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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Will Blue Apron’s New Meal Prep Kits Help The Company Get Out of Its Rut?

Beleaguered meal kit company Blue Apron is making yet another attempt to boost declining sales with a new service: meal prep kits.

The new kits come with everything you need to prepare four meals for two people (so eight meals in total). It takes 1.5 to 2 hours to make the components of all the meals, which are meant to be packed away into containers to be reheated or eaten chilled throughout the week.

Blue Apron has four prep kit options: Signature, Carb Conscious, Pescetarian and Multi-Cooker. They shake out to around $72 per box, or $8.99 per serving. The kits don’t come with containers, and the website notes that you’ll need 16 storage vessels to hold your food and sauces (eight large, eight small).

The prep kits are already available to people in select states on the East Coast with a planned delivery date for February 24. Blue Apron will expand their availability nationwide later this year.

Blue Apron’s meal prep kits

You have to give Blue Apron kudos — it’s experimented tirelessly to come up with ways to revitalize its struggling business. So far the company has teamed up with Beyond Meat and Weight Watchers, and last year it even started offering same-day delivery. So far, none of these have done too much to jump start sales for Blue Apron, which reported a 35 percent slump in Q3 of 2019.

So could these meal prep kits finally be a win for the company? I actually think it has a better chance than, say, incorporating Beyond Meat into their menus. Meal prepping is a growing trend and it’s definitely more convenient to get all the ingredients to make four different meals send right to your door.

But even with the prep kits, Blue Apron will still face two big issues: inconvenience and price. Setting aside two full hours to prep four days’ worth of meals may be a smart time investment, but it’s still kind of a long time — especially for those who aren’t very cooking-savvy. And what if you end up going out for lunch or don’t want to reheat that salmon you cooked four days ago? The prepped meals will also cost around $8 per serving, which is not markedly less than grabbing a sandwich or deli salad.

Long story short, while the meal prep kits are an interesting bid, I don’t think they’re enough to entice new consumers to try Blue Apron — or keep them coming back. Then again, 93 million Americans are meal kit curious, so there’s definitely a market out there. If they want to tap into those potential customers, I think Blue Apron would be better off following in the footsteps of other meal kit companies and selling its kits (meal prep or otherwise) in retail, instead.

Customize Q&A: Mintel’s Global Food Analyst on the Potential and Pitfalls of Personalized Food

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some sort of all-knowing oracle that would give insight into current food trends and how they’ll play out? That’s sort of what Mintel‘s Global Food Analyst Melanie Bartelme does.

That’s why we’re so amped to have Bartelme joining us at Customize, our food personalization summit coming up next month in New York City. She’ll share a birds-eye view of the impact of personalization throughout the world of food — and predict how the trend will continue to shape the way we eat in the future.

In short, you’ll want to hear her in person at Customize (grab your tickets here before they run out!). Since February 27th can’t come soon enough, here’s a Q&A to give you sneak peek at what Bartelme will be giving insight on next month in the Big Apple:

Tell us a bit about what Mintel does in the food and bev space. 
Mintel provides insight into the food and beverage industry, helping our clients understand what consumers want, and why. We track trends and innovation in products, technology and consumer demands to ensure companies can deliver what will resonate with today’s shoppers.

Give us a snapshot into the growth of the food personalization trend. Why do you think it’s becoming so popular right now?
Mintel has been tracking personalization in food for some time now. We identified its potential in our 2016 trend [report] Diet by DNA, and it’s only been evolving since then.

Technological advances are enabling consumers to learn more about themselves than ever before, from wearables like Fitbits to DNA tests that give consumers an unprecedented look at their individual makeup. There’s a lot of confusion from consumers on what is healthy and how much of any one nutrient they need, and this specific information is appealing because it puts that control in consumers’ hands. 

What’s the biggest challenge facing companies trying to tap into consumer demand for personalization?
The flip side to the availability of this kind of individual information will be targeting those consumers. Right now, we can segment consumers by their “tribes,” such as vegan or paleo, but what will happen when each person understands they need slightly different things?

Plus, even if companies can target those consumers, consumers are grappling with privacy concerns in sharing data, so companies will be challenged to ensure that the benefits they can offer consumers in personalization outweigh the fears consumers have about sharing that data.

