to more stores across the U.S. AdWeek first reported the news last week, but since we are halfway through the year, the story seemed like a good opportunity to check in on one of my food tech predictions for 2021.

Back in December of 2020 I predicted that grocery and convenience stores would become more like Vegas, thanks to big, bright screens from companies like Cooler Screens and AWM Smart Shelf. Cooler Screens raised $80 million from the likes of Verizon Ventures and Microsoft in October of 2020 and at that time had its technology up and running in 50 Walgreens stores across the Chicago area.

Cooler Screens had planned on rolling out its screens to 1,400 Walgreens this year, but as the company told AdWeek, those expansion plans were delayed because of pandemic-related production issues. Having said that, the company has already expanded its presence to 100 stores across a number of different U.S. cities. In addition to Walmart, Cooler Screens has also signed up CVS and Kroger as customers. With the expansions, Cooler Screens anticipates 50 million shoppers will engage with its screens by early August.

The appeal of technology like Cooler Screens and AWM Smart Shelf is pretty straightforward. These screens and displays turn otherwise dead real estate into dynamic ad spaces. Why have a plain ole see through glass cooler door when you could display what’s inside on a screen alongside sales promotions, upselling on complementary items (get a pizza with that soda!), and full-motion ads that can generate additional revenue?

While 50 million shoppers is a lot of eyeballs, given Cooler Screens’ delay, I don’t think our grocery and drug stores will become the flashing, Vegas-like showrooms as I had predicted. I still believe this technology will continue to proliferate, but I might have to bump my prediction timeline to 2022.

Print a Drink 3D Prints Designs Inside a Cocktail, Develops Smaller Machine for Corporations

We’ve seen 3D printers create cake decorations, personalized vitamins, and even cultured beef. And now, thanks to Print a Drink’s robot, we’ve seen custom designs printed inside a cocktail. You might think such beverage witchcraft would be impossible. I mean, how could a design be suspended and hold its shape in anything other than a jello shot? Turns out it just takes the right drink, the right droplet and the precision of a robotic arm.

Based in Austria, Print a Drink has actually been around for three years. It was started by Benjamin Greimel as a university research project. Since that time, Print a Drink has created two working robots (one in the U.S. and one in Europe) that up until the pandemic would travel to special events and conferences printing out custom designs inside drinks at parties and such.

So how does it work? Print a Drink uses a robotic arm with a custom-made printer head attached to it. The robot uses a glass needle to inject a food-grade, oil-based liquid inside a drink. The drink itself needs to be less than 40 percent alcohol and can’t be a straight shot of something like vodka or whiskey because the injected beads won’t hold and will float to the surface. Greimel explained to me via video chat this week that the combination of liquid density, temperature and robotic movement allow the designs to last for roughly 10 minutes before dissipating.

Coordinating all those puzzle pieces is complicated to say the least. In addition to setting up the robot at an event and operating it, there are specific requirements around drinks that can be used, and designs need to be uploaded into the robot. Plus, there are safety concerns because the robotic arm does move about pretty quickly. Because of all those reasons, Print a Drink’s business has been around renting the robot ($2,500 – $5,000, depending on the event) and not selling them outright. In addition to all of the complications above, staff would need to be trained properly on how to use the machine, and chances are good that the people operating the devices are not roboticists who can troubleshoot.

To make Print a Drink more accessible, Greimel and his partner (the only two people at the company) have developed a smaller, self-contained version of the robot that is roughly the size of a countertop coffee machine. But don’t expect a consumer version for your next backyard soirée. This smaller version is still complicated, and still requires training, so the company is targeting large corporations like Disney or a hotel chain like Hilton where it could be installed and used for special events or promotions. Greimel said the first prototype of this smaller Print a Drink will be available in the next week.

Though more specialized, Print a Drink is part of a bigger automation movement happening with booze right now. In addition to robot-powered bars like Glacierfire popping up, we’re also seeing automated drink dispensing vending machines from Rotender and Celia start to hit the market. It’s not hard to see all of these types of robots working in tandem, however, with a robo-bartender pumping out standard cocktails, while Print a Drink prints up specialty drinks customized for special occasions. We’ll drink to that.

