Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

News

FryAway Turns Your Used Cooking Oil Into a Disposable Solid

When used cooking oil gets poured down the drain, it doesn’t disappear. It ends up in sewer systems, where it congeals. Over time, more oil and other debris amasses, forming blockages called fatbergs—which cost some cities millions of dollars per year to clean up, and can also cause sewer overflows that pollute surrounding waters.

The alternative method for getting rid of cooking oil—pouring it into a plastic container or glass jar, waiting for it to congeal, and then throwing it away—isn’t perfect, either, as it relegates a recyclable container to a landfill.

FryAway offers another solution. The plant-based powder transforms liquid oil into a solid that can be scooped out of the pan or fryer and thrown away. This week, The Spoon joined FryAway’s founder and CEO Laura Lady on Zoom to find out where the idea came from, and how the product works.

The story of FryAway starts with Lady’s own love of cooking. “Not only am I from New Orleans, I’m also a Latina from New Orleans, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that we love fried foods,” she told The Spoon. “I cook a lot at home. I fry a lot. I am guilty of having poured oil down the drain and not really thinking about where it went.”

Lady first learned about fatbergs and sewer overflow through conversations with friends. At one dinner party, a friend brought up a Japanese product that solidified cooking oil, making it easier to throw away. The idea caught Lady’s interest, and after looking into the product, she decided to develop a similar solution for the U.S. market.

Before FryAway, Lady worked in marketing and product development for children’s toys. “I think product development in general is very much about solving problems creatively. When it comes to toys, you’re trying to figure out how to bring a character to life,” she said. In founding FryAway, she carried over that problem-solving experience into the food space. “It was like bringing two universes together—one being my love for building brands and products, and the other being my love for food.”

During the product development process, Lady drew on chemistry knowledge from her undergraduate years. “I started researching, reading, trying to figure out how an oil could be solidified,” she said. “And I came across the process of hydrogenation, where you add hydrogen to a molecule to harden it.”

Hydrogenation is a familiar term because the process is used in the food industry. Margarine, for example, is made by solidifying vegetable oil using hydrogen-rich saltwater. And that’s basically how FryAway works: You stir the product (a hydrogenated fatty acid) into your used cooking oil while it’s still hot, and a reaction occurs between the two, causing the fat to solidify.

“Once the mixture cools down to room temperature, you start seeing that transformation from liquid to a gelatinous form to a waxy, hard substance that can then be tossed in the trash,” Lady said. “As it solidifies, it will also trap all of that gunk and debris that’s left behind when you’re frying, so that all of that comes out of the pan in one easy step.”

Two versions of the product (one for pan frying, and one for deep frying) are available to consumers on the company’s website and via Amazon. The team is mostly relying on word-of-mouth marketing to raise awareness about the product.

While larger commercial kitchens are already required to use oil remediation services and grease traps, there could be applications for FryAway in smaller restaurants and catering operations, Lady said.

The company has plans to launch a third product in early 2022, and after that, Lady will continue to explore other solutions for repurposing used cooking oil. Driving that expansion and exploration is the idea that we all want to take care of our shared infrastructure and environment—but need simple ways to improve our habits. “At the end of the day,” Lady said, “it’s about making life easier for those of us who love to cook.”

Amazon Alexa Expands Food Personalization Features With Launch of ‘What to Eat’

Last week, Amazon launched a new personalized meal recommendation feature for Alexa called ‘What to Eat?’. The new capability, which was part of a slate of new features for Alexa first teased at the end of September, gives users recommendations for restaurants, recipes, prepared items, and more based on their preferences.

What to Eat is an expansion of the personalized food recommendation capabilities of Alexa that the company began rolling out earlier this year with the ‘What’s for Dinner’ feature. Where What’s for Dinner offers personalized recipe ideas based on past purchase behavior, What to Eat goes a step further by recommending options based on a user’s dietary preferences and restrictions shared with Alexa.

Once a user asks, “Alexa, what should I eat?” the voice assistant will share recommendations for restaurants, recipes, prepared food, and meal kits. Users can share their preferences and restrictions by telling Alexa to “open my food preferences.” From there, they can choose a primary diet profile from many choices that include vegetarian, paleo, keto, kosher and more. They can also add various dietary preferences such as low-salt, gluten-free, low-carb, egg-free, and more.

