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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Smart Kitchen Summit

Goodr Raises $1.25M to Get Surplus Food From Corporations to Communities in Need

It’s a banner day for food waste startups around the world. Earlier today San Francisco’s Full Harvest and Stockholm, Sweden-based Karma announced major fundraises — now it’s Atlanta’s turn.

A-town’s Goodr just announced that it raised a $1.25 million pre-seed funding round as first reported by Hypepotamus. The raise was led by Precursor Ventures with participation by Trail Mix Ventures, Techstar Ventures, and Halogen Ventures, along with angel investors.

Goodr is an app which coordinates and facilitates the donation of excess food from large enterprises and venues to communities in need through non-profits. Corporate clients post surplus food on the platform and Goodr coordinates a driver to pick it up and take it to its final destination. As of now, they work with clients like the Hartson-Jackfield International Airport, the Georgia World Congress Center, and fancy foodhall Ponce City Market.

Their platform uses blockchain to follow food’s journey from corporate cafeterias to its final destination, so it can tell each client where their surplus food ended up. Through the app, corporations can not only track how much food they’re saving, but also how much they’re saving in tax deductions. So far, the startup has picked up and redistributed close to a million pounds of food.

Across the country in San Francisco, Copia offers a similar service. Their suite of apps help large companies track their food purchasing and consumption, then helps them find non-profits to take their excess food. It also tracks food donations for tax purposes.

Goodr is also working to license out their technology on a SaaS level to big food companies; they’re currently piloting the tech with Campbell’s and are in talks with other food brands. Goodr founder and CEO Jasmine Sparks (see her at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle this October!) said they’re also exploring the potential of using food waste for renewable energy; in fact, one of their recent investors is an alternative energy company.

For now, though, the startup will use their new funds to expand across the country; they’re launching pilots in Chicago, Raleigh and Los Angeles over the next few months. This is the first institutional fundraise for Goodr, which was founded in 2017.

Come see Jasmine Sparks speak more about food waste solutions at the Smart Kitchen Summit on October 8-9th! Spots are limited, so register now. 

CNET’s Ashlee Clark Thompson Talks Favorite Smart Kitchen Appliances

When we want candid reviews on smart home appliances — especially in the kitchen — we turn to Ashlee Clark Thompson (that is, when we’re not turning to ourselves). An associate editor at CNET, Thompson covers cooking gadgets and explores how tech will influence the kitchen. Oh, and she’s also a pretty hilarious Twitter poster.

For all these reasons (and more), we’re thrilled to have Ashlee Clark Thompson at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle this October! To prime your palate, we asked her a few questions about her favorite smart kitchen products — and what she looks at when she’s writing a review.

Read the Q&A below:

What’s the number one thing you look out for when reviewing smart home products?
Since most of my work is focused in the kitchen, I look out for how easy it is to use a product with existing recipes. Lots of devices have companion apps that provide a huge catalog of recipes to try, but many home cooks have their go-to meals or recipe cards passed down from grandma. A device should be able to teach me a new recipe, but help me improve upon an old one, too.

Name one connected product you didn’t think you would like, but ended up falling for?
The Pantelligent. It was a $200 smart skillet that connected to your phone to guide you through recipes. I thought it was a kooky concept, but it did exactly what it promised. Plus, it helped me make some great grilled cheese sandwiches during testing. Unfortunately, I think it’s now gone the way of the Juicero.

Envision the smart kitchen of the future. What does it look like? What products does it have in it?
The smart kitchen of the future fits the needs of the person who uses it. Not everyone needs a tricked-out kitchen full of gadgets; folks need tools that will be reliable and meet their needs. For some, that might just mean a wireless digital thermometer and a smart speaker. For others, it might be an entire system that’s connected, from grocery apps to fridge cams to a smart oven.

What are some of your favorite connected products you use in your everyday life?
I use an Echo Dot in the kitchen daily. It’s helpful when my hands are covered in flour or meat, so I can ask Alexa to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit or play some NPR. My Honeywell Lyric thermostat has helped keep my electric bills in check. And my Philips Hue lights have been crucial for reading in bed.