Starship Robots Delivering Costa Coffee in the U.K.

Those feeling a little sluggish in the U.K. town of Milton Keynes don’t even need to leave their house to get their morning latte. MKFM reports that Starship robots are now making deliveries of drinks and snacks from the Oakgrove and Sunset Walk Costa Coffee stores in Central Milton Keynes.

Starship has been operating in Milton Keynes for years, delivering things such as groceries and packages. Users interested in getting their Costa Coffee delivered by robot need to download the Starship app to place their order. Deliveries are made within the hour, which seems like a long time in our increasingly on-demand world. Starship’s robots only travel at a pedestrian-friendly pace of 4 mph, which seems like it would cool down coffee before it reaches the customer. But early reports suggest the coffees arrive piping hot.

Though this delivery is limited in scope, the new service is worth highlighting for a couple of reasons. First is the partner, Costa Coffee. We don’t know as of yet if this is an official partnership between the two companies, but this is another robot-related move for the Costa Coffee chain. Last year Costa bought U.S.-based robot barista company, Briggo and re-branded the latter’s automated coffee kiosks as Costa Coffee BaristaBots. This pilot could be a prelude to more widespread robot deliveries for Costa and, looking further out, a first step towards connecting various robot puzzle pieces. Similar to the Kiwibot/Piestro relationship, it’s not hard to envision a BaristaBot one day placing a hot drink inside a Starship robot for a fully automated coffee experience.

The news also fits into a larger pattern of increased activity we’ve seen around delivery robots all year. Here in the U.S. Refraction AI raised funding, while Tortoise started grocery delivery pilots with Safeway and Kiwibot unveiled version 4.0 of its delivery robots. Around the world, more delivery robot services are popping up, from Bizero in Turkey to Woowa Brothers in South Korea to Tiny Mile in Canada. Spurred on by the pandemic and the desire for contactless delivery, the robots are coming to our city sidewalks and streets.

We’ll be discussing issues around this global delivery robot rollout at our upcoming ArticulATE food robotics and automation virtual conference on May 18. We’ll have executives from robot startups like Refraction AI, Tortoise and Ottonomy talking technology as well as policymakers like the Mayor of West Hollywood, Los Angeles talking about what local regulators require before robots can hit public streets. Get a glimpse of our robot future and be a part of the conversation, get your ArticulATE ticket today!

BEERMKR Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign, Will Appear on “Shark Tank” Tonight

If I wasn’t such a professional, impartial journalist, I might shed a small tear of joy for BEERMKR. I’ve been writing about the company since 2018 when it launched on Kickstarter, and continued to follow them through trade shows, COVID-related production delays, and finally with a full product review last fall. And now the company has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign, but will also be pitching to the investors on Shark Tank tonight. Li’l BEERMKR is all grown up.

Unlike traditional home brewing, BEERMKR doesn’t require the mess and complications of buckets and bottles and hoses. Instead, it’s a connected, all-in-one countertop beer fermenting, brewing and dispensing system. The accompanying mobile app tells you when to add your ingredients, and the BEERMKR controls all the agitation, temperature control and resting. I had never brewed beer before in my life and was able to make a delicious stout on my very first try, which prompted me to add BEERMKR to our Spoon Holiday Gift Guide.

We obviously don’t know yet if the Sharks will bite upon hearing BEERMKR’s pitch, but the company is hoping everyday investors will. BEERMKR is looking to raise roughly $1 million through equity crowdfunding on the StartEngine platform, and as of this writing has already raised more than $122,000 in its first day. BEERMKR has a good track record when it comes to crowdfunding, having raised nearly $400,000 on Kickstarter to put the BEERMKR into production. (And unlike other beer-related crowdfunded hardware, it actually made it to market.)