I tried out What to Eat on my Echo Show. After asking Alexa, a screen popped up with a Blue Apron meal recommendation at the top and then buttons for restaurants, recipes, and prepared food recommendations.

Once I clicked a level down from each topline option, I got more choices from Alexa. For example, under recipes, I chose a shoppable recipe from Amazon partner SideChef. Once there, I had my choice of step-by-step instructions for the recipe, adding ingredients to a shopping list or directly to my Amazon Fresh cart.

When choosing restaurants, a ‘nearby restaurants’ screen popped up with three options less than a mile from my home. From there, I could filter by delivery, pickup, reservations, or open now.

When I clicked on prepared foods, a screen popped up with Whole Foods chicken tortilla soup as the featured item, as well as the option to filter by Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, or food type (salad, soup, vegan, etc.).

This evolution of Alexa’s meal personalization capabilities gives Amazon monetization opportunities through a user filling up their e-commerce basket with ingredients via a shoppable recipe, selling prepared foods from Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods, or by gathering a spiff for a restaurant recommendation. While not all of these opportunities are created equal – Amazon obviously gets a bigger share of the spend when customers add a recipe to their Amazon Fresh basket as compared to when a user eats out at a local restaurant – What to Eat entrenches Amazon deeper into the decision-making process of the consumer.

It also shows the uneven playing field for Amazon’s kitchen commerce efforts compared to other voice assistant players. After helping to create the category in 2015, Amazon continues to be the runaway leader in the US smart speaker market share, logging 69% of all installed speakers as of mid-2021. A good chunk of those smart assistants resides in the kitchen where users often will ask for recommendations, add things to a shopping list, and more. All that activity enables Amazon to profile us and, now, make money at every step in the meal journey.

The head of Alexa’s kitchen team, Mara Segal, talks about the new feature and how it allows Amazon to touch the meal journey from end to end in her interview for Amazon Devices’ blog:

“Customers consume roughly 20 meals for the week,” Segal said. “Finding a recipe, getting groceries, picking restaurants, and cooking a meal—it all takes time. We think customers will be excited to break out of their routines and get quick, personalized assistance. With What to Eat and our suite of Alexa Kitchen features, we can make the food journey easier end-to-end—getting that great idea, saving favorites from different food and recipe providers in one place, adding ingredients to the Alexa shopping list or cart, and cooking meal kits or recipes hands-free with Alexa’s assistance.”

Nuritas Raises a $45 Million Series B Round For AI-Powered Peptide Discovery

Ingredients startup Nuritas announced earlier this month that it has completed a $45 million Series B round. The new funding will help the company to expand globally and scale its tech platform for peptide discovery.

Like proteins, peptides are made up of amino acids. But while proteins consist of long chains of amino acids, peptides are smaller and easier for the body to break down. Nuritas uses its artificial intelligence-powered tech platform to look for new, bioactive peptides in familiar food sources. The resulting ingredients are likely to find applications in the next wave of plant-derived nutritional supplements.

After the artificial intelligence platform makes its predictions about useful peptides, the Nuritas team produces them in experimental quantities and performs in vitro, cell-based testing. If that initial testing confirms the platform’s predictions, the team scales up production, and then moves to preclinical and clinical testing phases to understand the peptides’ effects on human health.

Since its founding in 2014, Nuritas has launched PeptiYouth™, an ingredient that the company says improves cellular regeneration to slow visible signs of aging. They’ve also introduced PeptiStrong™, discovered in fava beans, which improves muscle synthesis and reduces muscle loss. The company plans to introduce both products to the market in early 2022.

The team has established partnerships with big food industry names, including Nestle and Mars. They also plan to explore applications for peptide ingredients in the medical food and cosmetics industries.

Nuritas’ Series B round was led by Cleveland Avenue, a Chicago-based venture capital firm and accelerator for food and restaurant tech startups. (Also in Cleveland Avenue’s portfolio are Beyond Meat and Bartesian, the countertop cocktail-mixing robot.) Participants included food and agriculture investors Wheatsheaf Group and Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, and the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund.

“Our new investors bring a wealth of invaluable expertise,” company founder and CEO Dr. Nora Khaldi said in a press release, “and this latest round will help to build our US headquarters, continue to expand our team, scale our platform to discover more life-changing ingredients and accelerate our route to market.”