Voice assistants in the kitchen: yay or nay?
See aforementioned flour/meat hands comment.

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Thanks, Ashlee! If you want to hear more about the tools she think will shape the future of the connected kitchen, snag your tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit on October 8-9th in Seattle. 

Restaurant Kitchens of the Future will be Smarter, AI-Driven and More Competitive

We throw around the term “smart” plenty of times when analyzing kitchen devices. But there’s one man who is truly trying to make the way you cook food — and the devices that help you do it — much smarter: Arvind Pereira. He’s the co-founder and CTO of the Markov Corporation, a startup leveraging AI to create a smarter electronic oven. Sort of like a microwave 2.0 — one that uses computer vision to better apply heat to perfectly cook each food to its optimum temperature.

We’re thrilled to have Pereira at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) in Seattle this October! To prime your palate, we asked Pereira a few questions about the role that AI and machine learning will play in the future of the smart kitchens and restaurants of the future.

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

What motivated you to apply your experience with AI and machine learning to the food and cooking industry?
I have always been very excited about applications of robotics and AI to various industries due to my background in hardware and software. The first time I worked on something related to food was back when I was a newly-married grad student at USC. My wife Svetlana (who is a software engineer) and I began working on a fun side project app that allowed us to manage our food more efficiently: picking out recipes for the week and creating grocery lists out of what we had in the refrigerator. I wanted to use computer vision to detect the contents of the fridge, but never got around to it. I didn’t do anything interesting related to food after that, until the end of my stint at Clover.

I’d say that my daughter Charlotte and Leonard (the founder of Clover) are probably the biggest motivators in getting me started on my journey of using AI in the food industry. When Charlotte was born, I was badly sleep-deprived, and decided to build an AI-powered baby monitor using various sensors including visual and thermal cameras. My goal there was to have my intelligent monitor take actions like controlling the temperature of the room to keep Charlotte comfortable, in order to potentially obviate the need for us to wake up more often than really needed.

I’d just begun working on this idea in my spare time when I mentioned it to Leonard (who is my Markov co-founder now). It turns out he had been thinking about building a device that cooked food accurately using thermal feedback — and my baby monitor, which was closing the loop around room temperature, reminded him of it. After that I couldn’t stop thinking about how to develop a cooking device that could cook precisely and quickly. While I felt confident that I could design the electronics, software and AI for such an oven, I didn’t know enough about high-power radio frequency (RF) to build a device with the control we would need. When I met our third co-founder Nick through a search in our extended networks though, I knew that we had the core team that could make this happen (assuming it could even be done).

Tell us more about the Level, Markov’s AI-powered oven. What makes it so unique?
Level is designed to be fast like a microwave, but precise like a sous vide machine. It does this through two synergistic technologies: a proprietary heat steering technology and novel AI algorithms, which work together to cook precisely. Level senses the temperature of the food using a thermal camera, and then steers the heat into areas that are not yet hot while keeping heat away from areas that are too hot. We are the first device (to our knowledge) that can cook multiple items of food to different temperatures by using that feedback.

Since Level uses RF to heat food, it is ideal for hot grab-and-go meals prepared in the moment. We use deep learning and specialized adaptive algorithms cook precisely and with control. Not only does Level constantly get better through software updates, and learn to recognize/cook more items through over-the-air-updates, but the AI literally learns to cook better on its own by analyzing every cooking session performed. Over time, each Level benefits from information gleaned by every other Level that has cooked before it. We hope to delight our customers with these improvements, letting them cook food better and faster with much higher consistency.

What role do you see AI playing in the future of food, specifically in the kitchen?
The fastest moving subfield within AI is machine learning, which has made big strides in the fields of computer vision, speech recognition and even natural language processing. It is exciting to see many companies start bringing AI and robotics to the kitchen space by leveraging these advances in perception to automate or simplify cooking. AI is going to be embedded in every appliance we own, and these appliances are going to be networked together to synergistically help us perform our tasks more easily.

