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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Low Tech

I Went to Carl’s Jr. to Taste the Beyond Burger 2.0

It’s been quite the month for plant-based burgers. Last week at CES we watched (and tasted) as Impossible Foods unveiled their new ground “beef” recipe, and in the New Year Beyond Meat rolled out a new burger formula of their own right before they launched a partnership with Carl’s Jr.

In the spirit of journalism, I stopped by the Carl’s Jr. in downtown San Francisco today to sample Beyond Meat’s new “Burger 2.0.” The burger arrived in a fluffy sesame bun and was topped with cheese, mayo, ketchup, pickles, tomatoes, and a hefty slice of iceberg lettuce.

Photo: Catherine Lamb

So how did it taste? Pretty good. The burger itself was nicely pink and had the trademark tepid char evocative of fast food burgers everywhere (that’s actually a good thing). The “meat” was lightly packed and almost spongy, with the fatty juiciness that we expect from beef. However, there were some chewy ribbons throughout that almost reminded me of yuba, or tofu skin; a texture I like, but which doesn’t especially make me think I’m eating beef.

Sadly, most of the nuance of the burger got lost under the loud flavors of the pickles, condiments, and the bun, which dwarfed the patty. This isn’t necessarily bad; fast-food burgers aren’t just about the taste of the beef, they’re about the umami-bomb that comes from putting a bunch of savory, fatty ingredients — ketchup, pickles, cheese — together. In this way the Beyond Famous Star reminded me of a stereotypical fast-food burger more than any other plant-based option I’ve tried so far. And for a lot of consumers, that’s pretty appealing.

So how was the new recipe? Coincidentally, I’d eaten a Beyond burger three nights before while out at a local craft burger joint, who was still serving the original Beyond recipe. During the taste test I tried hard to compare the two, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t discern any noticeable difference. According to the Beyond website, the Burger 2.0 has less saturated fat than the original (a good thing), and apparently a “more meat-like texture.” I’d say the texture was maybe slightly chewier, which doesn’t exactly scream “meat-like” to me.

Photo: Catherine Lamb.

While I was chewing at the Beyond burger I couldn’t help but compare it to the Impossible Burger 2.0 I’d tried the previous week at CES in Vegas. Admittedly, the Impossible burgers at the unveiling event were prepared by a prestigious chef, not a fast-food line cook; they were also cooked into carefully curated dishes instead of slapped on a bun with some condiments and tasteless tomatoes. But the new Impossible burger’s texture just reminded me more of beef: its texture was looser and more natural, and it had the rich bloodiness of a medium-raw patty.

Though the Beyond burger at Carl’s Jr. might not taste 100 percent like beef, it can’t exactly call itself vegan, either, since the burger is prepared and charbroiled in the same spaces as beef patties. That eliminates quite a few potential customers (read: strict vegetarians and vegans), but according to the manager at the Carl’s Jr., the Beyond burger has been a popular addition to the menu. What’s more, she told me that once customers they try the Beyond Famous Star once they’ll often come back and order it again. “Even people who work here eat it,” she told me.

The Beyond Famous Star burger cost $9.49 at the downtown SF location I went to, $12.99 with fries and a drink. That’s more than the $6.29 that the Beyond Famous Star burger costs at my local Seattle location, but since Carl’s Jr. is a franchise pricing varies depending on location.

Plant-based meat options are becoming more and more accessible, popping up on fast food menus, online, and grocery aisles alongside beef and pork sausage. In addition to Carl’s Jr., Beyond also has partnerships with Del Taco and Canada’s A&W chain. Said accessibility is key as Beyond Meat marches towards an IPO in 2019, making it the first meat-like alterna-meat company to go public. We’ll no doubt see many more iterations of Beyond’s burger (and its kin) down the road, as plant-based meat companies continue to try and create a product so good, it disrupts the meat industry completely.

Sophie’s Kitchen’s “Toona” Poised to Feed Untapped Plant-Based Seafood Market

If you’re on the hunt for a plant-based burger or chicken strip, there’s no lack of options. Looking for some fish-free salmon, or a vegan shrimp? That’s a lot harder to catch (sorry, I had to).

That may not be so tough in the future. Sebastopol, California-based Sophie’s Kitchen is bringing plant-based seafood to the grocery aisle. Founder and CEO Eugene Wang first got the idea for the company when his daughter Sophie had a severe allergic reaction to seafood.