Last year, The Spoon noted the rise of computational biology startups taking a targeted approach to ingredient discovery. Nuritas currently boasts the largest peptide knowledge base in the world—and with tools like machine learning becoming more and more relevant to food innovation, that invisible infrastructure could position the company to play a big role in the ingredients supply chain of the future.

Alt. Protein Round-Up: Microalgae Cheddar and Redefine Meat’s Commercial Launch

Many voiced frustrations that at the recent COP26 summit (2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference), food and agriculture were largely left out of the conversation about climate change. In the food tech space, climate change, sustainability, and food security is often the forefront of the conversation. Animal agriculture is known to be harmful to the environment and a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, while alternative protein sources are frequently cited as a potential solution.

One voice at COP26 that made sure to touch on animal agriculture and alternative protein was the CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, Pat Brown. During his opportunity to talk, Brown said that if we end animal agriculture, we will be able essentially to turn back the clock environmentally to the year 2000. Alternative meat analogs (like Impossible’s) offer a solution to make animal protein obsolete (according to Brown).

In other alt-protein news this week, we’ve gathered stories on Sophie’s Bionutrients, Redefine Meat, Helaina, and Next Gen Foods. Read on!

Photo of Sophie’s Bionutrient’s microalgae milk, which is the base of its new cheddar cheese product

Sophie’s Bionutrient’s launches cheese made from algae

Singapore-based Sophie’s Bionutrients grows microalgae in bioreactors, and this week, the company unveiled that it has developed alternative cheddar cheese in partnership with Ingredion Idea Labs innovation center. The cheese is made from a base of the company’s microalgae milk, which was announced in May of this year as the first dairy-free milk made from this ingredient. Alternative dairy and cheese products are commonly made from soy, coconut, cashew, and oats, but as far as e know, Sophie’s is the first to use microalgae for this application. The novel cheese product aims to mimic the sharp taste and texture of semi-hard cheddar cheese, and a single serving of it will offer double the recommended amount of vitamin B12.

Redefine Meat Commercially Launches Plant-Based Whole Cuts of Meat

Israel-based Redefine Meat has created a line of whole cut plant-based meats called New Meat This week, the company parterened with chefs throughout the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and Israel for the initial commercial launch of New Meat in high-end restaurants. The first meat analogs in the New Meat line up include beef and lambs cuts, including kebabs, sausages, ground meat, and burgers. Mimicing the texture of real meat within alternative protein products has been a challenge, and a many companies in this space have been vying to commercially launch a viable product as REdefine Meat has now done.

Precision fermentation company Helaina raises $20 million for breast milk proteins

Helaina uses precision fermentation to create immune-equivalent proteins found in breast milk, and this week the start-up announced that it has raised $20 million in funding. The Series A round was co-led by Spark Capital and Siam Capital along with other investors, bringing the company’s total funding to $24.5 million. The new capital will be put towards itsmanufacturing and commercialization process, building its team, and executing its go-to-market strategy.

Next Gen Foods Launches TiNDLE Plant-Based Chicken in Amsterdam, Opens Innovation Center in Singapore

Singapore-based startup Next Gen Foods announced last week that its flagship alternative chicken product (named TiNDLE) has touched down in Amsterdam restaurants. TiNDLE debuted in Singapore in early 2021 before launching in Hong Kong, Macau, Kuala Lumpur, and the UAE. The Amsterdam launch marks the beginning of TiNDLE’s expansion into Europe and beyond: Next Gen plans to introduce the product in Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. next year. Read the full article here.

Walmart’s Had a Big Month When it Comes to Autonomous Robot Delivery

It’s bragging time in Bentonville.

That’s because America’s biggest grocery retailer recently achieved two big milestones in autonomous delivery.

The first milestone is on the autonomous middle-mile front where Walmart and partner Gatik announced they had initiated daily driverless-truck delivery in Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart had started working with the maker of middle-mile autonomous box trucks in 2019 and by last December, the two received approval from the Arkansas State Highway Commission to remove drivers from the vehicles. In August, the two started trialing autonomous delivery runs between Walmart dark stores and local markets. And last week, the companies announced they are doing multiple driver-less truck runs per day, seven days a week.

The Gatik Autonomous Delivery Vehicle Delivering Products for Walmart

The other big autonomous delivery news for Walmart is the launch of the company’s drone delivery service.