This is, though, also an opportunity for companies: while the prices of DNA kits are coming down, and further innovation will make these more accessible, not everyone is going to be able to truly eat this way. Nor will they want to: food is more than meeting your nutritional goals, and flavor and enjoyment are a huge advantage that food and beverage companies can offer consumers.

What do you think personalized food or drink will look like 5 years down the road?
In five years, I think we’ll see a blending of food tech with traditional eating that will create a more savvy consumer. We’ve already seen consumers demanding more transparency and traceability from their foods, and that will not go away. Personalization technology will enable consumers to know so much more about the foods they’re consuming and make smarter decisions about what they can and cannot eat. For some consumers, this may mean a return to foods they had written off, like gluten.

While there will be a group of consumers who live and breathe by the recommendations they receive from technology, a majority of consumers will be just beginning to experiment with these tools. Food and beverage companies will be challenged to provide as much information as possible about their products to help all consumers create healthy, balanced diets, whether or not they are using their DNA to do so.

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Come see Melanie speak to the future of personalization at Customize on February 27th in NYC! Spoon readers can use code SPOON15 to get 15% off tickets here.

Food & Drink Pods Were Everywhere at CES, but Do Consumers Want Them?

If you were seeking out food tech at CES last week (and believe me, we were), you might have noticed an awful lot of one thing: pods. I was surprised by how many companies I saw demo-ing pod-based food or beverage system. Here are just a few:

Fresco’s olive oil press

Fresco
Tucked into the Italy pavilion at Eureka Park I stumbled across Fresco, the maker of a “Keurig of Olive Oil.” Insert frozen pods of olive oil into the EVA device (which is about the size of a French Press), press a button, and in five minutes you can collect your cold-pressed olive oil. You can select different varietals of olive oil and even choose infused flavors, like chili or basil.

When I saw this I instantly flashed back to the Juicero debacle — do you really need a device to thaw pods of frozen olive oil? According to the reps at the booth, though, you kind of do. The EVA heats olive oil to its ideal temperature, between 20 to 25 °C (77 °F), where you can taste all of its flavors.

The machine costs €79 ($87) and each frozen pod is around €1 ($1.11). For now only Italians can order Fresco, but the company is trying to move into the U.S. While Italian cucinares (cooks) might shell out extra euros to get optimally extracted olive oil, I’m not sure American home cooks will have the same level of devotion. Especially when they could just buy fancy olive oil from their local co-op or farmers market.

CES 2020: N2FALLS' portable nitro coffee

N2FALLS
You’ve probably heard of (or tasted) coffee pods, but nitro cold brew is a new entrant to the pod-based caffeine space. Korean company N2FALLS makes small cylindrical pods which, when inserted into the partner drink lid over a glass of water, expels compressed nitrogen-infused coffee concentrate. Voila — a nitro cold brew. Or if you do it over milk, a nitro latté! The company also makes pods for tea, juice and even booze-free wine.

Coffee prices vary by quantity but average to about $3 per capsule. For now N2FALLS is only available in Korea, but the company is in the midst of planning a U.S. expansion. Initially they’ll sell their pods in brick & mortar shops (the rep I spoke to named Amazon Go as a target) before selling online.

Tigoût
Argentinian startup Tigoût is a pod-based machine that bakes up wee single-serve desserts (think: Belgian chocolate cake or a white chocolate blondie). Insert a pre-prepped frozen pod (or two) into the machine, press start, and in a couple of minutes you’ll have a piping-hot sweet treat. Tigoût has a connected app so you can monitor your bake remotely and reorder capsules as needed.

The device itself costs $400 and each pod is $1.50. Right now there are 12 options, including six savory offerings. Tigoût’s founder and CEO Rodrigo Córdoba, who showed me the machine on the CES show floor, plans to launch the company officially in December of this year.

CES 2020: A Demo of Drinkworks, the Pod-based Cocktail Robot

Drinkworks + Bartesian
Adventurous CES goers could sample the hard stuff thanks to a few pod-based machines. Drinkworks and Bartesian are both cocktail-mixing robots which rely on flavor capsules to make classic drinks.

