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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Smart Kitchen Summit

Join Us Today at SKS For These In-Depth Workshops

We hope you’re ready for SKS Day 2, which includes four insights-packed workshops! 

We’ll be hearing about prototyping your next big idea, managing IP and patents for a food tech startup, building a connected recipe strategy for appliance brands and an introduction to solid-state cooking.

You won’t want to miss them and you can get a day two workshops pass for only $35!

Here’s more on this morning’s lineup:

9-10 AM PT: From Napkin to Pre-Production: A Prototyping Workshop With Scott Heimendinger

Do you have the next great product idea? Turn it into a working prototype! Independent inventor Scott Heimendinger (Anova, Modernist Cuisine, Sansaire) will walk you through the process with practical tips, tools, and best practices for taking your idea from the back of a napkin to pre-production. But prototyping isn’t just for engineers. Whether you’re raising a round, headed to crowdfunding, or just kicking the tires, learn how prototyping is a critical part of your pitch deck and IP strategy before you launch. 

Presenter: Scott Heimendinger

10-11 AM PT: Solid State Microwave Cooking 101 – What’s In It for You?

The workshop will give an introduction to solid state RF technology in contrast to the legacy magnetron. Aspects like controllability, reliability, frequency ranges, and related “recipe-control” will be presented.

Presenters: Klaus Werner, John Gerling, John Mastela

11-12 PT: The Ingredients of a Connected Recipe

As we enter the age of the connected kitchen, how we write recipes has changed, maximizing the usability of appliances and simplifying the experience of home cooks. 

In conversation with Hugh Durkin, VP of Product Platform, Adam Bermingham, Head of AI, will discuss what makes the perfect recipe for connected cooking. From the amount of time spent interacting with appliances to the precise blend of ingredients, the team will share their unique insights and offer takeaways to inform your strategy.

Presenters: Hugh Durkin, Adam Bermingham

12-1 PM PT: Building A Food Tech Patent & IP Strategy

This workshop will help you understand the IP landscape in foodtech and give you a framework for developing your own IP strategy for your foodtech startup.

Speaker: Anas Alfarra

Meet These 14 Food Tech Innovators Tomorrow at SKS

Ever since 2015, we’ve been welcoming companies that build interesting technology that change how we shop, cook, and eat to our big event, SKS. This year is no different, and tomorrow we’ll hear from 14 startups showcasing their products on the big stage.

You won’t want to miss their presentations at SKS, and you can also talk to them in person during the mid-day exhibition and networking time in our custom built SKS metaverse space on Gather.

But first, check out our sneak peek of each company below in this SKS Innovator preview.

Celcy

The Spoon Interviews - Celcy

Celcy is building an autonomous cooking appliance that combines a countertop oven with a freezer that stores the meals until ready for cooking. The device can store up to four meals in a freezer. Cooking can be rescheduled via an app or on-demand via request. When it’s time to cook, the meal is shuttled from the freezer compartment on the left side into the cooking compartment side on the right. A built-in elevator lifts and deposits the frozen meal in the top upper right cooking chamber where it is cooked for consumption.

Cuisine Machine

The Spoon Interviews - Cuisine Machine

Cuisine Machine is a countertop smart appliance that uses pre-programmed electronic recipe cards to automatically add ingredients one by one during cooking, while controlling the temperature and pressure. The patented device was invented by Subina Shami.

Eatiquette

The Spoon Interviews - Eatiquette

EatQ is a Food Data Platform that empowers brands to make their product data easy to search, share and compare based on consumer preferences. The company provides a that enables comparison by ingredients, diet type, nutrition, sustainability and more.

Elo Health

Introducing Elo Health | Smart Nutrition Made For You

Elo leverages your personal biometric data to give you precisely calibrated supplement recommendations. The company’s technology analyzes a customer’s biomarkers and looks for nutrient gaps, and then creates a personalized nutrition plan. The company delivers customized supplements to the consumer’s home and offers one-on-one guidance with dieticians via the app or video call.

Evercase

The Spoon Interviews - Evercase

Evercase’s technology utilizes pulsed electric and oscillating magnetic fields to cause water molecules within food stored at sub-zero temperature to vibrate, inhibiting the formation of ice crystals. The result is food that, when pulled out of a Evercase-equipped freezer, has almost the exact look and texture of food that is fresh and not riddled with ice crystals.

