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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Yo-Kai’s Ramen Robot Heads to Japan

Two things I always make sure I do when visiting Japan are 1) eat ramen and 2) buy things from some of the wonderful variety of vending machines found most everywhere across the country.

However, despite my love for these two things, I have never combined them, only because buying freshly made ramen from a vending machine was not possible in Japan…until now.

That all changes this week. Yo-Kai, the California-based maker of robotic fresh ramen vending machines, has debuted the country’s first ramen-making robot at the Haneda airport in Tokyo. According to the announcement, the new Yo-Kai machine is located in Terminal 2 at Haneda and will serve up ramen with four types of miso in 90 seconds for 790 yen ($6.55).

Japan is recognized as the vending machine capital of the world, where customers can buy everything from grilled fish to chocolate-covered superworms by inserting coins or tapping their phones. By being the first company to bring a fresh-ramen making robot to Japan, Yo-Kai could have a huge opportunity in front of it

Yo-Kai founder Andy Lin seems to agree. In a post on Linkedin, Lin says Yo-Kai’s presence in Japan was in the works for some time and hints the ramen machine could show up in other locations soon.

“More exciting news will be announced soon!”

Since I’ll be back in Japan in August for our annual Smart Kitchen Summit Japan, it looks like I’ll have to head over to Haneda to combine my love of these two distinctly Japanese specialties.

‘It’s Like a Driver’s License for Cows’: Why One Wyoming Company is Creating NFTs for Cattle

Back when Rob Jennings helped found the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition back in 2017, he knew he needed to find a use case that resonated with residents of the Cowboy State. It didn’t take him long before he settled on beef.

“Back then, there was a lot of conversation around about how grass-fed, grain-finished Wyoming fat cattle beef was being mixed into commodity feed yards with lesser animals, let’s say,” Jennings said on a Zoom call with The Spoon. “And so we developed this idea about how you could use blockchain to verify the animal’s provenance.”

Back then, Jennings worked with the University of Wyoming to develop the technology for his first blockchain startup called Beefchain. And while he and other early blockchain enthusiasts found the idea of putting the information about a steer on the blockchain exciting, Jennings found the response more muted when explaining the technology to ranchers, mainly because many of them still couldn’t see the immediate value of such a tech-forward solution.

That’s when Jennings started to think about ways to utilize NFTs. With the early implementations of storing cattle data on the blockchain, Jennings said they would hash an entire excel spreadsheet and put it on the bitcoin blockchain.

“Yes, you’re putting the information there, but it wasn’t functional,” said Jennings.

He knew that there were certain challenges in cattle ranching that could be met head-on with the utility provided by NFTs that would go beyond simply putting information on the blockchain. He knew that to build something cattle ranchers and others in the industry found useful, he had to create a platform for an individual digital record and add on additional functionality through the application layer brought on by an NFT. That’s when he founded CattleProof.

“It’s like a driver’s license for cows,” said Jennings. “I’ve always believed that whatever you want to do with blockchain and all of the functionality that’s promised to us down the horizon, and it starts with creating that record.”

Attributes about the cow such as age, genetics, ranch of origin, and more can be stored and easily accessed by the holder of the NFT. Additionally, certifications such as an inspection record can be appended to the NFT.

“Traditionally, inspection records are a piece of paper,” said Jennings. “Inspectors say, ‘okay, these hundred cows are good’, and then you have that one piece of paper you take along the supply chain. So what we wanted to do is create the ability for all of this metadata that’s associated with each animal to travel along the supply chain. So the next guy who buys this animal, whether it’s one or one hundred, will have access to all of this information appended to this NFT.”

Jennings also said financial functionality could be derived from a cow NFT.

“You could use an NFT record to collateralize the animals with a bank,” said Jennings. “You could use them to track movement. You can use them to do an e-brand inspection and interstate movement.”

Jennings says that transferring ownership via an NFT at cattle auctions will expedite fund transfer for the cow. Funds transfer nearly immediately, compared to the days or weeks through the traditional financial reconciliation process.

The way CattleProof’s technology works is the rancher creates an account via the company’s website, which creates a digital wallet. Next, the rancher tags the cow via a Bluetooth sensor or an EID (an embedded tag that goes into the cow’s ear), and then uses the CattleProof app to scan the EID for each animal. Next, they enter the data (photo, weight, breed, etc) and, once all the information is entered, the rancher “hits a big red button” and mints an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain.

From there, the owner of the NFT controls who can see the data and is the only one that can enter new data (past data can’t be changed). If the animal is sold, ownership of the NFT – and all control rights to the data and the animal – are passed onto the new owner.