Wang also knew firsthand about the problem of overfishing: he grew up in Taiwan and noticed how fishermen there were struggling more and more to find a daily catch. “I could see that the seafood stock is really dwindling,” he said. He’s not wrong: according to the U.N., around 90 percent of the world’s stocks are currently depleted or overfished, though demand for fish continues to rise steadily.

In 2010 Wang decided to make an alterna-seafood product to serve people with allergies and also help relieve the overfished oceans in the process. After spending almost two years developing the product, Sophie’s Kitchen launched their first product — plant-based shrimp — in retail in early 2012. They soon rolled out fish filets, crab cakes, and smoked salmon, and currently offer eight products, with four more coming out soon.

To copy the complex texture of fish, shrimp, and more, the company uses an ingredient called konjac, a Japanese yam root. When combined with pea protein and put through Wang’s patent-pending manufacturing process, the root can imitate the “rubbery” texture of shellfish.

Sophie’s Kitchen’s smoked “salmon.”

Sophie’s Kitchen’s plant-based seafood is sold exclusively in grocery stores, including Safeway, HEB and Whole Foods. As of now, the company’s most popular product is vegan tinned tuna (“toona”), which supermarkets hope will help them capitalize off of plant-based food trends and attract more millennials to the canned food aisles.

While it may appeal to eco-conscious consumers, the “toona” falls behind traditional canned tuna in a few ways. First of all, it’s a lot pricier — roughly two to three times more expensive as the bargain brands (as are all of Sophie’s Kitchen’s products). It also has less protein than regular tuna and doesn’t contain any of those heart-healthy Omega-3 fatty acids, though Wang said he’s exploring ways to synthesize them from plants.

Like the entire plant-based seafood space, Sophie’s Kitchen has a lot of growing and development to do. It has already come a long way: according to Wang, when they started in 2010, the concept of plant-based edibles was “not a thing” — for seafood or meat. But now they’re far from alone. New Wave Foods makes shrimp alternatives out of algae. Good Catch Foods has developed seafood-free crab cakes, shredded tuna (not canned), and fish patties.

I can’t speak to the taste of their products, but when it comes to reach, Sophie’s Kitchen is pretty far ahead of the curve. New Wave Foods is only in three stores, and Good Catch won’t be on shelves until February 2019. Sophie’s Kitchen is available in over 2,000 stores nationwide and also sells in China, Israel, and France.

Sophie’s Kitchen is self-funded and has three employees. The company won a prize of 200,000 SGD (~$146,000) at the Slingshot Startup Pitching Competition in Singapore in 2017. It will also join the inaugural class of PepsiCo’s North American Nutritional Greenhouse Program.

It’s a good time to be in the plant-based seafood industry. Plant-based foods are growing in popularity and are projected to heat up significantly 2019 — and seafood is no exception. With cultured seafood likely years away from reaching retail shelves, products from Sophie’s Kitchen and others are poised to experience some serious demand. Hopefully they’ll be able to ramp up production and keep their hooks in the emerging market.

As Pushback against Bottled Water Grows, Four Companies Offer Flavorful Alternatives

The age of bottled water may soon come to an end — or at least plateau.

Last week the Wall Street Journal published a piece that called the future of the bottled water industry into question. The “why” is obvious: Driven by images of waste-choked ocean life, plus government and corporate initiatives to eliminate single-use plastic straw use, consumers are looking for alternatives to the most popular bottled beverage in the U.S. And the industry is already feeling it: U.S. bottled water sales are expected to grow by only 6.7 percent this year —  the smallest increase this decade.

What wasn’t so clear from the piece, however, is what commercially viable alternatives are out there. To combat the downturn in sales, bottled water companies are scrambling to create a better bottle, either by promoting plans to switch to 100 percent recycled plastic, or leveraging new materials like cardboard containers (à la cafeteria milk) and glass. But boxed water and glass bottles are expensive and delicate, and we’re years away from a 100 percent recycled plastic bottle.