Fresh Portal

The Spoon Interviews - Fresh Portal

Fresh Portal makes a food and package delivery locker that is built into the side of a home. It has temperature control zones for either hot or cold food and would be accessible both from the outside and inside. It would be managed by an app and integrated with third-party delivery service providers like UberEats or Amazon Fresh so they can access the outside of the locker and insert a delivery.

Gardyn

The Spoon Interviews - Gardyn

Gardyn makes an indoor growing system that can grow up to 8 pounds of produce per month. The system utilizes AI to monitor the produce while you are away. The app automates the watering and lights, and plants are ready to harvest within 4-5 weeks.

Growing Justice

The Spoon Interviews - Impact Justice

Growing Justice is a new program that utilizes precision indoor agriculture to expand access to fresh food in prison communities and provide skills training to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated populations.

Here Here Market

The Spoon Interviews - Here Here Market

Here Here Market is an online marketplace for food enthusiasts to discover and buy specialty products from chefprenuers, small batch artisans and local product makers. Here Here provides culinary creators a springboard to launch new products, build community and to run operations, shipping nationwide.

KOKO Networks

KOKO Fresh Solution

Distributing Fresh Milk is a big challenge in the developing world, where plastic packaging is expensive and adds to mountains of waste. Koko has launched a smart Milk distribution solution in Kenya that uses bladders, insulated crates, and IoT-enabled Milk ATMs to make nutritious, affordable & packaging-free milk available to everyone.

Perks99

Perks99 is a sustainable lunch subscription service for the workplace that reduces take-out waste by using reusable bamboo bento plates, cutlery, and retro bags for delivery and pick-up meals. The company will use drop-off, temperature controlled food portals on-premise, where customers can then return their dishes when they are finished.

Remy Robotics

The Spoon Interviews - Remy Robotics

Remy creates custom-built robotic kitchens tailored for the food delivery industry. For the past year, the company has been operating two dark kitchens, one in Barcelona and one in Paris. The company creates food utilizing robot-optimized recipes, and has its own in-house virtual brands which is delivered through third party service providers like Deliveroo and UberEats.

Trendi

Trendi uses robotics to help the farm and food industry rescue and upcycle food waste into food products. The rescued food goes through Trendi’s BioTrim unit, where it is turned into bioflakes and powders which are shelf stable food ingredients that can feed those that are food insecure.

Versaware

The Spoon Interviews - Versaware

VersaWare builds a personalized recipe and nutrition AI platform optimized for dietary or nutrition needs harnessed inside an all-in-one kitchen appliance.

Join us tomorrow at SKS to see each of these innovators pitch their companies. You can also join our 90-minute exhibition and networking block for free in the custom-built metaverse exhibition space on Gather here at noon Pacific tomorrow October 12th.

Here Here Market Wants to Connect Chefs and Food Artisans Directly With Consumers

During the pandemic, chefs cut off from serving dine-in customers needed to find a way to pay the bills. One obvious way was through third-party food delivery, but that often meant high delivery fees and cold food.

So some Chefs started selling packaged foods, but that often meant creating their own website, heading to a farmer’s market, or somehow finding a retailer to sell their goods.

In other words, a lot of work.

“We realized there’s actually a lot of resources that exist right now for somebody to get access to a shared commercial kitchen space and to produce a good,” Nicholas Florek, cofounder of Here Here Market, told The Spoon in a recent interview. “But then they’re on their own to market it and sell it.”

In short, there weren’t a lot of resources for chefs and artisan food makers to get their packaged food products in the hands of consumers.

“They’re on their own to set up their own website or show up to a farmers market once a week. So that’s the problem we’re really solving.”

According to Florek, the typical Here Here Market customer is often a foodie or fan of the chef who is looking for specialty ingredients or maybe just something to snack on not typically found in the grocery aisle.

Most of their customers “aren’t doing core grocery shopping,” Florek said. “We’re playing in the area where you want to try something new, you want to elevate your cooking game, you want to host something and impress your friends.”

According to Florek, it’s not just those creating products who want a way for their products to make it to consumers, but the consumers themselves who are hungry for ways to support independent creators.

You can watch the full interview below with Florek. You can also meet him and hear more about the company when Florek and his cofounder Disha Gulati talk about the company at SKS 2022 on October 12th.