His company has already run a successful trial of the collaboration with Wilson Ranch in December. The company helped Wilson Ranch create NFTs for 20 steers that were sold through the website of Wilson’s distribution partner, Flying Diamond Beef. The company has plans to expand trials to more ranches in the coming months.

CattleProof has filed for a provisional patent and is currently working to develop a USDA process that the agency can recognize as an approved process flow for a verified claim utilizing blockchain technology.

“It’s exciting,” said Jennings. “I grew up in Wyoming. I like the Western way of life. I want to help producers connect more directly with consumers and democratize the marketplace.”

The Year of the Plant-Based Wholecut Barrels On as Meati Begins Sales of Fungi-Based Meats & Partners with David Chang

When I wrote about what to expect for plant-based meat in 2022, my first two predictions were the rise of plant-based whole cuts and the continued emergence of fungi as a platform for alternative meats.

Colorado startup Meati checks both those boxes with the sales launch of the company’s new line of mycelium-based whole cuts. The company began selling its chicken cutlet and crispy cutlet direct to consumers today via their website and has plans to start selling a steak filet later in the spring. The launch of the company’s fungi-based meats to the general public follows a pre-order launch last month when the company sold over one thousand cutlets in less than 24 hours.

Meati raised $50 million in July of last year to scale its production capacity for its plant-based meat. At 80 thousand square feet, the new plant is expected to eventually produce a daily fungi-based meat output equivalent to 4,500 cows.

The company also announced a partnership with David Chang, the omnipresent chef who recently did a deep dive into the future of food via his Hulu series, The Next Thing You Eat. According to the announcement, Chang will create educational content and partner for product collaborations as a ‘Meati ambassador.’ Chang’s first deliverable as an ambassador will be cooking tutorials and recipes.

David Chang Talks about Meati's Fungi-Based Whole Cuts

Meati’s official launch of its whole-cut mycelium meat is the latest sign of the broader availability of plant-based whole cuts. Last August, Better Meat Company debuted their mycelium whole cut steak prototype (Meati and Better Meat Co are in an ongoing legal dispute over intellectual property). Last month, Juicy Marbles started selling their plant-based steak to consumers via their website. Meanwhile, Libre Foods is planning on rolling out its plant-based bacon whole cut in Europe later this year.

Impossible’s New CEO Will Need to Navigate a Fast-Changing Plant-Based Meat Marketplace

This week Impossible Foods announced that founding CEO Pat Brown is stepping down from his current role and assuming the new role of Chief Visionary Officer. The company’s new CEO will be longtime Chobani exec Peter McGuinness, who recently served as the yogurt pioneer’s president and COO.

Explaining the move in a company blog post, Brown said that as Impossible has grown in size and scale, he’s had less time to devote to strategic initiatives, communicating the company’s mission to the public and policymakers, and guiding R&D for new products. Brown said the demands on the role of CEO at Impossible Foods will only continue to grow, which means now is the time to appoint a proven executive to lead the execution of the company’s day-to-day business.

From the post:

Peter and I will work together to lead Impossible and its long-term strategy, combining our complementary strengths and experience. Peter will be our CEO and a director, and will report to the board. I will continue in my role as Founder and director, and take on the role of Chief Visionary Officer reporting to the board, leading research and technology innovation, strategic initiatives, public advocacy and, most importantly, our mission. 

McGuinness comes aboard at a time of uncertainty for the plant-based meat industry. Starting last fall, we began to see signs of a potential slowdown in sales across the segment. This year, companies like Kellogg’s are warning of continued soft sales and predicting a possible shakeout.

It’s important to note that Impossible has signaled their sales are doing fine. They very well could be, but there’s no way to have 100% certainty around the health of Impossible’s income statement since we don’t have any real visibility into the company’s numbers since they are still private. Still, it’s hard to see how Impossible could completely sidestep what seems to be a growing set of concerns for the space.

One potential concern is consumers’ growing questions about the ingredient lists for plant-based meat. With Impossible’s genetically engineered heme and a long list of other ingredients, they are one of the companies whose products might get a hard look from a segment of consumers who are looking for simpler, clean ingredients.

There’s also growing evidence of consumer apathy towards plant-based meat. At this point, most alt-meat curious consumers have tried it out, and some are not coming back for seconds. This might be for various reasons, including they don’t like the taste, the higher price tag or they just prefer animal meat. Whatever the reason, plant-based meat companies need to figure out how to make their products a mainstay on the weekly grocery shopping list.

Finally, while a large pipeline of interesting plant-based (and cell-cultured) meat products is coming to market, there’s been an over-saturation in a few categories like burgers and chicken nuggets. While Impossible is likely a market leader in the burger category and seems to hold a decent shelf share for their nuggets, there’s lots of competition for their flagship products.