While eco-conscious consumers can certainly fill up a reusable water bottle instead of buying a plastic one, that doesn’t satisfy the growing demand for flavored seltzers and “healthy” mineral waters. It’s hard to find a replacement for bottled options that give options for carbonation and flavor add-ins — but a few disrupters in the market are working on it. Here are four companies trying to shake up how you hydrate, sustainably:

Image credit: Ted Eytan under creative common license

PepsiCo’s Drinkfinity + SodaStream

Back in August PepsiCo announced plans to acquire SodaStream, makers of the popular countertop carbonation system. The initial investment in the device has a relatively high monetary and environmental cost (it is, after all, made of plastic), it pays off in the long run since you theoretically don’t won’t be buying any more single-use plastic bottles.

This move came just a few months after the beverage giant launched DrinkFinity, a system which lets you flavor your water with special pods that go into a PepsiCo reusable drink “vessel.” Chris tested them out and determined that the taste was actually pretty good — and the reusable bottle could help keep plastic out of the waste stream. Bonus: you can recycle the flavor pods by mailing them in.

Of course, PepsiCo also owns bottled water company Aquafina and recently launched Bubly, a flavored seltzer which comes in cans and bottles — both of which put a lot of single-use plastic on shelves. But with SodaStream and Drinkfinity the company is offering (more) sustainable options for bottled water lovers, even ones who like flavor and fizz with their H20.

 

Photo: rOcean.

rOcean’s sleek home device 

On the surface, rOcean’s countertop device sounds a lot like a SodaStream: both appliances flavor and carbonate water. But as Richard Gunther wrote on the Spoon a few months ago, rOcean has two advantages: it hooks up directly to your tap, and also allows consumers to fill the flavor cartridges with their own preferred flavorings (though they’re still reliant on rOcean’s proprietary water filters and CO2 cartridges).

Despite these value-adds, rOcean has yet to prove that they can deliver. The company’s first round of pre-orders is expected to ship this month, so we’ll see if rOcean can follow through on its promise to help you save time, money, and the oceans.

 

Photo: Mitte

Mitte’s mineral water appliance

Flavor and carbonation are all well and good, but what about the distinct minerality that makes bottled water taste like it came straight from a mountain stream? Mitte is breaking mineral water out of the bottle. The Berlin-based company has a countertop device which lets you distill and create your own custom mineralized water at home, using replaceable cartridges.

As with the SodaStream and rOcean, Mitte’s appliance isn’t waste-free: its device is made of plastic, and I couldn’t find details about whether or not its cartridges were recyclable. But it’s a heck of a lot better than grabbing a bottle of Fiji every day on your way to the gym. The company has also reportedly been in conversations with appliance makers like LG and Whirlpool, exploring ways to integrate their product directly into refrigerators or kitchen sinks, which could cut down on the waste and space requirements.

Mitte won the Startup Showcase at our first Smart Kitchen Summit Europe this June and raised $10.6 million in August. Early Kickstarter backers will receive their Mitte units in June 2019.

 

Bevi’s customizeable water machine

Bevi makes a smart beverage device which hooks up to a tap and dispenses purified, sparkling, and flavored H20 with varying levels of sweetness. Designed to be installed in public areas like schools, gyms, cafeterias, and offices, the company’s core mission is to reduce plastic water bottle use.

When covering Bevi’s machine earlier this year, Jenn Marston mused on a future in which Bevi (or Bevi-like) machines were everywhere from fast food joints to Starbucks to gas stations, offering consumers a near-omnipresent alternative to fridges filled with plastic bottles.

 

But will they replace plastic water bottles?

Of course, while these companies are all working to make it easy to skip out on plastic water bottles, there’s one huge hurdle they may never overcome: convenience. It may be easy, even fun, to tap a few buttons and create a custom water blend to fill up your reusable bottle — but it will never be quite as quick or easy as grabbing a bottle of Evian from your fridge or a gas station fridge. Until it is, these solutions will have a hard time getting rid of plastic water bottles for good.

Beast Mode: Chirp’s Launches Kickstarter for Cricket Protein Powder

For openminded bodybuilders who want to get ripped, there’s a new type of protein powder out ready for you to chug it down on the way to your morning CrossFit shred sesh.

Today Chirps, the San Francisco-based company which makes insect chips in flavors like Sriracha and BBQ, launched a Kickstarter for its newest product: Cricket Protein Powder. The powder has 20 grams of protein per serving and is made of peas, brown rice, chia seeds, and, oh yeah, insects.