Get your ticket for SKS to see this presentation and hear from other food tech innovators today!

The Spoon Interviews - Here Here Market

The Spoon is Back in Tokyo for SKS Japan

The Spoon is back in Japan!

That’s right, we’re back in Tokyo this week for the sixth Smart Kitchen Summit Japan, the first time we’ve been back in person since 2019 (for obvious reasons). The event started in 2017 and has grown to become the country’s biggest conference focused on food and cooking innovation.

Over the next three days, we’ll hear from some of the country’s most innovative startups, researchers, scientists, and academics about how Japan’s food tech scene has evolved over the past few years. We’ll be talking alt protein, cellular agriculture, smart kitchen, restaurant tech, and more.

If you’d like to attend virtually, you can pick up your ticket here. We’ll also be bringing you some interviews on The Spoon, so keep an eye out for that.

Japan is one of the most innovative and exciting places in the world for culinary innovation, and we couldn’t be more excited to spend the next three days talking food tech in Tokyo. Join us!

Do You Have The Next Big Idea in Cooking Technology?

Here at The Spoon, we think a lot about cooking. Sure, a big part of why is because we love to eat, but it’s also because we’re obsessed with cooking technology.

And to be honest, there’s been a shortage of exciting new technology to make food and drink over the past couple of years. While we’ve seen some exciting advances like new smart ovens, crazy food robots, and even a drink replicator, the reality is there’s a lot more room for innovation.

Which is why we’ve asked those building new things in the world of cooking technology to show us what you’ve got. Whether it’s a new food-making robot, a new kitchen system or something we’ve yet to even conceive of, we want to hear about it!

The best ideas will become finalists for the core cooking category at Smart Kitchen Summit INVENT on October 16th and showcase their innovation. Finalists will also be invited to a dinner at CES 2023, where The Spoon is partnering with the Consumer Technology Association to bring food tech to Vegas.

So if you are building the next big idea in kitchen tech, what are you waiting for? Apply today!

Announcing The Spoon Fall Event Series

We are very excited to be announcing The Spoon’s slate of events for 2022 (and January 2023).

The Spoon’s event series in 2022 includes the new innovator and startup-focused SKS Invent, our first in-person event exclusively for leaders & changemakers called The Spoon Food Tech Leader’s Forum, and finally, the CES’s Food Tech Conference & Exhibition powered by the Spoon in January 2023.

With this new series, we are focused on discovering and celebrating innovation across the series, which is interconnected from beginning to end.

Read below to find out about each and how the series interconnects.

Smart Kitchen Summit Invent

Over the past decade, there has been great innovation in food and cooking. We saw the arrival of precision heating and modernist cuisine cooking techniques. Smart connectivity and audio assistants enabled us to interact with our appliances in new ways. Robotics and AI were layered onto cooking. New combination cooking appliances that use steam or precision RF heating made their way into the kitchen.

But there is so much more that can be done and we want to help accelerate progress towards this future. In particular, we think there are five areas of innovation in which we’d love to see more innovation: Core Culinary, Sustainability, Delivery & Commerce, and Places & Spaces.

We’ll be writing more about SKS Invent and our call to action for the future of food and cooking innovators in the coming days, but you can learn more about each and apply to showcase your innovation at SKS Invent here. You can also inquire about sponsorship and purchase early bird tickets.

The Spoon’s Food Tech Leader’s Forum

One of the things that excite me most about events is the energy and creativity that comes from bringing together leaders from diverse but related industry backgrounds together. New ideas and collaborations always follow these exciting events that spark conversation, learning, and laughter when new perspectives and approaches collide.

The Food Tech Leader’s Forum will feature an exclusive event bringing together visionaries, inventors, entrepreneurs, and executives to map the future of food tech. It will include discussions about some of the industry’s most pressing topics, strategy whiteboard workshops, curated networking opportunities, and product demos and tastings designed to show you what the future of food will look like.

The event will also feature the finalists from the SKS Invent to showcase their vision and demo their products live and in-person.

If you would like to learn more about how to apply for a ticket, become an FTLF patron or more, you can do so here.

Food Tech at CES 2023

Food tech is heading back to the big stage at CES 2023!

Last January The Spoon powered the first-ever dedicated food tech conference and exhibition at the world’s biggest tech conference, and in 2023 we’ll be teaming up with the Consumer Technology Association to bring food tech back in a big way.