All of which brings us back to Pat Brown. By clearing his schedule of running the company day-to-day, Brown can now focus on what he is no doubt good at (and I assume probably prefers) in innovating new products. The company has teased new products ranging from whole cuts to a new milk product, and imagine we might see even more as Brown sets his sights full-time on building out the product roadmap.

And while he’s famously opinionated, Brown is also one of the industry’s best ambassadors. The plant-based meat industry owes him a debt of gratitude for much of the early excitement built around the category, so having him focus on messaging could help both Impossible and the rest of the industry as consumers cast a more discerning eye on plant-based meat.

Impossible has raised a massive amount of money, and its investors have big expectations of seeing a return on their capital through the equity markets. I am pretty sure this is one of the rationales for transitioning to a food industry executive with experience in growing a brand. And so, while McGuinness has his work cut out for him running a company that has exited the honeymoon phase of the market, his job will no doubt be made easier by letting Pat Brown do what he does best.

Russian Food Tech Hit Hard by Ukraine invasion

Beyond the horror inflicted on Ukraine by Russian forces, the universal blowback from this unprovoked attack has dealt a major blow to Russia’s food-tech business. Between the financial impact of harsh sanctions and public sentiment against anyone or anything associated with Vladimir Putin, established companies and startups in every segment of this emerging space have been hit hard.

Yandex, the company, called by some the “Google of Russia,” is the biggest name on what is becoming a sinking ship. Yandex deployed its delivery robots in many U.S. locations via its partnership with GrubHub, but Yandex has fallen on hard times since the Ukraine invasion. The University of Arizona and The Ohio State University have ceased accepting deliveries from GrubHub via its Yandex partnership. In the meantime, one of the firm’s key executives, Tigran Khudaverdyan, has been hit with personal sanctions and has left the company after his assets were frozen and his personal travel was restricted.

CNN reported that Yandex, which handles about 60% of Russia’s web traffic, along with its media business and ride-sharing divisions, is losing customers to the point where it may not be able to meet its debt payments. The company headquarters is in the Netherlands but primarily serves the Russian market and is listed on the Russian Stock Exchange.

Russian grocery-delivery giant Samokat entered the U.S. market with a bang in September 2021 with a new service called Buyk (pronounced bike), which offered 15-minute delivery using empty storefronts in New York City. In the wake of harsh sanctions which froze capital assets, the company has shut down operations and this week filed for bankruptcy.

As it turns out, Russian consumers have become major consumers of plant-based meats. Fueled by the pandemic, Vegconomist reports that 10% of Russians eat plant-based alternatives while 54% are willing to add such products to their diets. Greenwise and Welldone are two leaders in the plant-based meat industry in Russia, both of which have set their sites on the European Market and beyond. Even if the Russian market is a large one, the country’s citizens are facing economic hardships and will unlikely have money to purchase anything more than basic staples. The future of these companies must be in doubt.

According to industry tracker Traxcn, the Russian food tech scene is booming with 131 food tech startups in areas such as personal meal services, online catering, plant-based meats, restaurant reservations, and cloud-based accounting services specializing in working with restaurants. Companies such as Gettable, Welldone, and Qummy (among others) will face significant challenges attracting investors and reaching consumers beyond Russia during these troubled times.

From the U.S. perspective, major fast-food companies are taking a significant hit by leaving Russia and Ukraine, leaving their operations dark. McDonald’s, for example, gets 9% or $2 billion of its revenue from Russia and Ukraine. Pepsi and Coke are suffering similar losses (Coke 1-2% of annual revenue; Pepsi, 4% of yearly income) by leaving Russia and Ukraine.

Canadian Sisters Launch Capra Press, a French Press That Doesn’t Oversteep and Eliminates Messy Cleanup

Mia and Zoey Knobler had a love-hate relationship with the French press. The two sisters from British Columbia loved the richer flavored coffee that resulted from the steep and plunge appliance, but hated the messy clean-up and the over-brewed coffee resulting from continued exposure to the grounds.

So they set to making a French press that had all the upside of that full-bodied first pour but not the downside of over-brewed coffee and sludgy cleanup. The result was the Capra Press, which debuted this week on Indiegogo and has raised over $32 thousand as of this writing.

The sisters teamed up with product designer Jeff Polster to create a French press with two interesting differentiators. The first is a mesh filter that seals after pressing, preventing bitter coffee from over-extraction. The filter utilizes silicon umbrella valves that seal the grounds into the bottom after plunging.

The second feature is a removable bottom that enables easier cleanup. Called the “grounds-keeper,” the twist-off bottom allows the user to dispose of the grounds into the trash or compost.