Drinkworks, which is the result of a joint venture between Keurig Dr. Pepper and Anheuser-Busch, is a countertop appliance which turns pods into cocktails, ciders, and even beers. Just pop a capsule — which already contains alcohol — into the machine, press a button, and out comes your drink of choice. You can see it make me a Moscow Mule at CES in the video above (which, yes, I drank at 10am cause Vegas). Drinkworks is available in select states for $299 and the pods cost around $3.99 each, depending on the drink.

Like Drinkworks, Bartesian is also a pod-based cocktail robot. It uses capsules filled with juice, bitters and other mixers. However, unlike Drinkworks, however, Bartesian users have to provide the spirits themselves — which allows for more customization but also adds an extra step (and expense) to the process. Bartesian devices are currently available at retailers around the country (and online) for $349.99.

Pod people?
Clearly food & bev companies have seen the success of Keurig and Nespresso and decided that pods = the future. And there’s some validity to that. Pods offer near-instant gratification (assuming you remember to reorder them) and a high level of consistency. They also give consumers the option to switch things up according to their mood — if you want a hazelnut espresso one day and a vanilla one the next, no problemo — and provide hardware makers recurring revenues.

But while pods do allow some level of wiggle room, their very nature means that they still end up trapping consumers. You may be able to choose the flavor of your cold brew/dessert/cocktail pod, but you’re reliant on the pod itself to get the finished product — and that means you’re beholden to a specific appliance manufacturer. Consumers can chafe against being locked into food ecosystems. Pods also don’t give you wiggle room to tweak a recipe — for example, if you like a slightly less boozy cocktail or a sweeter cold brew.

There’s also the negative environmental aspect to consider. While some pods are technically recyclable, most end up in landfills. That could become a bigger issue as consumers begin to prioritize sustainability more and more.

Despite their obvious convenience, will the cost of pods — both literal and environmental — keep consumers away? Clearly a bunch of companies at CES don’t think so. But I’m not so sure that the pod-volution of food and drink will take off — especially for more niche products, like olive oil.

Instead, I think we’ll see a growth of smart devices like the Picobrew, which can work with the company’s Picopacks or let consumers add their own ingredients. Even Keurig is getting on-board. You can buy the company’s proprietary pods, but many machines also let you buy reusable pods and add your own coffee for more of a customizable and waste-free twist. The DIY aspect still keeps consumers within the hardware device’s ecosystem, but allows them more flexibility (and sustainability). That’s the type of tech I’d like to see more of at CES 2021.

DishDivvy Partners with DoorDash to Deliver Home-Cooked Meals

Today DishDivvy, an online marketplace for home-cooked meals, officially announced its integration with DoorDash to facilitate food deliveries. Previously, hungry folks who had purchased a meal from a home cook over DishDivvy’s platform had to go and pick up their homemade lasagna/spanikopita/pad thai themselves. Now they have the option to pay a mileage-based delivery fee to have it delivered directly to their door.

DishDivvy may have just officially announced the news, but CEO Ani Torosyan wrote to me today that the startup had been making deliveries with DoorDash since 2019. “We held off on announcing because we wanted to test the integration and really understand delivery when it comes to home kitchen operations,” she wrote. Since then she said that they have iterated on their integration, but wouldn’t reveal exact details.

The official news comes just a couple weeks after DishDivvy announced it would be expanding from its home state of California into Utah. Torosyan said that they hadn’t tested DoorDash delivery in all of Utah yet, but that as of now there is some coverage in the state. She added that third-party delivery of home-cooked food is completely legal in both California and Utah.

DoorDash’s costs for the home-cooked food are a bit pricey: $6 for delivery within a 3-mile radius. That might seem excessive when you could just zip over and pick it up for free. However, adding the delivery option allows DoorDash to reach a wider audience: those extremely strapped for time, people without access to a car, anyone who is mobility-challenged, or doesn’t want to leave the house, etc. etc.

It may seem like a relatively small step, but integrating with delivery shows that DishDivvy is serious about making the cottage food marketplace a legitimate food option available to all — not just a niche audience. Well, at least in those states that allow the sale of home-cooked food.

DishDivvy to Expand Homemade Food Marketplace to Utah

Talented cooking hobbyists of Utah, you’ve got a new potential side hustle. Yesterday DishDivvy, a marketplace which connects home cooks with hungry neighbors, announced that it had begun operations across Utah.