This week the retailer’s drone partner Zipline announced the two had launched a drone delivery service in the northwestern Arkansas of Pea Ridge. Zipline’s technology utilizes a 25-foot take-off and landing platform which is located directly behind the Walmart Neighborhood Market location in Pea Ridge. There, a Walmart employee hands a package to a Zipline employee, who will then load the package into the belly of the drone for delivery. Once the drone reaches the delivery destination, the package is dropped over its target, where it will float down to earth thanks to an attached biodegradable parachute. The service area is within a 50-mile radius of the store.

The launch of drone delivery has been a long time in the making for Walmart. The company first started testing drones way back in 2015 and, ever since that time, has been running pilots and inking partnerships. In the meantime, Walmart’s competitors have been investigating drone delivery, which is perhaps why the giant retailer has picked up the pace over the past year.

Zipline Partners With Walmart on Commercial Drone Delivery

So Walmart appears to be making headway in drones and autonomous middle mile delivery, but what about road or sidewalk delivery to consumers? The last time we heard of Walmart making any moves in that space was when the company trialed with Nuro and Udelv in 2019, but they’ve been relatively quiet on that front. And as for sidewalk bots, the company hasn’t really shown any interest publicly, but that’s not to say they aren’t talking to folks.

Serve Robotics Adds Former GoPro Exec To Lead Development of Autonomous Sidewalk Robots

Serve Robotics has hired Euan Abraham to head up the development of the company’s autonomous sidewalk delivery robots, the company has told The Spoon. Abraham, who in the past led the development of GoPro’s Karma drone and has also had stints leading engineering teams at Apple and smart lock company Otto, will become the company’s Vice President of Hardware Engineering effective January 2022.

The new hire is a sign the company is entering a new phase, according to Serve’s CEO, Ali Kashani, who sat down with The Spoon this week to talk about the hiring of Abraham.

A big focus for Abraham will be to take a company that has primarily been focused early on developing a robot and optimizing its capabilities through its initial trials in West Hollywood to one that can deploy large fleets at scale across multiple markets.

“This is a space that has kind of reached readiness for scale,” Kashani told The Spoon. “So we are at a very pivotal point where we are no longer trying to develop something. We have developed something, and now we are putting it to use.”

It’s not just about scaling but getting better, according to Kashani. “It’s easy to get distracted with scale where you lose your innovative edge. We want to continue to iterate on our hardware, and we don’t want to stop here. We want to keep making it better.”

The areas where Kashani thinks Serve can get better are areas where he believes the company already stands out from its peer group, the first of which is autonomy. He says Serve’s robots do most of the driving themselves, which has enabled Serve’s human teleoperators to manage more than one robot at a time.

This high level of autonomy wouldn’t be possible without the Serve’s built-in safety systems, another area where Kashani believes his robots stand out.

“Our robots have a lot of onboard safety mechanisms so that they can be independent. They can be there by themselves.,” Kashani said. “At the same time, they also have people backing them up. So we have the best of both worlds.”

Serve’s other major differentiator isn’t a technical one, but it may be the company’s biggest ace in the hole: its relationship with Uber. Earlier this year, Uber spun out the robot group which it had acquired as part of the Postmates acquisition, and this month, Serve announced that Uber would be the company’s first commercial partner. The two companies plan to roll out a fleet of robots to deliver food to Uber Eats customers across the LA market in 2022.

While Abraham’s hiring is undoubtedly a significant strategic move for the company, Kashani says they aren’t done. With Uber’s rollout of autonomous delivery and Serve eyeing new markets like the Bay area, Kashani says Serve has several areas the company is looking for more talent, including autonomous driving, operations, supply chain, and HR.

“We are always looking for kind of more folks to join,” Kashani said. “It’s a never-ending kind of story.

Starbucks and Amazon Combine Forces to Create a Cashierless Coffee Shop

Wonder Twin powers, activate: Form of a cashierless coffee shop.

That’s right, today two Seattle-based giants, Starbucks and Amazon, announced they’ve combined their formidable superpowers to create a cashierless coffee shop. The new shop, called Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go, debuts today in New York City.

The new Pickup store uses Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, a system that features a variety of cutting-edge tech like computer vision and IoT sensors, as well as Amazon’s bio-authentication hand-scanning technology, Amazon One.

