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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Podcasts

Food Tech Friday Podcast: Farmbots, Smart Mixers and Cocaine Bear

We’re ramping our Friday food tech casual news podcast back up again, and on this week’s episode, Mike and Carlos talk about some of the stories that caught their attention this week:

You can listen to the conversation below, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us next week on The Spoon’s Crowdcast channel to see the live recording. 

The Secret to Scaling a Plant-Based Meat Startup With Nowadays’ Max Elder

In his previous life, Max Elder worked as a futurist, where he helped food brands develop strategies for the future.

One of his primary motivations in this work was the belief he could help steer these brands away from animal agriculture and toward a future centered around more humane and sustainable foods. Over time, however, Elder realized that to have a meaningful impact, he’d have to create his own product.

“I always thought that I could sneak into the boardroom and try to shift the Titanic,” Elder said. “That was meaningful work, but it’s quite hard to do. Structural sort of incentives aren’t aligned in these kinds of companies. And Titanics sink. That’s the story, right?”

So in late 2020, Elder left his job as a futurist and created a plant-based meat company. With Nowadays, Elder envisions a future where he can have a bigger impact by scaling meat utilizing production techniques perfected for traditional animal agriculture.

“To truly scale these products efficiently so that the category can realize its potential, we have to think more creatively about our manufacturing process, our finishing process, and partnering with existing players across the meat value chain,” Elder said.

He sees many plant-based meat startups trying to create entirely new ways to make their products when, in truth, many existing processes built for the world of animal agriculture work and are already highly scalable.

“A lot of work is being done to recreate wheels,” Elder said. “And the (existing) wheels are cheap, ubiquitous, and super efficient. They’re just pumping out conventional protein that isn’t as good for people or the planet.”

So while Titantics may sink, Elder thinks he has created a way to leverage much of the existing know-how from the old world to lift the tide of alternative proteins by making them more efficient and affordable.

“As a founder, Nowadays is my version of a speedboat. Hopefully, one that we can grow to have impact.”

Elder was this week’s guest on The Spoon podcast, where we talked about his transition from strategist to entreprenuer, and Elder put his futurist hat back on to look at where things are going in the world of alternative protein.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking play below or get it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Restaurant Tech News Pod: Web3 Restaurants, Sweetgreen Robots, Subway Smart Fridge

Last week I caught up with Expedite’s Kristen Hawley to talk about some of the recent happenings in the world of restaurant tech.

Some of the stories we talked about on this episode include:

And more! You can listen to the podcast below or find it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast: The State of Alt-Protein With Po Bronson

When I asked Po Bronson whether people know him more from his past as an author or by his current gig as a venture capitalist, I was surprised by his answer (though I probably shouldn’t have been).

“Everybody comes to me as Po Bronson, the author,” he told me on this week’s Spoon podcast.

Ok, sure, he was one of the go-to writers documenting the first Internet boom and later became a NY Times best-selling author of career advice and parenting books. Still, I figured that by now, almost two decades after the dotcom crash and with Bronson leading one of the food tech industry’s most well-known early-stage funds, things might have changed.

Apparently not.

“I had a call about a year and a half ago, and someone said, ‘I saw your name on the Zoom invite – Are there two Po Bronsons in the world?’ She’s like, ‘I’ve read your books.’ She nearly started crying.”

I’ve read his books as well, and while I didn’t start crying, I did have a great time talking with Po about what the heck is going on in the world of alternative protein. We talked about the struggles of companies like Beyond, how he thinks they will shake out going forward, and what he’s excited about in future food and beyond.

So what gets Bronson excited nowadays? In short, proteins that aren’t necessarily at the ‘center of the plate.’

“We have companies like Voyage Foods and California Cultured, doing chocolate and doing coffee and doing peanut butter more sustainably. There are so many products in the stores that we can reinvent and do better.”

Po had many other great insights, so you’ll want to listen to the full podcast by clicking below or finding it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And, if you want to meet Po in person, he’ll be speaking at The Spoon’s Food Tech Conference at CES!

Podcast: Navigating The World of Patents As a Food Tech Startup

Like many fast-growing industries, the world of food tech relies heavily on intellectual property.

No matter if your startup is building alternative proteins, cooking technology, automation, or some other food tech product, chances are its future success will depend on its IP. But if you’re like me, you find navigating the world of patents confusing. So, I figured why not bring an expert on the podcast to help me (and you) better understand how to navigate the world of patents?

On this episode of the Spoon Podcast, Anas Alfarra joins us to talk food tech and patents. Anas managed IP for one of the world’s biggest industrial equipment makers, has secured his own patent for a food cooking system, and advises startups on how to manage their IP.