Capra Press Founders (L to R): Jeff Polster, Zoey Knobler, Mia Knobler

The team worked out of the Revelstoke Idea Factory, a community maker space and design lab in Revelstoke, British Columbia set up by the City of Revelstoke and the Revelstoke Fabrication Lab Society. After two years of prototyping and testing their ideas, the trio launched the Capra Press on Indiegogo this week.

Longtime readers of The Spoon might recall another French press project called the Rite Press that raised $1.3 million on Kickstarter but never delivered the product. When I asked Mia Knobler about the inevitable comparisons some might make to the ill-fated Rite Press, she pointed out that the Rite Press was offered at an artificially low price ($40) that didn’t consider the true cost of manufacturing. The Capra Press Indiegogo pricing starts at $85 for ‘Super Early Birds’ and has a retail price of $125.

“We are very far along in the process with the Capra Press and have been conservative with all our estimates to ensure that we can fulfill all the orders from our customers without compromising on quality or innovation,” said Knobler.

While all hardware crowdfunding campaigns carry some level of risk, the Capra Press is off to a good start, with over $32 thousand raised in just two days from nearly 300 backers. With 34 days left, the campaign has a long runway to raise more funding.

Finless Foods Dual-Pronged Strategy Targets the Plant-Based and Cell-Cultured Based Tuna Markets

Environmental concerns, shortages in the supply chain, and a global focus on health are fueling excitement at the prospect of a cell-cultured food industry featuring meat, poultry, and seafood produced without the slaughter of animals. At this point, however, it’s an industry with high hopes whose players are willing to gamble time and money as the USDA and FDA ponder the establishment of guidelines for product safety, labeling, and other consumer considerations.

Finless Foods, based in Emeryville, California, is bullish on the future of its lab-cultivated Bluefin tuna. Still, the company is mitigating its risk by releasing a plant-grown tuna in the coming months. Armed with some new Series B funding to the tune of $34 million, Finless is anticipating government approval by the end of the year and is building out an 11,000 square-foot pilot production plant in Emeryville to meet what it hopes is consumer acceptance and widespread distribution.

“The FDA has already rubberstamped the blueprints for our facility,” Finless CEO Michael Selden told The Spoon in a recent interview. “We should be finished with construction in about three months.”

The dual-pronged strategy of initially releasing a plant-based tuna, the main ingredient of which is winter melon) makes sense for a company with more than $48 million raised. It purports to have a pleasing taste and color and similar mouthfeel to “real” tuna. Focused on Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami, Selden said that it will help in brand building and drive revenue before its cell-cultivated tuna is ready for the market.”

Selden won’t give a specific date for Finless’ plant-based tuna release, but he claims it has received great reviews from its sampling at the South Beach Food and Wine Festival and New York Wine and Food Festival.

Once the joint efforts of the USDA and FDA establish guidelines for lab-grown meat, poultry, and seafood, Seldon said that the initial focus would be on foodservice firms for distribution. He does not rule out a direct-to-consumer play as the market matures.

“That’s something I’d like to do in the future,” Selden said of selling to consumers via a subscription service. “Americans, at least from the data I’ve seen, aren’t used to doing that for seafood.”

“Because it’s a new thing, we wanted people to get used to it in typical settings such as in restaurants,” the Finless CEO added. “From there, If we build a strong brand presence, we can expand and create a more omnichannel approach.”

The is a method to Finless’ madness in selecting Bluefin as its first foray into the cell-cultivate fish business. Seldon said that while other species, such as salmon, have prior established research on their structure, with Bluefin, there is no existing work, making the reward for the company’s efforts much more lucrative.

“We wanted to come out with something people perceive as very high quality,” Selden said. “On top of that, it’s not democratized, which makes it very expensive. Skipjack or Blue Eye (tuna) is 15 dollars a pound. Bluefin is closer to $40 a pound. It also has much higher levels of omegas.”

Japan’s Dainichi Corp is among Finless’ investors, which makes sense given Japan makes up 90% of the world’s consumer consumption of Bluefin tuna. Having a home-grown financial partner will allow Finless to make a quick splash when the Japanese market has its regulatory approval completed.

“It helps with understanding the market,” Selden said of the Japanese opportunity. “For example, Japanese customers like a different cut of tuna. Americans like otoro, the fattiest cut of tuna while in Japan, they prefer chutoro, the second fattiest cut.”

Finless is not alone in the cell-cultivate fish business. Wildtype, a company that recently raised $100 million, is a healthy competitor, although Selden said its focus is more on Amberjack than the more costly Bluefin. San Diego-based BlueNalu is also in the space, but Selden believes the company has yet to develop a working prototype.