Typically, protein powder is made either with soy, which can lead to deforestation, or whey, which can have, um, undesired gastrointestinal outputs. Crickets are also one of the more sustainable protein sources out there: it takes one gallon of water to produce one pound of crickets, but it takes roughly 300 gallons to grow one pound of soybeans, and over 1,000 gallons to make one pound of whey (because cows).

It should be noted, briefly, that not all proteins are created equal. Both cricket and whey are complete proteins, meaning they contain all 9 essential animo acids, but whey stands out because it absorbs super quickly into the body to stimulate post-workout muscle growth. I couldn’t find any solid information about cricket absorption rates online, so muscle-heads, take that as you will.

The one-pound tubs of protein powder, which come in chocolate or vanilla, are priced at $39 for one, $65 for two, and $78 for three (share one with a friend!). There’s no information on what the retail price of the powder will be. Until Dec. 16th backers can take advantage of the “Holiday Special,” which basically means you get a free cricket cookbook and a guarantee that your order will arrive in time for “Crickmas.”

In fact, Chirps promises to have the first ~3,000 units delivered before December 25th, with the rest shipping in February 2019. Yes, that’s three weeks away — but I’m optimistic they can pull it off. The company already managed one successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014 to launch their cricket chips, in which they reached their $30,000 goal in three days.

Judging from some sleuthing on the Updates page, however, they did seem to have struggled with a 9-month shipping delay. But that was four years ago. Since then Chirps seems to have fixed any production snags; the chips are available in dozens of shops around the U.S. and on Amazon.

Chirps isn’t the only company working to bring insects to the mainstream: Seek Food also launched a crowdfunding campaign for their cricket-based baking flour, fried grasshoppers are a fan favorite at Seattle’s Safeco field, and even celebrities have hopped (heh) on the edible insect bandwagon. Crik Nutrition also makes a cricket-based protein powder, though theirs is quite a bit pricier.

If their goal is to make insect-eating the norm, it makes sense for Chirps to target the health food market. Crickets are a great source of protein, iron, and B12, and when they’re pulverized into a powder or an energy bar a lot of the “ick” factor goes away.

Hopefully Chirps and others can help de-stigmatize bug-eating in the U.S. — and help you shred your quads along the way.

Delta’s Innovation Lab Crowdfunds Home Glass Rinser Like You Find in Bars

If your house is anything like mine, then you have a number of resuable water bottles of all stripes stashed in various kitchen cabinets. These water bottles are a great way to cut down on waste, but not all of them are dishwasher safe, and if they have a narrow mouth, they can be difficult to clean with standard brushes.

And it turns out that not cleaning your reusable drinking bottle can result in a nasty bacteria bio-film build up that can make drinking from an unwashed bottle worse than licking a dog’s chew toy.

To help you stay hydrated and keep your drinking vessels clean, First Wave, the Innovation Lab at Delta, today launched a crowdfunding for the First Wave Glass Rinser. If you’ve worked at a bar, or even watched people work at Starbucks, you’re familiar with how it works.

The Glass Rinser installs easily in a standard kitchen sink hole (it can replace an unused soap dispenser, for example) and attaches to your plumbing. When you push a glass or waterbottle upside down on top of the Glass Rinser, jets of water shoot up to clean out the inside of the glass. It even works on narrow-mouthed water bottles.

Backers can pick up The Glass Rinser for $85 on Indiegogo (all the $75 perks sold out), but they’ll have to wait until October of 2019 before it ships. That’s a long time to wait for what probably amounts to a little more convenience in your life. After all, you have to install it (which may require hiring a plumber) and you still actually wash the bottles after you rinse them out.

The advantages to backing this Glass Rinser seem to be that other, similar glass rinsing solutions are more expensive and more industrial, and require more custom installation. And unlike so many other crowdfunded hardware projects, the fact that it is from a division of Delta, which already makes kitchen sink related items at scale, means that there is a better chance of this actually coming to market if funded.

On this, its first day, the campaign has already hit 67 percent of its $200,000 crowdfunding goal. Looks like this Glass Rinser is making a splash.