DishDivvy is a mobile app that lets preapproved home cooks sell food to local consumers. The startup helps home cooks get certified and onboarded onto their platform. They also handle all ordering and payment internally, and can even help arrange for home delivery. Utah will be the second territory for Glendale, CA-based DishDivvy, the first being its home state of California.

DishDivvy wasn’t the first company to try and create a cottage food marketplace. Josephine was an early entrant in the food sharing economy, similarly connecting home cooks with hungry consumers. Due to regulatory issues they were forced to suspend operations at the end of 2017. However, with the passage of California law AB-626 (which was pushed forward by Josephine’s team), DishDivvy was able to commence operations in California at the end of 2018.

Utah has just passed a similar law with H.B. 181, The Home Consumption and Homemade Food Act. Under the law, home cooks in Utah are “exempt from any state, county, or city licensing, permitting, certification, inspection, packaging, and labeling requirements,” provided they comply with certain requirements set in the law. Therefore Utah residents, like Californians, are now able to sell homemade food directly from their home — as long as they have the proper permits to do so and follow some basic rules (food must be for home consumption, sold directly to consumer, etc).

We at the Spoon have been intrigued by the idea of a home cook marketplace for awhile. It’s an interesting way to give people a supplementary revenue source, keep money within a community, and connect neighbors, all while cutting down on food waste. That’s why we named DishDivvy one of our FoodTech 25 for 2019.

Last June, when Mike Wolf wrote about AB 626, he noted that “California often leads the country when it comes to forward-leaning legislation” and that the new law “could open the door for nationwide legalization and give a framework for home food entrepreneurs.” It seems like California has indeed opened that door for Utah — and I’m guessing we’ll see some more states pass laws to welcome cottage food industry in 2020.

Enrichables Powdered Protein and Kale Packets Let You Make Any Meal “Healthier”

If I had my druthers, I would eat mac & cheese for dinner several times a week. However, since I’m adult and know that’s not exactly a healthy dietary choice, I usually opt for a more balanced meal.

But what if I could health-ify my mac & cheese? That’s the promise that offered by Pampered Chef, a kitchen equipment and dry goods company owned by Berkshire Hathaway, with its new Enrichables line. Enrichables are packets of nutrient-dense powders meat to be added to your normal meals, from smoothies to soups to dips, to make them healthier.

The line’s first two flavors, Pea Protein and Kale & Fiber, launched in October of this year. According to Sandy Wolner, Pampered Chef’s in-house food and trend innovator, the company decided to start with these two products because they’re universally appealing. “Right now, everyone is trying to get more protein into their diet,” she told me over the phone last week. “And everyone knows that kale is a very nutritious vegetable.” 

The pea protein packet contains 10 g of pea protein, and the Kale & Fiber pack has 2 cups of kale, which contains vitamins A, C, and K, as well as 8 grams of chicory root fiber. And that’s it. I like that the packets are made of super-simple, transparent ingredients, unlike lots of other meal supplements and protein powders. The Enrichables packets are also vegan and free from soy, gluten, and nuts.

Left: Enrichables Pea Protein. Right: Enrichables Kale & Fiber. (Photo: Catherine Lamb)

Pampered Chef sent me some Enrichables so I could try them for myself. The first thing I noticed after opening up the box was the size of the packets themselves. I imagined they would be a little bigger than a sugar packet, maybe the size of a tea bag. However, the Enrichables packs are about 5-inches by 4-inches — significantly larger than I’d expected. In fact, they were a little too large to fit into my pocket or slip into my outer backpack pocket, which made keeping them with me on-the-go slightly inconvenient.

Reading the back of the packets, I realized that Enrichables aren’t single-serve. Each one is meant to be incorporated into a recipe that feeds four. That might work well if you’re a parent trying to sneak some fiber and protein into your family dinner, but as someone who mainly cooks just for herself, it was slighly awkward to keep these partially-used packets around my kitchen or office kitchen.

So how did it taste? On the whole, not bad. In fact, both powders chiefly tasted like nothing — and that’s a good thing.

I tried them stirred into a plain lentil soup — one-fourth of a packet in each serving. The Kale & Fiber pack turned my soup vaguely green but didn’t really affect the flavor, which was nice. Similarly the Pea Protein didn’t taste like much and didn’t have the bitterness that sometimes goes along with pea protein. However, it did thicken my soup so much that it became a paste, which was slightly unappetizing. That could be an issue if I was adding the Pea Protein powder to smoothies or other liquids.