Regulation of the cell-based meat, poultry, and seafood world is being mapped out by a joint effort of the USDA and FDA. Although, once rules are finalized, the FDA will have jurisdiction over the seafood space. Singapore and Qatar are the only two countries with regulations for the cell-cultivated food industry. As reported in The Spoon, the Netherlands’ House of Representatives passed a motion to make the sampling of cell-cultured meat legal.

The Netherlands House of Representatives Passes Motion to Legalize Samples of Cell-Cultured Meat

This week, the Netherlands’ House of Representatives passed a motion to make the sampling of cell-cultured meat legal. The passing of the motion, proposed by the D66 and VVD parties, is being hailed by Dutch cell-cultured meat companies as an important step towards legalizing the sale of cell-cultured meat at retail.

Maastricht, Netherlands-based Mosa Meat is famously co-founded by Mark Post, who kickstarted the lab-grown meat industry when he created the world’s first cell-cultured hamburger back in 2013. The company applauded the move by its home country’s government as a first step towards legalizing the consumption of the product.

The move “speaks volumes about the momentum that is building for innovation in sustainable meat production,” the company told Dutch TV organization RTL.

Dutch politicians are understandably proud that their country is seen as the birthplace for cell-cultured meat innovation and see this move as one that will help them continue to stay relevant as startups around the world race to bring their products to market.

“This is a wonderful Dutch invention that can become an important source of food for humans,” said VVD MP Peter Valstar. “But, as with many innovations, we see that European regulations delay development earlier, while the rest of the world is now overtaking us with our own invention.”

Mosa Meat’s Head of Public Affairs, Robert Jones, echoed the sentiment.

“Cellular agriculture is a Dutch invention and we do not want to lose our edge over competitors,” said Jones. “Companies abroad, including Germany, France, and Belgium, are already able to introduce their products to the general public as a way to gain support and acceptance from consumers, which is extremely important.”

The move by the Netherlands is another sign governments around the world recognize the need to pass legal frameworks to legalize the consumption of cell-cultured meat. In the US, the USDA just wrapped up a public comment period that garnered 1,700 comments from industry and private individuals. In many ways, the tone struck by many of the public comments was similar to sentiments expressed by Dutch politicians about the need to create a modern legal framework around lab-grown meat to ensure that their country remains competitive in this fast-changing market.

“Regulatory frameworks need to be redesigned to keep pace with innovation and technology and future-proof our food system,” wrote cellular agriculture research organization New Harvest. “We cannot expect this technology to positively impact our food system when it is built on an outdated regulatory foundation and minimum public scientific data.”

Chipotle Trialing a Tortilla-Making Robot Named Chippy, Eyeing Wider Rollout Later This Year

Today Chipotle announced they have launched Chippy, a tortilla-making robot.

The company is working with Miso Robotics, the company behind the Flippy fast-food robotic arm robot. As you can see below, Chippy is a slightly modified variation of Miso’s Flippy bot, only instead of flipping burgers or frying potatoes, the bot is optimized to make Chipotle’s tortilla chips.

A Look at Chippy, Chipotle's Tortilla-Making Robot

Apparently, the customization for Chippy included producing tortilla chips with varying degrees of seasoning to mimic the imperfect work product of more carbon-based life forms. “Everyone loves finding a chip with a little more salt or an extra hint of lime,” said Nevielle Panthaky, Chipotle’s Vice President of Culinary, in the release. “To ensure we didn’t lose the humanity behind our culinary experience, we trained Chippy extensively to ensure the output mirrored our current product, delivering some subtle variations in flavor that our guests expect.”

According to the release, Chipotle is currently testing Chippy at their innovation hub in Irvine, Calif., with plans to integrate Chippy into a Chipotle restaurant in Southern California later this year.

“The company is leveraging its stage-gate process to listen, test and learn from crew and guest feedback before deciding on a national implementation strategy,” the release said.

In other words, Chipotle is trialing Chippy to evaluate (and possibly prepare for) a potentially wider rollout of the robot to essentially automate the chip-making process.

If we were to predict end-of-year headlines for 2022, one of them could well be “The Year Restaurants Went All In on Robots.” Already we’ve seen news of White Castle and Pizza Hut making significant moves, and yesterday Bear confirmed numerous chains are doubling down on robotic servers. And now, we can add one of the country’s biggest fast-casual chains to the list of restaurants that are experimenting with transitioning one of the core employee functions to automation.

For Miso, the company has continued to gain momentum ever since the commercial launch of their second-generation kitchen robot last year. One reason for the embrace of their new generation robot is its flexibility. The Flippy 2, which the company first trialed at White Castle starting in September of 2020, can make all sorts of hot food, enabling the robot to be plugged into the various kitchens of different chains.