Seattle Shake Shack Goes Super Local with Crowd Cow Beef

Seattle has been salivating over our forthcoming Shake Shack for months. The Emerald City may have the iconic Dick’s Burgers, mountains of local produce, and more oysters than you can shake a stick at, but something about the Danny Meyer-led chain’s cheeseburgers, crinkle fries, and ice cream concretes has created a rabid fan base for the soon-to-be restaurant.

The new Shake Shack will open in Seattle’s Westlake neighborhood, smack dab in the middle of the sprawling Amazon campus, and will come with a few locally-inspired menu items. Chief among them is the Montlake Double Cut, which Seattle Met revealed today would be a double cheeseburger made with local beef sourced from Crowd Cow, topped with Just Jack cheese from Seattle institution Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, caramelized onions, and a mustard-mayo sauce on a locally made Macrina bakery bun.

Shake Shack has a history of teaming up with local institutions to add regional-specific dishes to the menus of its new outposts. For example, for its Austin, Texas location, the company created a burger topped with jalapeno-cheese sausage from Texas barbecue spot Kreuz Market. However, this Seattle creation marks the first time the chain has ever made a change to its custom-blended beef patties.

Honestly, we can’t wait to try the Crowd Cow burgers. (I’m a vegetarian, and I’m still excited about the partnership.) Crowd Cow is an online service that lets consumers buy craft beef (and chicken, and pork, and fish) from local farmers, then delivers it directly to their door. The Seattle-based startup recently raised $8 million to expand their network of farmers and improve their supply chain.

This partnership was a savvy move on Shake Shake’s part. By partnering with a marketplace like Crowd Cow, they can feature locally raised beef from small farms without ever worrying about hiccups in their supply. If a certain farm can’t provide meat one week, Crowd Cow can always search its marketplace to source some more.

By developing a burger that’s not only regionally-inspired but also made of regionally-sourced beef, the New York-based chain can attract customers who might typically avoid chain restaurants. “Shake Shack was looking to do something very particular to Seattle,” Crowd Cow co-founder Ethan Lowrey told me over the phone.

Not only is their beef local, it’s also much higher quality than you’ll see in a store or restaurant — even the fancy ones. The cows in Crowd Cow’s marketplace are raised for steak, which means their meat is a superior grade. “Our secret weapon is our ground beef,” Lowrey said. “Even if you compare it with the nicest ground beef you buy in a store, it’s just night and day.”

By sourcing beef from Crowd Cow, Shake Shack can capitalize on recent demands for transparent meat sourcing. As my colleague Chris Albrecht wrote a few months ago:

According to The Power of Meat report, conventional meat sales were flat in 2017, while meat with special production (natural, organic, etc.) and claims about ethical animal treatment saw “dollar gains of 4.8 percent and volume growth of 5.1 percent.” 

As far as we can tell, this partnership is the first time that Crowd Cow has sold their meat to a high-volume restaurant. Let’s hope the growing startup can keep up with the demand of Shake Shack-crazed Seattleites.

Beyond beef, Shake Shack will also add a few local creations to its menu of concretes (basically, extra-thick milkshakes): one with seasonal pie from A La Mode Pies, one with Theo’s dark chocolate, and another with brittle made from Sea Wolf croissants.

There’s no official word on the opening day for the Westlake Shack Shack, though it’s rumored to be sometime in the next few weeks. If you get to stop in and order the Montlake Double Cut, be sure to tweet us @TheSpoonTech and tell us how you liked it.

Low-Tech Le Coupé Pro Lets You Bake and Cut Perfectly Sized Treats

Fun Fact: I always skip the last two minutes of The Great British Baking Show. It’s just too painful to watch some poor soul who has tried their best get the boot because their chocolate mirror glaze didn’t have enough of a sheen.

The technical challenges seem to befuddle contestants, especially when they need to make something like 48 tea cakes that have to look identical to one another. Ugh. Just typing that sentence stresses me out.

Perhaps contestants will be able to use Le Coupé Pro in the next season. Now on Kickstarter, Le Coupé Pro is a combination baking pan + mechanical cutting grid. Push down on the handles and voila! You have 40 identical servings of cakes, brownies, bars or whatever you baked. The bottom is even removable so you can easily pop your treats out of the tin.