Left: Enrichables Kale & Fiber. Right: Enrichalbes Pea Protein (Photo: Catherine Lamb)

That hiccup aside, my lunch tasted good. I’m not sure how much of a difference 2.5 grams of protein powder and a half-cup of kale, the equivalent of one-fourth of each packet, will really make in my overall health. It could’ve just been in my head, but I did finish my lunch feeling uncharacteristically virtuous and full.

Placebo or no, I think Enrichables concept is an interesting way to tap into a few food trends we’ve been seeing here at the Spoon. First, it fits into the move towards so-called “clean label” products with shorter, more transparent ingredient lists. Enrichables is also taking advantage of growing consumer demand for protein, specifically plant-based protein. Finally, Enrichables plays into the overarching trend for mealtime convenience. Want more fiber in your meal? Just sprinkle on this powder and you’re set in an instant.

As for me, I think I’ll use the rest of my Enrichables packet on some mac & cheese for dinner tonight. Hey, it’s healthy!

Report: Impossible Whopper Boosts Burger King Sales, Will Popeyes Embrace Plant-Based Meat?

Yesterday Restaurant Brands International (RBI), owner of fast-food chains Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Horton’s, announced its Q3 2019 Earnings Results.

The report showed that Burger King’s sales increased roughly 15 percent globally for the quarter. In the U.S., the launch of the Impossible Whopper drove 5% comparable sales growth, which Jose Cil, CEO of RBI, noted was the “strongest level since 2015.”

This isn’t exactly surprising. Impossible Whopper sales reportedly boosted traffic by over 18 percent to the BK in St. Louis which first tested the plant-based burger. Reports show, that the alt-meat burger is also leading to higher ticket sales and attracting more millennials and lapsed visitors (like The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht) to the fast-food giant. The RBI Earnings Results seems to indicate that this boost in traffic/ticket amount has continued as the Impossible Whopper rolled out to all Burger Kings nationwide.

Not all was rosy in the report, though. Tim Horton’s had what Cil called “a challenging quarter,” reporting only 0.1 percent growth compared to 2.8 percent growth in the same quarter a year earlier. This comes at the same time that the Canadian fast-food chain nixed Beyond Meat products from its menu, except in Ontario and British Columbia, just months after adding the plant-based meat to 4,000 of its restaurants.

These two facts might have nothing to do with each other. However, the report shows a rapid downturn for Tim Horton’s after the chain had a surprisingly strong Q2, in which its success was attributed, at least in part, to its adoption of Beyond Meat patties. Tim Horton’s rolled out the plant-based meat nationwide in July (that is, during Q3), so maybe consumers across Canada didn’t flock to the Beyond Meat offerings in the same way they did in the initial test markets?

Interestingly, Popeyes had one of its best quarters in nearly two decades, thanks to the viral popularity of its chicken sandwich. Next up, RBI might well continue its history of experimenting with alternative protein and launch a plant-based chicken sandwich. But it better hurry if it doesn’t want KFC or Chick-fil-A to beat it to the punch.

ARK Reusables Launches Kickstarter to Replace All The Food Takeout Containers in Your Life

I’m a cheapskate and hate food waste, so whenever I can’t finish my food at a restaurant — no matter how little is left — I ask to get it boxed up to take home. The next day I usually end up eating the rest of it for lunch and throwing away the container it came in.

I’m not the only one. Forty percent of trashed plastic is single-use packaging like baggies, straws, and, of course, takeaway food boxes. The vast majority of it ends up in landfills or clogging up the oceans.

ARK Reusables’ founding team saw our rampant use of single-use takeout and delivery containers and decided to try and make a better alternative. The startup, which is part of Dutch company Ozarka but operates out of Seattle, makes reusable silicone containers in a variety of sizes designed specifically to be used by consumers to hold their restaurant takeaway meals. The company launched a Kickstarter campaign yesterday with a $40,000 goal.

ARK has a few value adds that distinguish it from regular tupperware: the containers squish to pack flat, so they can easily fit in consumers’ bags, and also have spill-proof lids. Unlike more flimsy containers, they can go in the microwave, dishwasher, and even the oven. The company is working to develop a way to fully recycle the silicone containers.