We’ll be programming an all-new conference full of exciting topics and working hand in hand with the CTA to find the most interesting companies to showcase what they’re building on the show floor. We are also planning a special Spoon evening event to highlight the winners of the SKS Invent innovation awards.

If you would like to sponsor The Food Tech conference at CES or exhibit in the designated Food Tech Exhibition at CES, you can head to this page and fill out the contact form and we will be in touch!

As you can see, all of these events are interconnect and there is a throughline that brings together new innovators, groundbreaking concepts and more as we journey from online to Seattle to Vegas in January 2023.

I look forward to seeing you on this year’s food tech journey!

Is Home Fermentation The Next Big Kitchen Tech Opportunity?

There’s been a fermentation boom in restaurants over the past decade. Chefs everywhere are using the age-old technique to make everything from kimchi to katsuobushi, and nowadays, it’s not out of the ordinary for high-end restaurants to have a head of fermentation on staff.

And now, thanks in part to the pandemic and the rise of experimentation in food making, more people than ever are doing fermentation at home. Anyone who’s tried to create a sourdough starter, brew kombucha or make sauerkraut has dabbled in fermentation whether they know it or not.

Still, fermenting is still viewed as something of a black art. Part of it is the weird and slightly creepy terminology (mother, anyone?). Mostly, though, it’s also because the act of farming bacteria to create tasty and healthy new foods is a far cry from the usual activity of assembling and cooking our meals in our kitchen.

The New Sous Vide?

But what if it wasn’t? What if, like other pro cooking techniques that have entered the consumer kitchen, fermentation got an assist from technology to help would-be home fermenters with their craft? Could some innovation and little cool hardware help make fermentation more mainstream, like the sous vide wave that started nearly a decade ago?

That is the hope of a couple of entrepreneurs I caught up with recently at the Smart Kitchen Summit. Fred Benenson’s Breadwinner helps home bread bakers know when their sourdough starter is ready. Tommy Leung’s company Hakko Bako is making a fermenting appliance for the home.

Both see a big future for home fermenters, a future that starts with making the process a little less mysterious.

“I remember I was talking with a close friend of mine when I was starting work on Breadwinner,” said Benenson. “I could tell he was like a little sketched out by the idea that there was this jar of goo.”

Benenson knew that his friend wasn’t alone. There are millions of people around the world who see these jars as mysterious and a little scary. If he could just provide a little more clarity, they wouldn’t be as scared of fermentation. They’d also end up making better bread.

That’s where Breadwinner comes in. Originally conceived as a “social network for yeast” where home cooks could share their stories of loave-making, Benenson also started working on a hardware device that monitors starters. The idea behind both was to give more information.

“Humans have had kind of an innate relationship to fermentation for a long time,” said Benenson. “In terms of making it more approachable, you think of any situation that’s got a lot of uncertainty and confusion, and you’re trying to learn it for the first time, the more you can reduce that uncertainty, the better you feel about engaging with it.”

Leung also wants to make fermentation more approachable. To do that, he is creating both a home and professional kitchen appliance to bring precision to the process.

“Our goal is just to make fermentation easy,” said Leung. “So it means to provide temperature control and then use the technology to make the process easier.”

That precision and control is necessary, in part, because fermentation is so different from the usual act of cooking in the kitchen.

“Most of the things you’re doing in the kitchen, then you’d like to be prepping in the morning and then like serving and cooking it,” said Leung. “Fermentation happens over hours, days, weeks and months.”

Both Benenson and Leung are bullish about fermentation as being potentially the next big professional kitchen technique that could be mainstreamed through innovation.

“The top chefs are already fermenting,” said Leung. “They’re already creating these like amazing flavor experiences. I think like with food usually starts in the Michelin restaurants and then it moves to more like casual dining, and then to the home. So I definitely think it’s going to be a huge part of the future.”

“I’m bullish there,” said Benenson. “I think it will be a while before we have all of our ducks in a row to make the case but it’s what I’m hoping for. I think fermentation is gonna start to sound a lot less scary.”

So is home fermentation the next big kitchen tech opportunity? You can decide for yourself after watching my full conversation with Benenson and Leung below.

Mezli, a Maker of Robot Restaurants, Wins the Smart Kitchen Summit 2021 Startup Showcase

Mezli, a maker of robotized container restaurants, has won the 2021 Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase.