But all of these perfectly proportioned-portions don’t come cheap. You can reserve your Le Coupé Pro with a pledge of $155, which gets you the pan, gear handles, riser stand and 40 square cutting grid. As a bonus, you’ll get the 9 count cutting grid (evidently useful for pizzas and breads). But before you can get your hands on it, the campaign needs to raise $190,000 (!) to get fully funded, and it’s not estimated to ship until March of 2019.

While I appreciate a delicious sponge with a solid structure and a good bake** as much as the next person, $155 is pretty pricey unless you’re a caterer or someone with some serious baking OCD.

But maybe if you’re a contestant on The Great British Baking Show, this could be the perfect weapon in your artisnal arsenal. Hopefully you’ll make it all the way through to the end.

**To quote Paul Hollywood.

Is the MasterPan a Good Master Plan for Millennials? Maybe?

I’ll admit, I was all ready to write about Masterpan’s Kickstarter campaign mostly to mock it. That mocking was mostly because the email pitch for it had the subject line “Millennials make cooking more creative” and went on to say that a millennial co-invented the product.

Ugh.

But honestly, after reading about Master Pan (and its previous incarnation), I just can’t  get that worked up over it. It’s fine, and probably fine for millennials. We know they cook, and that companies are targeting them to get them into the kitchen. Why not give them a sectioned pan so they can cook everything at once?

The first generation MasterPan had five sections and a viral campaign that, according to the company, “broke the internet” (double ugh) resulting in sales of 100,000 sectioned pans.

Now the makers of the Master Pan are back, but have toned things down a bit, opting for fewer sections. The new line of Master Pans features a three (grill + two small griddlle sections), two (grill + griddle) and one (grill) configuration.

The pans are die cast aluminum, a “double layer PFOA free and chemical free non-stick Xylan Plus coating,” and an induction base that allows you to cook on any stove and distributes the heat to all the sections. There’s also a detachable Bakelite handle so you can put the Master Pan in the oven for extended periods of time, and also for easier/smaller storage.

The idea of a section pan isn’t exactly new. A quick search on Amazon reveals a number of sectioned pan options. And I can’t speak to the quality of the pan, or how successful it is as cooking various items which require different levels of heat at once. A review of the first gen Master Pan in The Guardian from 2016 was less than stellar, but your mileage may vary.

I don’t want to paint that younger generation with too wide a brush, but I guess the appeal of the Master Pan is that you you don’t have to buy multiple pans to make one meal (or clean up afterwards), and you can have your whole meal cooked at once so you don’t have to wait. Those seem like perfectly good reasons, though not necessarily limited to millennials.

Master Pan is looking to raise $45,000 from its Kickstarter. If you’re interested, you can pick up any one of the pans for a pledge of $34 with a scheduled delivery date of November of this year. Unlike the Solidtecknics unibody wrought iron skillet I backed earlier this year, I won’t be giving any money to the Master Pan. I have enough pans and no real need to segregate my food into tiny compartments while cooking.

But for all you millennials out there, maybe it’s worth a shot.

It’s Sorta Silly How Much I Heart My Stainless Steel Straws

OK. Look. When you are a blogger covering any beat 24/7, there comes a time when your brain needs to stop providing analysis and context to news events and just write about something small and yet totally satisfyingly cool.

Which is why, dear readers, I am writing to you about my straw.

Well, it’s not just any straw; it’s my stainless steel straw, which is part of a four-pack of stainless steel straws that I use every. Single. Day. It’s dumb, but I actually love my little metallic sipping cylinder.

For some self-indulgent context: rather than a hot coffee, I drink iced tea every morning. Preferably PG Tips with a splash of soy milk. For some reason, the whole experience is better with a straw, as drinking it straight out of a glass just feels weird to me for some inexplicably dumb reason.

It was also totally dumb that I used a single-use straw for as long as I did. Plastic straws have quickly become public enemy No. 1 and persona non grata at Starbucks, Hyatt, the whole city of Seattle and a whole host of other places.

This is good news, because Starbucks alone was pumping one billion plastic straws into our world every year. Plastic straws are part of a bigger plastic problem that, if we don’t do something about it, could lead to there being more plastic than fish (by weight) in the ocean by 2050.