The company plans to initially sell directly to consumers, who can use their ARK containers to take away food from salad bars, fast-casual restaurants and more. Down the road, ARK wants to branch into the B2B realm and sell directly to restaurants, replacing their current to-go containers.

For now, Early Bird Kickstarter prices begin at $22 for a single 750-ml reusable container with an option to add on a container carrying case and set of stainless steel cutlery for an additional fee. That’s not cheap, especially if you’re prone to losing your reusable containers (guilty). Which means that, at least initially, ARK will have to rely on more eco-conscious consumers willing pay more for the environmentally friendly option.

ARK Reusable containers also have a few touches that make them specifically geared towards takeaway restaurant food. Their sizes match the standard serving sizes at most restaurants, and they even come marked with fill volumes so servers at places like Chipotle or Sweetgreen can know exactly how much food they’re dishing out when consumers bring in their ARK container.

ARK isn’t the only one trying to cut down on our rampant use of single-use plastic food containers. Zume Inc. recently acquired an eco-friendly packaging system that will be used by Zume Pizza and other restaurants the company works with. Other retailers and food companies are also targeting the consumer, exploring reusable aluminum and glass containers to hold their food products. However, ARK’s products are more versatile, designed to be used for on-the-go meals at salad bars and fancy restaurants alike.

ARK’S containers are set to ship in May of 2020. As with any Kickstarter venture, it’s good to approach it with a healthy amount of skepticism about whether you’ll see the product in the time promised — if at all. However, ARK Reusables’ parent company, Ozarka, already successfully manufactures food-safe reusable containers, so it seems likely ARK will follow through on its production plans.

A bigger issue could be getting restaurants to accept the containers themselves. California recently passed legislation that lets restaurants more easily accept consumers’ reusable containers. However, the law hasn’t spread to other states yet, so ARK’s customers could potentially run into issues if restaurants refuse to accept the silicone containers for health code reasons, or just because they’re not sure how to use them.

If the California law spreads, however, or if people just get more accustomed to the idea of diners bringing in their own containers to take home food, ARK Reusables could be a slam-drunk way to keep more plastic out of the oceans. And more food in your belly.

Shoppable Recipe and Kitchen Appliance Startup Mealthy Hits $1.07M Crowdfunding Cap

Today Austin, TX-based kitchen appliance company Mealthy raised the maximum amount allowed by the SEC for equity crowdfunding: $1.07 million. They raised the funds from 4,440 investors on crowdfunding platform Republic and reached the cap with 61 hours of the campaign remaining.

Founded in 2017, Mealthy is trying to provide a full-stack solution to making cooking simpler. It sells kitchen appliances, such as a Mealthy Multipot electric pressure cooker and Mealthy Crisplid, a standalone lid which turns a variety of pressure cookers into air fryers. The company also has an online tool, available via the Mealthy app or mealthy.com, to help users select Mealthy-created recipes, plan their meal, and shop for ingredients through InstaCart or Amazon Fresh. It also includes step-by-step videos to guide users through the cooking process.

Basically, Mealthy is a shoppable recipe platform that also sells kitchen appliances. It’s not exactly offering anything revolutionary. There are more shoppable recipe sites than you can shake a stick at: Myxx, Whisk, and Fexy Media, just to name a few.

Nonetheless, Mealthy’s fundraise was big enough to make us take note, especially considering the company started out with a crowdfunding target of $25,000.

Mealthy’s expectations-busting fundraise emphasizes that consumer desire for convenience in the kitchen isn’t going anywhere. It’s the same demand that skyrocketed the InstantPot to viral fame — and the InstantPot consumer seems to be exactly who Mealthy is targeting.

Mealthy’s flagship product, the multi-pot, is slightly more expensive than the InstantPot (Mealthy costs $99.95 for a 6-quart pot, whereas InstantPot is roughly $75). However, language on the company’s crowdfunding site indicates that Mealthy’s hook is that it’s easier to use than the InstantPot, and also offers a more robust selection of Mealthy product-compatible recipes.

According to a press release, Mealthy will be sold in over 10 countries by the end of August including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and India. The company will use its latest cash influx to develop new products and build brand awareness.

When it comes to crowdfunded hardware startups, it’s always a bit of a toss-up whether or not the company actually ends up shipping the product on time — if at all. However, Mealthy already sells and ships its Multipot on Amazon, which means it has a better chance of following through on its projected product timelines than most. Next up, they’re planning to launch a blender, a tea kettle, an air fryer, and will also enter the cookware category with a line of frying pans.