Here’s how it works: Customers order through the Starbucks app and can check order status on a digital screen. When it’s ready, coffee is picked up directly from the barista. The Pickup store also includes a mini-Go store stocked with snack and lunch items, as well as a lounge area. Access to both the store and the lounge is enabled through a one-time code from the Amazon Go app, a credit card swipe, or checking in via Amazon One’s hand-ID system. Once authenticated, customers can drop items from the store into their cart and will be charged once they leave.

The lounge is slightly different from the usual Starbucks store format in that it features individual work cubbies alongside the standard tables and chairs. Each cubby is equipped with USB ports and power outlets.

According to a company spokesperson, the two companies plan to open two additional Pickups over the next year, with the second one slated to open in the New York Times building. Beyond that, the company isn’t saying, but given Starbucks’ focus on upgrading their formats to enable quicker service and less overall contact post-pandemic, my guess is that if the initial stores work well, the Pickup format will become a go-to for Starbucks moving forward.

You can see the store in the B-roll provided by Starbucks below:

Starbucks Pickup Store, Featuring Amazon Just Walk Out Technology

Let’s Order a Pizza(bot)! Picnic Reveals Pricing, Opens Ordering For Pizza Robot

So you want to deploy a pizza robot? Seattle-based Picnic has you covered (as long as you can cover their monthly fees, that is).

And now we know what that pricing looks like because the pizza robot startup just opened up reservations for their pizza bot on their website.

Starting this week, operators who want to reserve a Picnic pizza robot can choose from two off-the-shelf configurations: “The Essential” or “The Works.” The Essential configuration is your basic pizza workhorse, a robot that can build up to 100 pies per hour with cheese, sauce, and fresh-sliced pepperoni. The Works configuration has additional toppings capability, allowing operators to add sausage, mushrooms, and onions – or whatever toppings they like – up to three total. An additional toppings module is available for The Works for an additional charge.

Both Picnic models can be configured to work with varying dough thickness (up to 2 inches max) and pizza sizes of 12″, 14″, and 16″. The operator can also customize the system to add ingredients in whatever order they prefer, and both models can be configured to have the conveyor system work left to right or right to left.

Those familiar with the Picnic robot know that the system is designed today for solely adding stuff on top of the pizza. Company CEO Clayton Wood has previously told The Spoon that while Picnic robots will someday have the capability to create the dough pies and cook the pizza, the initial focus is on the most “work-intensive” part of pizza-making: adding sauce, cheese, and toppings.

Like many food robotics startups, Picnic uses a robotics-as-a-service pricing model. Baseline pricing for the Essential configuration is $3500 a month for a three-year term, while the Works is $4500 a month for three years. Both models can be reserved with a $250 deposit.

If all that sounds good and you are looking to deploy a Picnic in your restaurant, you’d better hurry. According to Picnic, the systems are sold out for Q1 of next year, and there is extremely limited inventory left for Q2. However, things start to look better in the second half of next year, and both models are widely available for Q4.

The Kingfish Company Wants to Lead a Tech Revolution in Aquaculture

Earth’s ocean ecosystems are deteriorating. Wild fish stocks are increasingly vulnerable. And yet by the year 2050, global demand for seafood may have increased by as much as 80%, according to research from the Blue Food Assessment.

The Kingfish Company wants to help satisfy some of that demand while reducing the environmental toll of seafood production. The agtech company launched its first land-based aquaculture production facility in the Netherlands before introducing its flagship line of yellowtail kingfish products in Whole Foods Markets across the U.S. Soon, Kingfish will bring its production operations to the U.S. with a new facility in Maine.

Earlier this week, The Spoon joined Kingfish founding partner and CEO Ohad Maiman on Zoom to find out more about the company’s aquaculture technology and plans for expansion.

Why land-based aquaculture?

Traditional aquaculture has raised global seafood production capacity in recent decades, but alarms have been raised recently about the industry’s environmental impacts. Traditional fish farms can create toxic algal blooms and ocean dead zones; farmed fish can also transmit diseases to already-vulnerable wild populations. In response to these concerns, Washington state banned salmon farming in 2018, and Argentina became the first country to ban the practice this year.

Kingfish aquaculture farm

Traditional aquaculture can’t solve the seafood industry’s supply bottleneck problem, which is why the Kingfish team saw the need for an alternative model. “Thinking about the next 30 years of continued growth in demand for seafood, we saw the need for a technological solution,” Maiman told The Spoon.