Equity crowdfunding is becoming quite a trend in the food tech world. Companies like Piestro, Future Acres, Blendid and GoSun have all conducted equity crowdfunding campaigns. Raising capital from traditional VCs comes with the pressure to scale and deliver a return on the VC’s investment in a relatively timely manner. Startups that choose that equity crowdfunding route mitigate that scaling and time pressure. However, using equity crowdfunding also means companies don’t necessarily get access to the institutional knowledge and connections that could help them run their businesses more efficiently.

I reached out to BEERMKR CEO Aaron Walls this morning to ask him why they opted for equity crowdfunding, and this is what he emailed back:

We’ve done traditional financings and we’ve done kickstarters, but this is our first equity crowdfund. As we began investigating, it became evident that our company was uniquely positioned to execute an equity crowdfunding campaign. First, we have a large install base of happy customers, many of whom have reached out prior to this campaign and asked if they could invest in our company. Second, with as many kickstarters as we’ve done, we have the internal processes in place to work through the crowdfunding dynamics. Lastly, our category of alcoholic beverages does very well with crowdfunding. It’s a category that you don’t need an advanced degree to fully understand the full potential. From our standpoint we felt it was worth the effort to see how well it performs. The worst case scenario? We can always go back to raising capital the old fashioned way, but given the first day success, it looks like we won’t have to!

Walls also said that BEERMKR is only raising $1 million because that is a limit set by the SEC based on the makeup of the company.

I didn’t ask him whether Mark Cuban is now an investor, but I’ll be watching Shark Tank tonight and maybe there there will be one little happy tear for Walls and his team.

Food Tech News: Compostable Milk Packaging, Vegan Fast Food Goes Public

Happy weekend, and welcome to the Food Tech News round-up this week. This week we have news on JOI’s new compostable packaging, Sunbasket’s single-serving prepared meals, and a vegan fast-food company that’s gone public.

If you haven’t heard, The Spoon is on Clubhouse! “Food Tech Live” is the name of the room, and every Friday The Spoon team discusses news in food tech.

JOI launches zero waste oat milk

JOI produces nut paste concentrates that can be blended at home to make fresh plant-based milk, and the company just released a new product, an oat powder concentrate in fully compostable packaging. The powder contains only one ingredient, oats, and the 12 oz container produces a gallon of oat milk when blended with water. Once used, the packaging can be composted at home or at a commercial composting center. Many other plant-based milk packagings cannot be recycled, nor composted, According to the company, this is the first fully compostable plant-based milk product on the market.

Sunbasket launches single-serving prepared meals

Sunbasket, a subscription-based meal delivery service, just released single portion sizes of its Fresh & Ready prepared meals. The Fresh & Ready meals do not require any prep like the company’s meal kits, and can be heated up in a microwave or oven within a few minutes. The prepared meals are delivered fresh, not frozen, and start at $8.99. Starting April 25th, the single portion meals will be available for purchase on the company’s website. Throughout 2021, 65+ new meals will be released.

The first vegan fast-food company to go public

Globally Locally, a vegan fast-food chain based in Canada, began publicly trading TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol GBLY yesterday, April 16th. Rather than IPO, the company entered an agreement with Black Lion Capital Corp to consolidate as Globally Local‎ Technologies Inc. Globally Locally manufactures and distributes its own plant-based protein and dairy alternatives, and can therefore offer prices comparable to other fast-food chains at its restaurants. Menu items include traditional fast-food fare made vegan, including burgers, wings, fries, shakes, and breakfast sandwiches. The eight restaurant locations primarily operate as smart kitchens offering pick-up and delivery. Within the next 12 months, the company aims to open at least 20 locations across North America. A few other vegan companies trade on the Canadian stock exchange, including The Very Good Food Company, Eat Beyond, and Modern Meat.

Third Aurora to Bring Augmented Reality to Beer Labels

I’m not ashamed to admit that sometimes I solely pick out a can of beer based on the label artwork. Sometimes there isn’t enough information listed on the can to make an educated decision, so I let bright and colorful artwork catch my eye. Third Aurora, a tech company focused on augmented reality (AR) and machine learning, is gearing up to launch its platform for augmented reality beer labels so beer cans do provide more information. The platform is in the form of a mobile app called Beerscans, which will be made available for users in the upcoming months.