Dairy Farmers of America Brand Launches First Ever Blended Milk Product: 50% Dairy, 50% Plants

If you’re like me, you might have an entire arsenal of milks — plant-based and otherwise — in your fridge.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Nearly 50 percent of consumers buy both plant-based dairy and old-fashioned cow juice. To answer that demand, last week, Minnesota-based Live Real Farms debuted a product meant to replace the entire dairy shelf. Their new Dairy + Blends are 50 percent dairy milk, 50 percent almond or oat milk.

“This is the first-ever milk blend,” Rachel Kylo, Live Real Farms’ SVP of Growth & Innovation, told me over the phone. They began developing the product a year ago, aiming to make something with the nutty flavor of oat or almond milk with the creamy texture and higher protein content of dairy. All of the blends are lactose-free.

Live Real Farms began testing Dairy + Blends in the Minneapolis market in late June. The blended product will roll out to more areas later on this fall through retail partner HEB, as well as certain Targets. The suggested retail price is $3.49-$4.49 for a half-gallon, which is slightly more expensive than conventional, non-organic cow milk but on par with many almond and oat alternatives.

This might be the first blended milk product, but startups and major corporations alike are already experimenting with other blended animal products — namely meat. The primary arguments for blended meat are a) environmental impact, and b) nutrition. By cutting the amount of meat in, say, a burger with plants, companies can make a product that has a small(er) environmental footprint and also less cholesterol, saturated fat, etc. Tyson’s forthcoming Raised + Rooted line features a beef burger blended with plant protein, and startup Better Meat Co. has developed a vegan protein intended to blend with pork.

According to Kylo, however, the main reason consumers are embracing plant-based milk is taste. They value the nutty flavors of alternative milk but also want the creaminess and nutritional profile of regular milk. That may certainly be one motivation, but it conveniently leaves out environmental or ethical arguments for getting off of moo juice.

It’s not surprising that Live Real Farms steers very clear of mentioning the environmental impacts of dairy farming. The brand is a subsidiary of Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), a milk marketing collective made up of 8,000 family farms.

Regardless of the PR schtick, the fact that a brand owned by DFA is launching a blended milk product is significant. It shows that milk alternatives are here to stay. Farmers may be trying to beat back their progress with labeling laws, but they clearly acknowledge that their popularity is not only inevitable, but is also a lucrative business opportunity. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

DFA is exploring multiple ways to bolster milk sales amid a recent decline in the U.S. dairy industry. Just a few months ago the organization launched an accelerator program to incubate young dairy-focused startups and bring new technologies to the agricultural industry.

“The idea that people are either in the dairy or plant-based alternative camp is not the case,” Kylo told me. (Vegans excluded, presumably.) With the Dairy + Blends line, Real Live Farms is betting that consumers’ recent interest in milk alternatives is not just a stopover on their way to cutting out cow milk completely.

Live Real Farms is sending me some samples of their new Dairy + Blends, so check back in soon to read my product review.

Launched on Instagram, The Cereal School Creates Low-Carb, Keto-Friendly “Sugar” Cereal

Buying breakfast cereal used to be pretty simple. Walk down the supermarket aisle and, if you’re a kid, grab the brightest colored box of the sweetest cereal you can find. If you’re an adult, well, you settle for the one with the most fiber.

But the cereal aisle is, pardon the cliché, in the midst of a disruption. Startups like The Cereal School are delivering sweet cereals for adults, without all the sugar, and, for now, without competing for your eyeballs in the cereal aisle.

The Cereal School makes low-carb, keto-friendly breakfast cereal. It comes in Cinnamon Bun or Fruity flavor, and has zero sugar, 1g total carbs, and 16g of protein per serving. By comparison, a serving of Froot Loops has 7g of sugar, 18g total carbs and 1g of protein. But you can’t find The Cereal School at the grocery store and it doesn’t come in a box; it’s only sold online through the company’s site in individual, single-serving bags.

The Cereal School was founded by Dylan Kaplan and Helen Guo, two Georgetown grads who decided the sugary cereal didn’t have to be so sugary and could be made in a way that even health-conscious adults could enjoy. The two turned their 450 sq. ft New York apartment into a lab, experimenting with different flavor profiles. They wound up settling on monkfruit as the sweetener in the cereal.