Robots and AI are already helping us perform various jobs within the food industry: harvesting vegetables and fruits, processing meat, cooking food, and even delivering it to customers at restaurants. People want to automate these processes to combat shortages of trained labor, increase quality control, and simplifying cooking through automation. AI is going to be at the center of almost all these transformations. Perception and learning are critical pieces in helping build better, more intelligent cooking devices.

Before founding Markov, you worked at Clover — a company which manufactured and provided POS terminals to, among other places, restaurants. How do you see tech changing the restaurant industry?
Yes, Clover is very popular in restaurants and we had customers that ranged from single family-owned restaurants to restaurant chains. What struck me as interesting about restaurants was how difficult it was to make the business work. As a result, when we started Markov, I spent a lot more time thinking about how to solve pain points for this industry. If we can help restaurants serve better food, reduce training time for staff by simplifying the cooking process, and improve the transparency around food quality, this should help make restaurants easier to run.

Clover allowed merchants to get an amazing view of their businesses through the data we could share with them through our own apps, or via third party ones. Quality control is hard to achieve across chains of restaurants. Connected equipment will help in a big way — this is already happening with smart homes, and similarly the restaurants of the future are going to be more connected, more automated, and easier to manage, both within the restaurant and across larger chains.

Automation is clearly becoming a bigger part of the meal journey — how should companies adjust their strategies to embrace this?
Automation in the food industry is inevitable. Over time, as businesses find it harder to employ trained workers at affordable wages, companies that have the technology to manage their operational costs are going to have a competitive advantage over companies that do not.

While traditional kitchens will continue to exist, we expect that it will be more economical to provide good food through the commissary model or with just-in-time delivery, or via grab-and-go sales. Just like Amazon used the internet to disrupt retail, by optimizing food preparation and delivery, companies that can execute on more efficient models which cut costs and deliver superior value are likely to win over more customers and out-maneuver their competition.

As cooking becomes more automated (and simpler) I think businesses will gain from it — and gain new competition. Companies will have to watch where automation is heading and look for opportunities to gain efficiencies through smarter allocation of resources and real estate, and ensure that they are staying up to date with technology that helps them run their businesses better.

I think summits like SKS help provide insights into what the future of food is shaping up to be. The future is definitely exciting in the food industry, and technologies that enable automation like AI and robotics are going to have an increasingly big role to play in shaping it.

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Thanks, Arvind! If you want to see him speak more about the role AI will play in the future kitchen, at home and in the restaurant, snag your tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit on October 8-9th in Seattle.

Dana Cowin Thinks Technology Will Make Us Cook More, Not Less

Dana Cowin needs no introduction. But we’ll give you a quick one anyway:

Best known for her 21-year stint as Editor in Chief of Food & Wine Magazine, Dana Cowin has since branched out to become a food consultant, author, lecturer, and all-around food media expert. She currently hosts the Heritage Radio Network show Speaking Broadly, and is the Chief Creative Officer at farm-sourced restaurant chain Dig Inn.

We’re thrilled to have her at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) in Seattle this October, speaking about how technology is shaping the future of recipes, home cooking, and food media. To get you excited, we asked Cowin a few questions about delivery, automation, and her last meal on earth.

Read the full Q&A below.

Q: With online platforms, voice assistants, and guided cooking tools, there are more ways to find and catalog recipes than ever before. How have you seen this change the way that people cook?
A: There’s an ongoing evolution in the way people cook; online platforms, voice assistants, and guided cooking tools all play a role. The move is toward simplicity, convenience, personalization, and speed — whatever makes your busy life easier. So in as far as technology can help you achieve those goals, in a right-for-you way, I think that tech is a wholesome enabler.