The Spoon Weekly: An OnlyFans for Foodies, Bear Ships 5K Robots, The Mini-Dishwasher Golden Age

This is the Spoon Weekly, a collection of some of the most interesting stories from the past week. Make sure to subscribe to get the top food tech news delivered straight to your inbox.

Can Food-Centric Streaming Platform Kittch Succeed Where Others Have Failed?

In 2016 I got a pitch about a hugely successful entrepreneur who was launching a streaming site dedicated to foodies.

Steve Chen, the co-founder of Youtube, was combining a love of food with his proven experience building online video to launch a new site that would “allow anyone to direct, produce, and host their own food show.” Called Nom, the site debuted at SXSW on March 9, 2016, and went live to the general public a few days later.

Two years and $4.7 million in funding later, Nom shut down.

There have been other sites with similar pitches since 2016, including YesChef, an “online education platform dedicated to cooking” complete with James Beard award-winning chefs like Nancy Silverton to teach cooking techniques and recipes. Or World Chef, a “platform for foodies; a place where truly special Chefs can share their extraordinary food experiences directly with their fans.”

And then was Fanwide’s hot-minute pivot to a chef platform in the middle of the pandemic, or GE’s attempt to create a video streaming platform for chefs called Chibo that has since shuttered.

So you’ll have to forgive me when my first reaction upon hearing the pitch for Kittch, a site that Vanity Fair calls Onlyfans for Chefs, is one of skepticism.

You can read the full story here.

Consumer Kitchen

The Golden Age of Tiny Dishwashers? Bob and Tetra Begin Making Their Way to a Countertop Near You

Ever since we first stumbled upon the diminutive dishwasher named Bob in the basement of the Sands convention center at CES 2019, we’ve been wondering when the little guy would arrive stateside.

The answer is this year. Daan Technology, the French startup behind the Bob, started shipping the small footprint dishwasher in Europe in 2020 and had originally slated the Bob to arrive in the US the same year. While that model Bob stayed in Europe, an updated global version is finally set to start shipping this year.

The company started a Kickstarter campaign this month and has bundles featuring Bob starting at $379 with an expected ship date of September 2022. For those who don’t want to buy through Kickstarter, my guess is the company will begin up selling Bob on its own website later this year.

Order options include a hose to connect the dishwasher to a faucet (Bob also has a one-gallon water reservoir that can be filled manually) and a range of colorful faceplates. The Bob Premium also includes an interesting UV-C ultraviolet option that allows the user to disinfect items (like phones) that can’t get wet.

You can read the full post here. 

Web3/Crypto

This Farmer’s Market Vendor Has Accepted Bitcoin for 5 Years. Here’s How Things Have Changed.

Back in 2017, before much of the general public had given cryptocurrency a second thought, Alessandro Stortini started accepting bitcoin as a form of payment at his local farmer’s market stand, La Pasta.

Since that time, virtual currencies have become mainstream as everyone from grandmas to pro athletes have jumped into the world of crypto. In fact, from 2017 to 2022, the number of crypto wallets went from under 12 million to over 81 million by January of 2022.

If you’re like me, you’d figure with almost seven times as many cryptocurrency wallets out there, the number of people looking to spend their virtual currency to buy pasta at their local farmer’s market would have gone up. Not so, according to Stortini.

“We got way more customers paying with bitcoin in 2017,” Stortini said.

Stortini told me the reason for that is because back in those early days, crypto owners were more willing to use it as a form of payment.

To read the full story, head over to The Spoon.

Emily Elyse Miller Wants to Reinvent Breakfast Cereal. That Means Vegan Ingredients, Edgy Mascots, and (Of Course) NFTs

Emily Elyse Miller knows a thing or two about breakfast.

Not only has the one-time journalist and fashion trends forecaster written a book on the topic (complete with 380 recipes from 80 countries), but she’d also run a consulting company that helped world-renowned chefs like Enrique Olvera develop breakfast events.

But after years of writing and teaching about first-meal, Miller realized that cereal, the centerpiece of the American breakfast for generations of kids and adults, had gone stale. So she decided to start a cereal company of her own to reinvent the category.

Called OffLimits, Miller’s company created a line of irreverent brands like Dash and Zombie, each with its own ‘moody mascot’ and a clean ingredient list.

The funky mascots were important for Miller, because while she loved the rainbow-colored pop culture she grew up with in the cereal aisle, she felt it was time for something new.

“Tony the Tiger is not cool,” said Miller. “Cereal is one of the only products that carry culture in this unique way, and that culture has not been updated in decades.”

Read the full post at The Spoon.