Kingfish aims to solve some of the problems of traditional aquaculture, the biggest of which is ocean pollution. In underwater cage farming, animal waste and uneaten feed get released into the surrounding water. In Kingfish’s system, the flow of water is more controlled: Water is cleaned on its way into the system to maintain optimal conditions, and cleaned again on its way out to the sea.

The controlled nature of Kingfish’s farm environment also allows the company to prevent parasites or diseases from entering the system, eliminating the need to administer antibiotics or other medications (another problem of traditional aquaculture).

There’s also the problem of seafood feed: Some traditional aquaculture operations use massive quantities of wild fish to feed their farmed species. The use of lower-grade feed in traditional aquaculture can also lead to less nutritious seafood products. Because Kingfish operates in the premium seafood space, the company can source higher-quality feed options and cut down on marine ingredients—replacing fish meal with insect meal, for example.

Inside a land-based fish farm

It would be counter-intuitive if Kingfish’s land-based aquaculture system involved pulling fish from the sea and ranching them. Instead, the company maintains several broodstocks of yellowtail kingfish on-site, and uses them to sustainably generate new generations of fish.

Kingfish’s system mimics the seasonal light and temperature conditions that the fish would experience in the wild. “When the light lasts longer and the water temperature rises, and they feel it’s spring, they spawn eggs,” Maiman said.

The hatchery and larval rearing phases are key for the company, as there are no commercial sources for yellowtail kingfish fingerlings or eggs. The fish spend about 15 days in this phase, at the end of which they measure about an inch in length. Then they’re transferred to the main system, where they live for up to 11 months.

Juvenile fish at Kingfish aquaculture farm

To slaughter the animals as painlessly as possible, the company uses an electric stunner. “By the time they are harvested, they are stunned,” Maiman said. “They immediately lose consciousness at that moment and then they die in cold water, but no longer feel it.”

At Kingfish’s Netherlands facility, the system that supports the animals throughout their life cycle is run using 100% renewable energy. At the planned facility in Maine, the company anticipates that they’ll be able to source about 50% of their energy from renewables. Kingfish is also seeking out partnerships with new renewables projects in the area, as the company can commit to the long-term offtake that new projects need to take off.

The future of fish farming

As a high-value, import-dependent species, the yellowtail kingfish was an ideal pilot fish for the company. “If you go to Nobu and have yellowtail jalapeno sashimi, it will typically be flown in from Japan or Australia,” Maiman said. “We are the largest local producer in Europe and are working toward doing the same in the U.S.” By offering a domestic source for yellowtail in Europe and North America, the company can both cut the product’s transportation footprint and provide fresher fish.

Kingfish began by addressing demand for yellowtail kingfish from Japanese and Italian restaurants, but the company also sells its products in grocery stores. According to Maiman, the team is aiming for a roughly 50-50 split between sales in restaurants and high-end retail stores.

The company went public in Norway last year, and is using that fundraise to grow its Netherlands production capacity. The team is also working on pre-construction and engineering for the new Jonesport, Maine facility, and scouting out future sites in southern Europe and the West Coast of the U.S.

With this expansion, Kingfish plans to boost its yellowtail kingfish capacity—and, eventually, to begin producing its next fish species. An internal group nicknamed Kingfish X is currently deciding which species that will be. Maiman couldn’t go into detail about which fish are being considered, but he did hint that the team is looking for another import-dependent, high-value species.

The company’s overarching goal is to be at the forefront of a technology-driven paradigm shift in aquaculture. “Within the last year or two, this technology has crossed the rubicon from an experimental to a commercially viable technology,” Maiman said.

“At some point, any new technology becomes less of a mystery—and then it’s the first few companies that have been able to build scale and establish a market position that lead the sector.”

Food & Ag-Tech Companies Make TIME’s Best 100 Inventions of 2021 List

Every year, TIME puts together a list of 100 inventions that change the way we live for the better. The publication judges contenders, who were nominated by TIME’s editors and correspondents, based on creativity, originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact.

The list spans multiple categories, such as accessibility, artificial intelligence, consumer electronics, fitness, medical care, transportation, and of course, food and drink. This year the list featured a whole bunch of food tech, including many companies The Spoon has previously covered like SAVRPak, MeliBio, InnerPlant, and Upside Foods.