Q: Do you think that food delivery, meal kits, and, looking even further, automation will completely replace home cooking?
A: I don’t foresee a time when home cooking will disappear completely. That said, because there are so many options for how to get meals (from delivery to meal kits to automation), cooking in the future will become the province of the passionate. It will be a lifestyle choice, a leisure activity like camping that brings friends and family together. Cooking will less frequently be a quotidian chore to provide sustenance.

Q: What’s the most exciting way you see technology transforming the way we discover, cook, or talk about food?
A: Technology enables us to go far or near, narrow or wide and shallow or deep in terms of our information, choices, and inspiration. It brings the entire world closer. I love tripping into a video of some arcane, authentic way to make a soup dumpling, seeing images of the foods of far-off Belarus or just discovering a recipe that a neighbor has tried with hyper-local ingredients. Tech makes me more knowledgeable, more adventurous, more confident, and less fearful.

Q: What’s your last meal on earth?
A: Crispy fried chicken, fluffy biscuits with strawberry butter, pickled spicy okra, mint iced tea, peach cobbler, vanilla ice cream.

Thanks, Dana! If you want to see her speak more about how technology will influence the future of cooking, recipes, and food media, snag your tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit on October 8-9th in Seattle.

In the Future, Shared Kitchens Will Function Like Community Centers

At the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS), we love to highlight people who are forging new paths in the food world. But for those who are trying to jumpstart their own CPG food business, or scale up production, finding affordable commercial kitchen space can stop their idea in its tracks.

Ashley Colpaart is trying to lower that barrier to entry with The Food Corridor; a platform which connects budding food entrepreneurs with commercial production space. She’ll be speaking about how her startup is harnessing technology to disrupt the specialty food industry at SKS this October in Seattle.

To get you excited, we asked Colpaart a few questions about how she envisions the future of new food businesses, which CPG trends are on the rise, and why she considers her company “the Mindbody of food.” Read the full Q&A below.

This interview has been edited for clarity and content.

Q: How is the Food Corridor unique compared to other shared kitchen startups?

A: The Food Corridor is a tech-enabled platform that lets shared kitchens across the country operate more efficiently and grow more food businesses. Without owning any physical space, The Food Corridor is powering 80+ shared kitchen facilities across the US and Canada. Our network of co-cooking spaces is providing 4000+ chefs, caterers, food trucks, craft food producers, and delivery-only concepts a space to legally produce food and grow their dream business.

Q: You recently launched the app The Kitchen Door — what exactly does it do?

A: At The Food Corridor, our mission is to enable efficiency, growth and innovation in local food. Since our launch, we’ve done this through our kitchen management software that helps kitchen managers better operate all the moving parts of a shared commercial kitchen. This month, we are excited to launch our newest app: The Kitchen Door.

On a daily basis, food businesses contact us searching for a clean, friendly, and stable place to launch and grow their businesses. In response to this demand, our team has built the most comprehensive database of trusted commercial kitchens who have space available to rent.

The Kitchen Door is the go-to place for food entrepreneurs to search and contact an exclusive kitchen space to produce their goods.

Q: You’ve likened The Food Corridor to MindBody — the cloud-based management software for wellness classes — but for shared kitchen space. Why do you make that comparison?

A: Liking The Food Corridor to Mindbody actually led us to secure one of our favorite angel investors. In the early 2000’s his wife encouraged him to invest in a small software company that was helping yoga studios manage and book its yogis. It provides cloud-based business management software for the wellness services industry.

Similarly, The Food Corridor is a cloud-based business management software for the food industry. Our software handles tasks unique to a shared kitchen like hourly bookings, equipment rentals, compliance management, monthly plans, invoicing, and bill payment. The removal of these tasks, which used to be manual, frees up our kitchen owners to focus on increasing their number of renters, incubating clients and providing innovative services and programs.

Q: How do you see the cottage food industry space evolving over the next 5 to 10 years?

A: This may ruffle some people’s feathers, but I’m of the belief that the home kitchen is not equipped for growing a food business, specifically when it comes to scalability and consistency. The commercial kitchen, which is subject to safety standards pertaining to food and energy usage, is an important part of maintaining public health. That said, the cottage industry plays an important role for hobbyists following their passion for food and for budding food entrepreneurs testing recipes and getting direct feedback from consumers.