  • Topics discussed on this podcast include:
  • What are the different types of patents?
  • What is a provisional patent?
  • How to understand patent strategies of large companies like Amazon and Microsoft
  • The process of applying for a patent
  • And much more!

If you are at all interested in intellectual property and have questions about how to manage it for your food tech startup, this is a must-listen!

You can click play below or find The Spoon podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast: Building a Next-Generation Ingredient Company with Shiru’s Jasmin Hume

As the former head of food chemistry for Eat Just, Dr. Jasmin Hume thought there was a lot of white space for innovation when it came to food ingredients.

She knew food companies would increasingly need new and novel ingredients they could build plant-based food products around, but felt there wasn’t enough research being done to discover these critical building blocks.

So she decided to start a company to do just that. So far, the company has raised over $20 million and recently hired Impossible Foods’ former VP of R&D and strategic ingredients.

On the podcast, Jasmin and I discuss a variety of topics, including:

  • How the alternative protein market is evolving from early fully vertically integrated brands to companies like Shiru that build ingredients and solutions for a variety of companies
  • The new cohort of food companies utilizing AI and ML to build the next generation of food
  • How what Shiru is doing with precision fermentation is different from that of Perfect Day and others trying to create animal-identical proteins
  • Where Jasmin sees the ingredient industry going in the future
  • Plus lots more!

You can listen to the podcast by clicking play below or you can find it at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast: A Challenging Time for Restaurant Tech

In this episode of The Spoon, we are joined by long-time restaurant and restaurant tech journalist Nancy Luna of Insider to compare notes about what’s been a challenging few months for restaurant tech startups.

Some stories we discuss on the show include:

Click play below or find The Spoon podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast: The Hard Business of Building an At-Scale Restaurant Tech Company

Anyone who’s read Jordan Thaeler’s publication Reforming Retail knows he likes to tell it like it is when it comes to restaurant tech.

No matter whether it’s the business model of payment processors or the difficulties of building an at-scale restaurant tech startup, you can find his no-holds-barred analysis on a wide variety of topics on a website he describes as, “a cathartic output to all the nonsense” he sees in the industry.

We thought it would be fun to have Jordan visit the podcast to talk about some of this nonsense and more. On this week’s show we discuss:

  • The challenges of the restaurant tech market and why there aren’t more publicly traded companies to support a restaurant industry with a total market size of over half a trillion dollars
  • Why point of sale is still the focus and starting point for digital transition in restaurants
  • The ghost kitchen and virtual restaurant market
  • Jack Dorsey’s fixation with crypto and the potential impact of Web3/crypto on restaurants
  • And a whole lot more!

Click play below to listen. As always, if you want more Spoon podcasts you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast: Talking Food Waste Reduction (and How We Can All Do More) With Andrew Shakman

Andrew Shakman had a tough job.

In May, the CEO of Leanpath was asked to give a closing message at the annual ReFED Symposium that would inspire attendees and catalyze action. After two full days of engaging talks and shared insights, he delivered, so we thought we would have Andrew come on the podcast to discuss some of what he shared and to discuss how the food waste reduction space has changed in the 20 or so years he’d been running the company he founded.

Some of the topics discussed on the podcast include:

  • How the food waste technology market has evolved in the past decade
  • Opportunities across the food value chain where innovation can make an impact in reducing overall food waste
  • How food service operators and other food organizations can make a bigger impact than they realize
  • The challenges of the home/consumer market for food waste reduction and where Andrew thinks solution providers can make an impact
  • And lots more!

To listen, click play below or listen on your device via your favorite podcast app. As always, you can find more Spoon podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.

Food Tech News Pod: The Wendyverse, 15-Minute Grocery Struggles & Roku’s Big Food Play

It’s another weekly food tech new wrap-up.

The stories we discuss this week include:

As always, you can find more episodes of The Spoon Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also just click play below to listen to today’s show.

Podcast: Electrolux’s Kitchen of the Future & Other Food Tech News of the Week

Can the design of your kitchen change how and what you eat? Electrolux thinks so.

In this week’s episode of the Spoon podcast’s food tech news wrapup, we discuss Electrolux’s new kitchen concept called GRO. Other stories discussed on the show include:

As always, you can click below to listen or subscribe to The Spoon on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The Spoon Podcast: ‘Peach Tree’ Dishes & Restaurants in the Metaverse

It’s been a while, but we’re cranking up the podcast machine to bring you a weekly food tech news wrap-up.

In this week’s show, cohost Ashley Daigneault and I talk about:

You can listen to the podcast by clicking play below or finding it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.