Here are just a few that made the list:

Kuleana

This San-Francisco-based food tech start-up has developed a “sushi-grade” plant-based tuna made from ingredients like algae, koji, radish, bamboo, and potato. Kuleana‘s tuna deep red color mimics ahi tuna, and it also contains nutrients like B-12, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids. Like regular tuna, alternative tuna filet can be eaten in poke bowls, sushi, and ceviche. The start-ups next planned product is plant-based salmon.

SAVRPak

The goal of SAVRPak is to eliminate food waste, and keep delivery food warm and not soggy. In October of this year, the company unveiled a prototype of its delivery packaging aimed at keeping food at 140o or above for more than 20 minutes. The start-up has also developed small packs that can be placed inside to-go food boxes that absorb moisture to keep food fresh and crisp.

Sfoglini Cascatelli

This invention is relatively low-tech, but as one of the three best inventions in the “food and drink” category, it’s worth a mention. Dan Pashman, foodie and the host of The Sporkful podcast, could not find a pasta shape that held the ideal amount of pasta sauce, stayed on the fork, and was satisfying to sink your teeth into. He, therefore, decided to invent, the Cascatelli pasta, which is a short, ruffled noodle that has a half tube shape. The pasta is manufactured by pasta company Sfoglini, and it costs $19.96 for 4 lbs.

MeliBio

Using synthetic biology and precision fermentation, MeliBio has developed plant-based honey that has the same taste, texture, and mouthfeel as honey made from bees. Earlier this year in March, the start-up raised a pre-seed round totaling $850,000. To hear more about the company, watch The Spoon’s interview with the founder Darko Mandich.

Upside Foods

Upside Foods announced in May of this year that its first product will be cultured chicken, which is still pending regulatory approval. Since then, the start-up unveiled its state-of-the-art facilities (totaling 53,000 square feet) in Emeryville, California where it will be capable of producing up to 50,000 pounds of cultivated chicken every year. Check out a glimpse inside the new facilities here.

InnerPlant Innersoy Living Sensor

InnerPlant edits the DNA of plants to enable them to glow a certain color when the plant is stressed from lack of water or under attack from pests or fungal infection. The start-up has so far worked with tomato and Arabidopsis plants, and InnerSoy is the plant it is currently working on commercializing. InnerPlant recently gave The Spoon an exclusive viewing of its glowing living sensor plants, and you can watch the video here.

Meet Nommi, a Robotic Bowl Food Kiosk Designed by Wavemaker, C3, and Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto

Today Wavemaker Labs announced the launch of a new startup and bowl-making robotic kiosk concept called Nommi. Nommi will be “a standalone robotic kitchen that is able to produce and dispense any grain-, noodle- or lettuce-based dish through a fully integrated cooking system.”

Nommi is the latest robot startup concept to emerge from Wavemaker Labs, the food automation incubation studio behind Miso Robotics (Flippy, a back-of-house fry and grillbot), Bobacino (boba drinkbot), Future Acres (farm assistant) and Piestro (pizza kiosk). What’s unique about Nommi is the company is a product of a partnership between Wavemaker, C3 and chef Masaharu Morimoto, each of whom hold equity in the new company.

“As we started developing it, we really wanted to get partners to allow this to scale quickly, and really kind of stack the deck before we start playing,” said Buck Jordan, President and Co-Founder of Nommi and CEO of Wavemaker Labs, in a recent zoom interview with The Spoon.

C3, which has made a name for itself over the past couple of years for its aggressive expansion into virtual food haul concepts, has plans to order up to one thousand Nommi units over the next few years. While Jordan and C3 envision the Nommi augmenting some physical restaurant locations, the primary focus for the bowl food robot will be food delivery.

“We’re building this to be really delivery accessible,” said Jordan. “Delivery is going to double over the next five years, and so we want to be part of that.”

According to Jordan, while the initial machine will be designed to assemble food bowls that can be handed off to humans for delivery, Nommi envisions a future that will be roboticized from end to end.

The system is “designed and go through our system to be picked up by the regular delivery apps by human,” said Jordan. “But in the long term, we are trying to figure out a way to have a robotic transfer system to some of these robotic delivery machines out there to make a full end to end.”

Chef Morimoto will run the first Nommi, featuring menu items from his Sa’Moto restaurant brand. According to Jordan, Morimoto’s input had a significant impact on the robot design.