Kaplan and Guo launched The Cereal School on Instagram in August of 2018 with no marketing budget and promptly sold out of all their inventory in 72 hours. Right now the company is bootstrapped and Kaplan and Guo are its only employees, but during an interview with Kaplan last week, he told me he prefers this smaller approach. “We made a conscious decision to bootstrap as long as we can,” Kaplan said. “It’s forced us to be very scrappy and think about ways we could grow the business without some huge treasure chest.”

That scrappiness, however, can come with some bumps in the road. Kaplan said that the company’s smaller size forced them to go through some manufacturing growing pains at the beginning as they tried to keep up with demand. While Kaplan wouldn’t reveal specific sales numbers, he said those issues are now worked out and the product is no longer on backorder.

If the idea of a kids’ cereal for adults sounds familiar, then you’ve probably heard of Magic Spoon. Much like The Cereal School, Magic Spoon makes sweet cereal that is high in protein, keto-friendly, non-GMO, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, wheat-free and has nothing artificial.

During our call, I asked Kaplan about Magic Spoon and what it’s like being part of this new wave of healthy sugary cereals. “They are what I’d call a knock-off brand,” Kaplan said of Magic Spoon, though he thinks that after decades of having to choose between sugary and healthy, consumers will shift towards his company’s new kind of cereal and that there will be more than just The Cereal School and Magic Spoon offering it.

For what it’s worth, I’ve tried both and prefer Magic Spoon to The Cereal School. Magic Spoon uses Allulose for its sweetener and I found the taste and texture to be superior. What I do like about The Cereal School is the packaging. Since it comes in individual bags, there’s built-in portion control, and you could take it with you for some cereal on-the-go.

Neither option is cheap however. The Cereal School is $50 for 24 bags (528 grams total), and Magic Spoon is $40 for four boxes (792 grams total) .

Price doesn’t appear to be too much of a hindrance this early on, with both The Cereal School and Magic Spoon experiencing backorder issues. It looks like there’s a healthy market for healthier kids cereal for adults. Disruption never tasted so sweet.

GoSun Releases DIY Kit to Get People to “Tinker” with its Solar Oven

If making your own meals at the top of a mountain using only the power of the sun just seems too easy, then GoSun has a deal for you. With its new DIY kits, you can now construct your own solar oven as well.

GoSun builds fuel-free ovens that use a combination of parabolic reflectors and a cylindrical cooking chamber to cook food using only direct sunlight. The company makes a range of solar ovens from an ultra-portable version that weighs only two pounds ($139), to a higher-end solar + electric cooker ($399).

But all of those versions have actual designs with the components already built. With GoSun’s new DIY kit, which costs $119 or $149 depending on the size you buy, all you get is the chamber, a roll of reflector material and some cooking tins. Not only do you have to assemble it, but you have to come up with an oven design to base that assembly on.

That seems pricey, especially given the time it will take to design and build your own oven, but the cooking chambers are specific evacuated tube ovens, and not just something you’d grab at the Home Depot.

The idea of a DIY solar oven is in keeping with the ethos of a company that crowdfunds new products. But I reached out to GoSun Founder and CEO Patrick Sherwin to see if this was part of any larger initiative for the company. He emailed saying that this was “more of an experiment” and “our customers are frugal and DIY oriented. we are trying to serve more solutions to get more people tinkering with vacuum tube ovens.”

We’ve written before about how selling DIY kits could be a smart path for smaller startups. Companies can spend fewer resources on assembly, shipping parts is cheaper than shipping fully finished products, and customers are increasingly sophisticated about making things.

There are downsides however, as I’ve learned first hand. Companies need to make assembly instructions super clear, a lack of QA can lead to faulty parts being shipped, and any accompanying software in particular must be as bug-free as possible.

GoSun, however, is foregoing most of these issues by turning the entire process over to the customer. There are no instructions to follow and no software to install. Customers for the DIY kit will probably self-select, meaning that they’ll be fine with the lack of guidance, and will probably look forward to building their own oven and sharing designs with the GoSun community.

Of course, if GoSun’s DIY kit is too much work, people can always turn a Pringles can into a solar cooker.