The problem with giving up plastic straws, as with so many things in our modern world, is their convenience. It’s so easy to pop one into the top of your cold brew or frappé without any hassle. Plus, the alternatives aren’t always great. As my colleague, Catherine Lamb, recently wrote:

“Paper straws can get soggy quickly. And biodegradable straws made of wheat or bamboo can cost 5-6 times more than straws made of regular plastic. Which means they might fly for fancier coffee shops and cafés, but it might take a while for fast food chains who are ordering millions and millions of straws per week to roll them out in huge numbers.”

It’s true that at scale, there aren’t a ton of great options at this very moment. But on a more micro level, in your home, you can make the switch for less than ten bucks — and I highly recommend it. I picked up a pack of the Sipwell Stainless Steel drinking straws on Amazon for $6.98. They are dishwasher safe and even come with their own cleaning brush.

It’s weird to say that a straw works great, but the Sipwells do. Because they are metal, the straws turn cold when dunked in my morning iced tea, which is a small detail, but a nice one. And I’m so used to them that getting a disposable one when I’m out feels wrong. (Though I haven’t started carrying around a metal one around with me in a tiny case. Yet.)

There are other options as well. The aforementioned Catherine Lamb prefers glass ones as her go-to for reusable sipping. While those are pricier, they are definitely prettier.

I’ve read people on Twitter complain about how there are so many legitimate problems in the world, and we are focusing too much attention on how we slurp our sodas. But I think that’s almost the point. In a world where there are so many big problems that are beyond our control, changing the style of our straw is something we actually can do. Immediately. And if everyone makes this small change, it can actually have big results.

And big results when it comes to reducing waste is news I definitely want to cover.

Solidteknics Kickstarts its Lighter Weight, Rivetless Iron Skillet

My wife really likes to cook with cast iron — but wow, that stuff is heavy, and not very nimble. When America’s Test Kitchen had a deal for their favorite carbon steel pan, which is lighter weight than cast iron, I bought one of those — but the pan warped during seasoning.

So when an inbound press pitch came in about Solidteknics‘ US-ION wrought iron pan, I was intrigued. The company just launched a Kickstarter campaign, which already blew past its $20,000 goal, raising $38,861 with 26 days to go.

According to Solidteknics, the US-ION pan cooks and seasons like cast iron, but is half the weight. Additionally, the pan is unibody, so there are no screws or rivets holding the handle (or anything) in place. It’s all one solid, block of iron. It’s not molten iron cast into a mold and in the promotional video, the process for forming the pan is so top secret that they don’t even put it on camera, in a bit of hammy showmanship.

The US-ION is 3mm thick, half that of a cast iron pan, resulting in the lighter weight. The company says that because of the thickness, the pans won’t warp (like my carbon steel did). Additionally, because it’s just iron, there is no Teflon or other chemical treatment to come into contact with your food, if that concerns you.

There are two sizes of US-ION pans available: a 7.5 inch skillet for $49 (plus shipping) and a 10 inch skillet for $69 (plus shipping). Both skillets are projected to ship in September of this year. The company wouldn’t provide specifics about how much the pans will cost at retail, but the Australian version (the AUS-ION) ten inch skillet sells on Amazon for $93.87. According the Kickstarter campaign, the difference is that US-ION pans will not come pre-seasoned.

Maybe I’m a sucker, or someone who just really likes to buy pans, but I backed the project and purchased a ten inch skillet. The company says that their pans will “clearly last centuries,” and while I’m not sure about that, I should be getting mine in about a hundred days. We’ll see how good it is then.

The No 1 Grill Rotates Between Gas, Charcoal, and Flat Top Cooking

While not official, summer is basically here. Time to break out the grill and throw on your favorite animal or plant-based burger patty. But what if you wanted to top that burger with some cut vegetables or fried eggs? Those things slip through the grates!

If you were using the No 1 Grill Ambassador 5-in-1, all you’d have to do is grab the crank and rotate the cooking surface from the grates to the flat top and BOOM! Now you can heat anything you want.

That, at least, is the pitch from Emilliano Marra, inventor of the No 1 grill, who just launched an Indiegogo campaign this past weekend to raise $150,000 and bring his 5-in-1 cooking appliance to market.

The No 1 looks a lot like any other backyard grill, except for the crank on the front. Give the crank a whirl and the cooking surface rotates, going from a charcoal grill, to a gas grill to a flat top to a grate/flat top combo.