“Chef Morimoto wants really high-quality food,” said Jordan. “There’s no compromising when it when he puts his name on it.”

Because Morimoto wanted to delicately place ingredients in each food bowl, Nommi’s design team endeavored to build a robot capable of such high-fidelity food-making. This resulted in a wheeled cart system that moves around under food dispensing stations and rotates up to 360 degrees for precision ingredient placement. You can watch the Nommi assembling bowls via its wheeled cart system in the video below.

The Nommi Bowl Making Kiosk

Nommi fills a hole in Wavemaker’s portfolio for a fully automated bowl kitchen kiosk. Wavemaker’s most well-known food robot startup, Miso, makes back-of-house robots for fry and grill work. Piestro makes consumer-facing pizza robot kiosks. With Nommi, the company has designed a flexible bowl-food robot that, according to Jordan, is flexible enough to replicate a variety of menus from high-end chefs.

“There will be brands built from the ground up to be automated,” said Jordan. “And so we want to take the best in class food from Michelin star chefs and bring fine dining to the masses. We want to do in a fully automated way and be able to have a grain bowl made by Morimoto cost the same as a Big Mac.”

Each Nommi machine has a capacity for up to 330 bowls and lids. Each kiosk will come with up to 21 food lockers that hold finished bowls. Customers or food delivery workers can pick up the food at the kiosk using a QR code.

According to Jordan, the company hopes to start shipping its production unit in 2023.

A Conversation With Buck Jordan of Nommi

Kristen Barnett Launches Hungry House, an ‘Anti-Ghost Kitchen’ Ghost Kitchen

It seems a day doesn’t go by nowadays without a new ghost kitchen concept popping up.

While all that growth can be exciting, the ghost kitchen land grab has its downsides, at least according to Kristen Barnett. The former COO of ghost kitchen startup Zuul told me today in a video call that the industry’s rapid expansion has often meant low-quality food, a lack of transparency, and, well, just way too many chicken wing restaurants.

To counter this, Barnett has launched a new company called Hungry House, which she describes as an ‘anti-ghost kitchen ghost kitchen.’

What does that mean?

“We are actively being intentional about some of the more negative sides of the ghost kitchen industry that the public has come to know,” said Barnett. “Hungry House really was created as a reaction to that, seeing a way to flip those maybe less than ideal characteristics of the industry on its head and say ‘No, what happens if we infuse transparency, we tell customers it’s Hungry House making the food, we have a physical storefront that people can actually order at and see the kitchen and see the team?'”

To do all that, Barnett’s plan is to be transparent about where the food is made and who is making it and to have tight control over the quality. That means growth will be purposeful in the beginning as the company builds its business one kitchen – and chef – at a time.

“I wanted to create Hungry House as the partner of choice for what I believe to be the next generation of culinary leaders who have different career paths than in the past.” According to Barnett, that next-generation leader might be a food truck operator or someone who has proven themselves a culinary innovator on social media but may not want to run a full restaurant.

One such creator is Woldy Reyes.

“Woldy is this incredible Filipino chef who has really well attended pop ups throughout Brooklyn,” said Barnett. “He’s known for his signature menu items, yet he’s been running a catering business, not necessarily operating restaurants, and he’s been able to do all of that. So it made a lot of sense for him as someone who has really well developed recipes, but didn’t necessarily know exactly what it would take to run a restaurant and figuring all of that out wasn’t necessarily in his career plan.”

Barnett’s approach to creating high-touch kitchens and working closely with emerging voices with strong culinary visions is a marked contrast to the high-profile celebrity virtual restaurant concepts being spun out these days.

“These celebrities are definitely capitalizing on great content,” said Barnett. “But is it necessarily going to be executed in a way that creates true long term value in a food brand? I don’t think so. I don’t think many of these are going to be around.”

Barnett’s plan is slowly expand Hungry House over the next year into Manhattan and see where it goes from there. She said the company would be raising a seed round to grow the team, build out their tech stack and expand into new cities.

At the top of her list? LA, New York and Miami.

“With those cities locked down, really anything as possible when it comes to using our model to launch high quality brands that come from either chefs, celebrities, CPG brands,” said Barnett. “That’s the type of world I want to create – where there is true innovation, there are new things being launched, and new stories being told.”

You can watch my full interview with Barnett below:

The Spoon Talks with Hungry House Founder Kristen Barnett