Like the rise in co-working spaces, I predict a rise in “co-cooking”  community-based commercial kitchen spaces. Paying a monthly membership fee to access a commercial kitchen that covers cleaning, water, waste, electricity and equipment repairs definitely takes a lot of stress out of the mix for food producers. With the rise in automation and the total cost of production of professionally-made food, the domestic kitchen may be becoming obsolete. I see co-cooking, community, and shared-use kitchens as the meeting places, gyms, and yoga studios of the future.

Q: What’s one of the most unique/bizarre foods you’ve seen made in one of The Food Corridor’s shared kitchen spaces?

A: Well, we are based in Colorado, so we see our share of marijuana or CBD inspired products — we are at a pretty high elevation after all. Pet foods seems to be super popular (you first-world dogs, you!) and of course, the sustainable and insect protein companies seem to also be making a go at it. I tend to get excited about the “delivery only” and “pop-up restaurant” concepts that we see taking hold.

Oh, and we do collect a list of creative food company names that we share across our team. Our favorites include: Fast and Curryous, Pride Enjoy, Subtle Tea, For Goodness Cakes, and Bruce Tea (to name a few)! There is not a lack of creativity in the food industry. That’s why we like it here.

Thanks, Ashley! If you want to see her speak more about the future of the cottage food industry and commercial kitchens, make sure to get your tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle on October 8-9th.

Smart Kitchen Summit Returns to Japan This August

Last year, we took the Smart Kitchen Summit abroad for the first time — to none other than Tokyo, Japan! In SKS founder Michael Wolf’s words:

“As we have grown SKS, I also realized early on that each region’s story is different, impacted by a unique mix of culture, business dynamics, and consumer tastes. Because of this, we decided would take SKS on the road, not only because I wanted to bring our community to other parts of the world, but also because I thought it important to incorporate these stories into our community as we look to help map the future of the kitchen.”

We’re thrilled to be bringing back Smart Kitchen Summit Japan for the second year! Once again we’re partnering with SigmaXYZ, one of the leading strategy consultancies in Japan, to bring you a dynamite lineup of executives, startups, and entrepreneurs leading in the food innovation space.

This time around we’ll be focusing on the companies and trends that are disrupting the meal journey, from flavor personalization to guided cooking to the future of protein. Taking the stage will be speakers Winnie Leung of Bits x Bites, a Chinese food tech accelerator; Kevin Yu, the CEO of smart cooking startup SideChef; and SKS favorite Jon Jenkins of Hestan Cue.

We’re looking forward to returning to Tokyo to continue to explore and push the boundaries on the technology, entrepreneurship, and business models which will impact the Japanese and Asian kitchens. There’s a lot of exciting innovation in the meal journey in Japan that’s set to change the face of food and cooking across the globe.

If you would like to attend SKS Japan, get tickets soon — spots are limited!

Video: Convenience Is the Future of Food Retail

After Christian Lane‘s first business, which he built at the age of 19, folded, he got the idea to launch a new endeavor in the smart kitchen field. Which, as he’ll tell you, was not always easy going.

Despite the challenges (and his self-described ‘retail rollercoaster’), Lane eventually succeeded in building Smarter: a connected kitchen company which sells WiFi-enabled kettles, coffee makers, and a camera which can identify 80% of what’s in your fridge.

In this TED-style talk at the Smart Kitchen Summit Europe, Lane makes some bold predictions about the future of retail — especially in the kitchen. His presentation had plenty of laughs and didn’t shy away from the real-life issues food startups struggling for a piece of the market will face in the future.

“We are in denial about what is happening, and how our industry is being revolutionized by technology,” said Lane. “We need to fast forward to integration.”

So how do we do that? According to Lane, simplification is the key to success. “It’s convenience that powers retail,” he said.