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The grill is gas powered, but has a mode that uses charcoal, for that brand of purist. There is a single burner underneath the rotating cooktop, which means that there’s no multi-zone, variable heating when using the gas. There is also an infrared burner above the cooktop for broiling and browning. When both burners are on, Marra told me that the grill can reach 800 degrees F. The No 1 is also on wheels in case you want to move it around your patio.

Over the past five years, Marra has put $470,000 of his own money into his grill, which includes money spent getting a patent for the rotating cooktop. Super early bird backers can pick up a No 1 Grill for $1,2999 with an estimated delivery of October of this year. Should the grill make it to retail, it will cost $2,695.

While I like the idea of easy rotation through different cooktops, I shared the campaign with a hardcore grilling friend of mine to get his thoughts. While he thought it was neat, he said he’d prefer to just swap out the grill for a griddle plate over the heater. I guess I’m lazier than he is, because the idea of just turning a crank sounds so much easier/fun to me.

With a month left to go on the campaign, we’ll see if the No 1 Grill’s all-in-one rotating capabilities is a number one draw with potential backers.

Are We Entering a Frozen Food Renaissance?

Let’s be honest: frozen food does not have the best reputation. From French bread pizzas to bland microwaveable TV meals, the freezer section is usually full of meal options that are unhealthy, mass-produced, and overall subpar.

But lately a few companies are trying to reverse the frozen food stigma — and keep the convenience — with high-quality, healthy meal offerings.

It’s a good time to be in the frozen food market. According to RBC Capital markets, frozen food volume growth recently turned positive for the first time in 5 years. While the slump was blamed on millennials who tend to opt for whole, fresh foods, the rebound is most likely due to the exact same demographic.

“A lot of consumers, especially millennials and students, are looking for an easier [dining] option that they can stick in the microwave,” Zoe Lloyd, founder and CEO of Zoni Foods, told me over the phone. Her frozen meal kit company that offers three healthy, plant-based frozen meals.

Lloyd came up with the idea for Zoni Foods while a student herself at Yale business school. She wanted to find natural, easy to prepare food in the frozen aisle of the grocery store, and was struck by the whopping lack of innovation. So she developed a line of healthy, plant-based frozen meals with ingredients sourced from local farms.

This hits the sweet spot for busy millennials: the frozen meals are convenient, healthy, and offer nearly instant gratification. “People want to feel like they’re preparing a healthy dinner for themselves, but doing it in a way with no prep and very little cleanup,” explained Lloyd. They’re also capitalizing on rising demand for locally sourced ingredients. And at an average price of $6.99 for a single-serving meal, they’re cheaper than takeout or a shopping trip at most organic grocery stores.

Belgian Mealhero also makes frozen meal kits, but they’ve taken the operation a few steps further with a recipe app and connected countertop steamer. In our interview with their CEO Jeroen Spitaels for the Smart Kitchen Summit Europe blog (where they’ll be competing in the Startup Showcase), he emphasized the convenience of frozen food. “Because they’re starting with frozen food (with a long shelf life), our community is able to plug and play Mealhero food into their schedule whenever they need it the most,” he told me.

There are a few other companies edging into the high-end frozen meal market. Daily Harvest, a startup that delivers flash-frozen soups, smoothies, and meals, is putting a millennial-friendly face on frozen food. Eat Local stores provide gourmet, fresh-made frozen meals to Washingtonians. And just this week, Earth Fare announced that it will carry Seal the Seasons products, which sells frozen local produce from family farmers in North and South Carolina, all year round.

In addition to convenience and ease, frozen meals (or at least frozen produce) might be straight-up healthier for you. Studies have shown that it has the same amount or more nutrients than fresh food, especially if it’s flash-frozen. And while fresh food is often picked before it’s ripe to account for its shipping journey, frozen food can be harvested when it’s at its ripest.

As we start getting more and more of our groceries delivered, however, frozen foods can make things tricky. After all, you don’t want Amazon to leave your weekly shop in the car or on your kitchen table if it contains frozen meal kits or — god forbid — ice cream. This is where packaging insulation could come in handy, especially if it’s sustainable.

By capitalizing on the millennial-driven trend for convenient, home-cooked meals and adding new, local, and healthier options, frozen foods could be on the cusp of a Renaissance. No matter what, though, I’ll always have a soft spot for DiGiorno pizza.