Matt Hallberg, one of the cofounders of Third Aurora, said that many breweries have interesting stories and are doing things behind the scenes, like focusing on sustainability, but the consumer isn’t able to get the essence of the brewery from just one can. A beer can only has space for a few brief sentences and consumers typically have to go on the brewery’s website to learn more.

Augmented Reality Packaging - Beverage Packaging Demonstration - Third Aurora

The Beerscans mobile app uses the phone’s camera, augmented reality and computer vision to scan a beer can, and the app recognizes the circumference of the can and the label. An augmented reality label then pops up and hovers over the can. The augmented reality label will share the story behind the brewery and beer, tasting notes of the beer, and other information that a brewery may want to share. Breweries interested in being a part of the Beerscans app must sign up through the Beerscans website and upload desired information through the website’s portal.

Previously, Third Aurora launched Winerytale, an app that is the same concept as Beerscans, except for wine bottles. Living Labels is another company that has partnered with a handful of wineries to provide AR labels including the popular 19 Crimes winery. Drink AR launched in 2020, and provides AR labels for wineries, breweries, and distilleries.

Third Aurora aims on launching Beerscans in about three months, and it will be available for free on both iOS and Android. Third Aurora is in the process of signing up breweries and wants to have at least 100 breweries signed up prior to the launch.

Starbucks Trialing a ‘Borrow a Cup’ Program in Seattle

Starbucks announced this week that it is currently trialing a reusable cup program at five Seattle, Washington stores for a period of two months. Dubbed the “Borrow a Cup” program, the trial is a continuation of an earlier single-store pilot that took place this past fall and winter in Seattle.

To participate, customers can order a beverage in a reusable cup for both in-person and mobile orders at participating stores. There is a $1 deposit. Once a customer is done with their drink, they can return the cup to participating stores, all of which will have return kiosks where customers can drop the empty cup. Upon returning the cup, customers also scan their Starbucks app to receive 10 bonus points on their Rewards account. (They get their deposit back, too.)

To clean the cups, Starbucks has partnered with a company called GO Box, which collects cups daily for cleaning and sanitizing, then returns them to circulation within 48 hours. 

Starbucks has also partnered with Ridwell, which offers a home pickup service for hard-to-recycle items, in case a customer can’t actually get to a store to return their cup. Users will get a Ridwell bin in which they can place their reusable cups for pickup at the front door. Users must purchase a Ridwell membership to join the pilot. Pricing varies from $10 to $14 depending on the type of subscription.

Starbucks noted today that a major hurdle on the path towards more widespread use of reusables is convenience. “The challenge is how to make choosing reusables as convenient as you expect from Starbucks – no extra steps – especially with 80% of Starbucks beverages being enjoyed on the go,” the company said in a statement today.

It’s all too possible that the extra steps of having to return a cup to the store or set up service with Ridwell may prove too involved for some consumers. Given that, we can assume the “Borrow a Cup” program is just one small step on Starbucks’ journey towards a more earth-friendly coffee business, particularly where cups are concerned. 

Worldwide, we throw out about 264 billion paper cups per year. Because of their plastic lining, these cups are difficult to recycle and therefore wind up in the landfill more often than not. In the U.S., reusable programs aren’t yet widespread, though that is slowly changing. Fellow QSRs Burger King and McDonald’s have both partnered with LOOP, the circular packaging service from TerraCycle, to trial reusable containers, including cups.

Both Starbucks and McDonald’s worked with Closed Loop Partners’ NextGen Consortium, which aims to reduce packaging waste, prior to the pandemic. Starbucks also had a “bring your own” reusables program in which customers could bring their own cups to Starbucks cafes and receive a small discount in return. That program was suspended because of COVID-19, and has not yet been reinstated at any Starbucks cafe.