Watch the video below to see his full talk.

If you want to see more exclusive talks from top food tech innovators, make sure to join us for the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle on October 8-9th!

Video: The Berlin-Based Startup Forging the Future of Water

The Startup Showcase at the Smart Kitchen Summit is always a crowd favorite, and our first ever SKS Europe show was no exception. This June, eight innovative startup leaders took to the stage to pitch their ideas for a product/app/system that they believe will revolutionize the kitchen of the future.

We were so impressed by their pitches, we decided to share the videos of the finalists’ pitches with you. First up, it’s the winner of SKS Europe’s first Startup Showcase: Mitte. Moritz Waldstein, co-founder and CEO of the Berlin-based startup, took the stage to tell the SKS Europe crowd about the future of water.

“30 years ago, bottled water didn’t exist,” he said. And 30 years hence, because of its environmental cost and inefficiency, he’s predicting that bottled water will be a thing of the past. Instead, people will get “healthy” water — that is, H20 that’s pure (free of bacteria and micro-plastics) and has essential minerals — at home.

How will they get it? Through Mitte; the company’s eponymous countertop appliance which turns tap water into mineral water. They claim their purification system (patent pending) is about 60 times cleaner than other filtration systems, and doesn’t need to be replaced every few months. After it’s purified, the water runs through one of Mitte’s three mineral cartridge options, each with a distinct mineral composition and taste (one is supposed to imitate Evian, another Vittel).

According to Waldstein, healthy hydration is a 200 billion industry. Mitte is optimizing on this trend as well as the global retreat from single-use plastic.

As of now, their product is pretty niche. I could see them eventually adding in a carbonizing component (capitalizing off the seltzer fad) or even flavor pods to their system, upping the customization aspect of their product. While Moritz said that they’re initially introducing Mitte into the home, I think that the countertop system would do especially well in an office environment. Their first products are set to ship later this year.

Watch the full video below to see Mitte’s winning pitch.

If you have a startup changing the way we eat (or drink), take note! Apply to be part of our Startup Showcase at SKS North America in Seattle this October for a chance to win the $10,000 prize.

Video: For Big Food, ‘We’re Past Innovation and Onto Disruption’

Tyson Foods produces a massive one out of five pounds of protein consumed in the United States. Barilla isn’t any slouch either, with its 30% dry pasta market share in the US and 10% worldwide.

That’s a whole lotta chicken and pasta, so when execs for the investment arms of these two food giants took the stage last month at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe, you can bet all were listening intently to see what they had to say about the future of food and cooking.

The panel featured Thomas Mastrobuoni, CFO of Tyson Ventures, and Michela Petronio,  Director at Barilla’s investment arm, Blu1877, who took the stage to discuss food tech and connected kitchen investment in our closing panel which was moderated by Beatriz Romanos of TechFood Magazine.

The three had lots to say about technology, the food business and how they are investing in the future as these two worlds increasingly intersect.

Mastrobouni talked about one of their recent investments and how it’s a sign that technology is having the same disruptive impact on food now it had on media and finance over the past decade.

“We’ve said innovation, that boat has sailed, and we’re on to disruption now,” said Mastrobuoni. “The startups that we’re focusing on are, in some ways, out to get us. For the largest protein company in the US to invest in a plant based protein and two cultured meat investments… for us to go out and do that sends a message that the technology is starting to hit the food industry.”

There are lots of other great insights in the video, including discussion of why companies like Barilla and Tyson decided to launch their own investment arms, why they are interested in the connected kitchen and many more, so you’ll want to make sure to watch the entire session below:

If you want to hear more from VC’s and investors in the connected cooking space, join us at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle this October!

Video: Regional Perspectives on the Connected Kitchen Market

At Smart Kitchen Summit Europe last month, a topic on everyone’s mind was the future of the connected kitchen market.

In fact, we had a whole panel devoted to analyzing the regional perspectives of the smart kitchen marketplace: Chris Albrecht of The Spoon moderated the conversation between Holger Henke of Cuicinale, Robin Liss of Suvie, and Miles Woodroffe of Cookpad, Ltd.