Alternative Protein

SuperMeat Partners With Japanese Food Giant Ajinomoto To Scale Cultivated Meat Production

SuperMeat, a cell-cultured meat company based in Israel, and Ajinomoto, a large Japanese food and biotechnology conglomerate, announced today the formation of a strategic partnership to “to establish a commercially viable supply chain platform for the cultivated meat industry.”

According to the announcement, the partnership, which will include an investment by Ajinomoto in SuperMeat, will combine SuperMeat’s expertise in cultivated meat with Ajinomoto’s R&D technology and expertise in biotech and fermentation capabilities.

One of the main focuses of the new partnership will be in the development of cell-cultured growth media, the broth which contains the nutrients needed for animal cell growth, which remains one of the biggest overall cost drivers in the creation of cultivated meat. According to a study by the Good Food Institute conducted in 2020 of cultivated meat producers, 72% of respondents indicated that cell growth media represented over 50% of their operating costs, and 38% said growth media represented 80% or more of operating costs. By combining SuperMeat’s technology advancements in cultivated meat with Anjinomoto’s biomanufacturing expertise, the two companies hope to drive down costs while increasing the supply of food-grade growth factors.

You can read the full story at The Spoon.

Food Robots

Meet Don Roverto, X’s Robotic Rover on the Hunt for The Next Magic Bean to Feed a Hungry Planet

When you spend thirty years looking for a magic bean, you’re open to a helping hand when trying to find the next one. For the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, that help has arrived in the form of a crop-roving robot nicknamed Don Roverto.

The farmbot is part of Project Mineral, an endeavor from X – Google’s famous R&D subsidiary that researches challenging problems and searches for moonshots – to scale sustainable agriculture. In a blog post published today, project head Elliott Grant describes how Mineral has been assisting the Alliance for Biodiversity and CIAT to accelerate their work to understand and uncover hidden crop traits within the world’s largest bean collection.

From the post:

The Alliance’s team has been using Mineral’s technologies at their newly opened Future Seeds genebank in Colombia, which contains over 36,000 varieties of beans. The hope is that what the Alliance discovers with Mineral’s tools can be used to grow better beans for the world, faster.

According to Andy Jarvis, the Associate Director-General with the Alliance, the organization has spent decades building and analyzing its bean collection. Finally, after thirty years of searching, they found a “magic” bean with intrinsic drought-resistant characteristics. With tools like Don Roverto, the organization can process its discoveries at lightning speed and find the next game-changing bean faster than ever before.

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With 5 Thousand Robots Shipped, Bear Robotics Raises $81 Million Series B to Accelerate Growth and Expand into New Markets

Today restaurant robotics startup Bear Robotics announced they have raised an $81 million Series B. The round was led by IMM, with participation by Cleveland Avenue. The new funding brings the company’s total venture investment to $117 million.

Bear, co-founded by former ex-Googler and restauranteur John Ha, makes server robots that help hospitality businesses do everything from delivering food to tables to bussing tables. A few years ago, the company started trialing its first robot, Penny, in Ha’s restaurant, the Kang Nam Tofu House in Milpitas, CA. Since those early days, the company has shipped 5000 robots, with much of the volume coming last year.

The company has been on a roll lately, winning contracts with big names like Denny’s to Chili’s and a sports stadium or two. Bear’s biggest markets today are in South Korea and Japan, with the US quickly catching up. With their new funding, the company plans to expand further across the US, Europe, and additional countries in southeast Asia

According to Bear COO and cofounder Juan Higueros, the volume they’ve experienced over the past couple of years is the result of a concerted effort to ramp up mass production in 2020.

“It took us all of 2020 to get it done,” Higueros told me via Zoom. “We really started ramping in Q1 of 2020 in the US. It’s been growing at a nice steady pace ever since and we anticipate the US market will continue to grow.”

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We Tried Next Meats Plant-Based Beef and Steak. Here’s Our Review.

One of the most frustrating aspects of eating at dining halls as a college student is the difficulty of finding a quality protein that will make a filling meal. This is probably why I’ve adopted an almost vegetarian diet and although I’m thinking of going fully plant-based, I still sometimes miss the taste of meat. So when Next Meats sent me samples of their plant-based short rib, skirt steak, and beef bowl, I decided to see if I could fully commit to a diet of less meat. 

Next Meats was founded in 2017 in Japan by Ryo Shirai and Hideyuki Sasaki. After three years of research and development, their first products were launched in 2020 and they currently sell plant-based skirt steak, short rib, beef gyudon and chicken. The company, which opened up a new production facility in 2021, launched in the US market early this year and now can be found in supermarkets on the East Coast and California, as well as online for delivery.

Uncooked Next Meat in the frying pan

I invited a vegetarian friend over to try it because I wanted to get her thoughts on it as well. It was my first time cooking plant-based meat, even though I’ve eaten things like Impossible and Beyond Meat. My friend also doesn’t cook a lot of plant-based meat and typically eats eggs and beans since they’re easier to cook and cheaper. 

Next Meats’ products came frozen, and although they can be refrigerated, I kept it frozen and found that it didn’t take long to go from frozen to cooked. We cooked it the way we normally cook meat in a frying pan and ate it with white rice. Since the samples were pre-cooked and pre-seasoned, we didn’t add anything else to the pan except some oil. At first, it was a bit difficult to cook because the product started as a single, unappetizing chunk, and there weren’t any instructions on the packet about how to best cook the meat.

We used a spatula to separate it and it gradually began to look more like meat. Although we were concerned about how long to cook it for and whether it would be better tender or seared, the smell and texture of the meat helped us decide when it was done cooking. Compared to normal meat, the plant-based meat had a similar crispy texture on the outside edges when seared and smelled the same, which is probably because of the way it is seasoned. 

Cooked Next Meat

The flavor of the short rib wasn’t very meaty and it reminded us of Chinese vegetarian duck which is made from bean curd. In fact, all of the samples Next Meats sent me reminded me of that dish which is likely because they are made from non-GMO soy. I liked the flavor of the skirt steak more because it was sweeter and we could taste the flavor of sesame oil. 

My favorite was the beef bowl and it felt easier to cook since the beef was already shredded; even though it still came as a frozen chunk, it was easier to separate and to eat. The flavor was very authentic and reminded me of how my mom prepares beef, which has been hard for me to imitate. It had the perfect balance of sweet and salty, and the pieces of onion were a nice addition. 

Overall, we enjoyed trying Next Meats’ meat and thought that they were tasty products, even if they didn’t taste exactly like real meat. And while Impossible and Beyond burgers taste more like regular meat, there aren’t many brands making plant-based meat inspired by Asian dishes which is why I would eat Next Meats’ plant-based meat again. The authentic flavors, combined with the convenience of the frozen packaging, makes it an easy and filling meal.

With 5 Thousand Robots Shipped, Bear Robotics Raises $81 Million Series B to Accelerate Growth and Expand into New Markets

Today restaurant robotics startup Bear Robotics announced they have raised an $81 million Series B. The round was led by IMM, with participation by Cleveland Avenue. The new funding brings the company’s total venture investment to $117 million.

Bear, co-founded by former ex-Googler and restauranteur John Ha, makes server robots that help hospitality businesses do everything from delivering food to tables to bussing tables. A few years ago, the company started trialing its first robot, Penny, in Ha’s restaurant, the Kang Nam Tofu House in Milpitas, CA. Since those early days, the company has shipped 5000 robots, with much of the volume coming last year.

The company has been on a roll lately, winning contracts with big names like Denny’s to Chili’s and a sports stadium or two. Bear’s biggest markets today are in South Korea and Japan, with the US quickly catching up. With their new funding, the company plans to expand further across the US, Europe, and additional countries in southeast Asia.

Bear Robotics founders. L to R: Juan Higueros (COO), Fangwei Li (CTO), John Ha (CEO)

According to Bear COO and cofounder Juan Higueros, the volume they’ve experienced over the past couple of years is the result of a concerted effort to ramp up mass production in 2020.

“It took us all of 2020 to get it done,” Higueros told me via Zoom. “We really started ramping in Q1 of 2020 in the US. It’s been growing at a nice steady pace ever since and we anticipate the US market will continue to grow.”

With its new funding, the company will be investing in new products as well as expand into new markets. Higueros said the company plans to create a robot model that can travel to multiple floors in a building and create a larger model robot with additional carrying capacity. Beyond that, he said the company is also starting to think about other ways to bring automation to restaurants to help make the lives of service industry workers easier.

“Little things like getting your water or getting your refills on orders. Things like that can be a little more automated.”

Higueros told me the company has already seen the benefits of working with one of its newest investors, Cleveland Avenue, a venture capital firm founded and led by former McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson.

“They’re great to work with just because of the depth of their bench,” said Higueros. “We’re talking folks that have like 30 years of experience at McDonald’s. If there’s somebody you need to know in the industry, they know them.”

While the company isn’t disclosing the valuation for its latest funding round, Higueros says they are comfortable where they came in at.

“We got a pretty good bump from our Series A, and we’re comfortable with that,” he said. “There has been a lot of what’s happening in valuation the past year or two. It’s been really frothy. But if you go into a valuation that’s out of control, then you put yourself at a disadvantage because you have to climb into that.”

“We had a really good year last year. We shipped a lot of robots, and we were even profitable. So we feel good about where we are at.”