The speakers explored the evolving role of voice assistants, regional perspectives across Europe, Asia and North America on the smart kitchen, and what the consumer really wants (to save time and money).

Watch the full video of the panel below.

If you want to hear more deep-dive analysis on the connected kitchen from people in the business, join us at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle this October!

Video: The New Era of Personalized Flavor

Personalization was a big theme at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe: in nutrition, taste profiles for dining out, recipes, and more.

One of our hit panels ‘The New Era of Personalized Flavor’ explored this idea with Daniel Protz of FlavorWiki, Johan Langenbick of FoodPairing, and Alexandre Bastos of Givaudan, moderated by Luke Dormehl of Digital Trends.

The panelists talked about how millennials are demanding a more individual dining experience, personalization in the smart kitchen, and how flavor is king.

So what’s happening next? “Personalization is going to go more mainstream,” said Bastos. “Not just personalized flavors, but personalization in general.”

Watch the full video of the panel below.

Want to join us at the next Smart Kitchen Summit event in Seattle this October? You have two days left to snag Early Bird tickets.

What is the Future of Food Delivery? Dan Warne of Deliveroo Has Some Thoughts

At the Smart Kitchen Summit Europe a few weeks ago (miss you, Dublin!), disrupting the meal journey was a big theme. And one of the biggest things changing the way we eat is food delivery to our homes.

I had a chance to discuss this shift with Dan Warne, Managing Director of Deliveroo in the U.K. and Ireland, during a Fireside Chat entitled “New Possibilities in Home Food Delivery.”

I was especially excited to talk with him about Deliveroo’s Editions project, a concept that helps to distinguish the company in an uber-crowded food delivery market (pun intended), and one reason we chose Deliveroo as one of our Food Tech 25.

If you didn’t already know, Editions is essentially a curated hub of cloud kitchens. Deliveroo uses customer data to place delivery-only restaurants in areas with unfulfilled demand. People get a larger swath of delivery options, and food entrepreneurs can open up establishments with significantly reduced overhead and less risk.

Editions is so successful, according to Warne, because it has been able to optimize both the hardware and software of running a delivery-based food establishment. “The restaurant can dedicate everything to the food,” he said. Which means that the food has to be really good, since there’s nothing else to hide behind.

“We [also] see it as an opportunity for us to aid the industry by bringing down costs,” he continued. For example, Deliveroo is working with an eco-friendly utility producer as well as a London-based app called Placed, which helps cut labor costs.

The topic of food delivery came up a few times throughout the day at SKS Europe — though not always in a favorable light. After all, companies working to get people cooking at home more often (connected kitchen appliances, guided cooking apps, etc.) should be diametrically opposed to a service that just brings food right to the door. Right?

Warne doesn’t see it that way. “Food delivery . . . has become a compliment to eating at home,” he said onstage. “We see ourselves as very much supporting the eat-at-home experience.”

“The use case of getting food delivery at home is fundamentally different than the social experience of going out to a restaurant,” he continued. Or, presumably, than the experience of cooking at home with your family, or the satisfaction of making a meal from scratch.

Deliveroo now works with around 10,000 restaurants across the U.K., has 25,000 delivery drivers, and operates in 12 different markets. “We are continually surprised with the appetite in every consumer set,” said Warne. “At first, we saw Deliveroo becoming a billion dollar business… now we now seeing it being much, much bigger.”

So what’s next for Editions, and Deliveroo on the whole? Robots — maybe. “We have a few engineers working on robotics,” said Warne. “There’s a bigger opportunity there since there won’t be the same regulatory challenges that there are with, say, drones.” Which some unnamed food delivery companies are currently piloting.

Watch the video below to see Warne’s full fireside chat on the future of home food delivery.

There’s only four days left to get your Early Bird tickets to SKS! Join us for more conversations on the future of food and cooking (or not cooking) — register here.