The company, which currently operates a prototype restaurant in San Mateo’s KitchenTown, was started after two of the company’s cofounders, Alex Kolchinski and Alex Gruebele, met while studying at Stanford. Like most college students, the two were always on the hunt for food to fuel their studies but usually found the options lacking.

“Both of us had this problem that we’re trying to solve that it was really expensive to eat good food out,” said Kolchinski from the Smart Kitchen Summit virtual mainstage. “We were pretty busy as Ph.D. students, we can cook all the time. But if we wanted to eat out, it was kind of a choice between going to McDonald’s, which didn’t make us feel great if we ate it every day, or going places like the Stanford dining halls.”

So alongside a third cofounder, Max Perham, they got to work on building a robot restaurant. Unlike many robotic restaurants or kiosk concepts, the trio decided to create a completely customized robot purpose-fit for the job.

“We’ve got kind of a lot of opinions on how to do things in a way that makes the most sense for the problem we’re solving, which is making good with meals on-site that tastes great that are good for you and we do it efficiently,” said Kolchinski. “We’re not using any robotic arms. We’re using custom hardware, some of which we’ve designed in-house and filed some patents on. And some of which we’re adopting from off-the-shelf things. We’ve done some pretty hacky things in here. And I think we’re going to continue to take this kind of hybrid approach in the future too.”

And what does that future entail?

“We’re building up to where we have a whole fleet of these across the country, even across the world, where these are all over the place because they’re cheaper and smaller than restaurants, you can put them in more places.”

According to Kolchinski, Mezli plans on building thousands of containerized restaurants, starting with their current Mediterranean bowl concept and experimenting with other ideas along the way.

“We are building the robotics in a way that can do a lot of different stuff. Basically, anything that goes in a bowl of soup, salads, you name it, curry bowls.”

Mezli joins a series of other innovators participating in the industry’s longest-running food tech startup showcase. In its seventh year, the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase has been a launching pad for a variety of food tech startups such as Tovala, SAVRPak, Bostrista, Cultured Decadance, Millo and Freshstix.

You can watch Alex Kolchinski’s full interview below.

Mezli Wins 2021 Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase

SKS 2021: Meet Ottonomy, Maker of Autonomous Food Delivery Robots

Time to meet Ottonomy, one of the ten startups pitching tomorrow at Smart Kitchen Summit!

Ottonomy is a maker of autonomous delivery robots. Unlike most other sidewalk delivery bots, Ottonomy can navigate through both outdoors and indoor environments. The company, led by longtime robotics entrepreneur Ritukar Vijay, was founded last year and has already racked up mobile ordering partners like Crave.

So why did Vijay, who has worked on autonomous mobility solutions for car makers like BMW, decide to focus on a delivery bot?

“One thing which struck me is that autonomous cars will still take some time to hit the mainstream,” said Vijay. “So what is the best way to actually utilize that know-how to solve a problem of today? That’s how we came down to delivery. Because that’s something which is a real use case that autonomous driving can solve.”

While competition is heating up in this space, Vijay believes his product is hitting the market at just the right time.

“The labor shortage is hitting the restaurants and wages have increased massively,” said Vijay. “So it becomes very, very difficult for large businesses to give a solution the customer expect and have a sustainable future. At the same time, from the customer side, they want a cleaner, faster and cheaper way of getting those kinds of services. So it’s a win-win from both customer and the restaurant side.”

You can watch Carlos Rodela’s full interview with Ritukar Vijay below. If you’d like to connect with Vijay at the Smart Kitchen Summit, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - Ottonomy

SKS 2021: Meet Culineer, an App That Connects Home Cooks With Local Food Producers

Time to meet our next startup for the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase: Culineer. Culineer is an app that helps home cooks find recipes and connects them to local farmers and food producers.

When asked why she created Culineer, company cofounder Jodi Frank said it started with her own challenges as a home cook.

“I wanted to solve my own frustrations with cooking,” said Frank. “Most home cooks share my frustration that it takes so much time and energy to decide what to make, find your recipe, get ingredients. By the time you get home, you don’t have any time to cook. So I wanted to make all that a lot more simple.”

As she started to focus on solving her own cooking struggles, it didn’t talk for the former industrial safety executive long to realize that so much of what you cook at home is rooted in your local community. “I really started to think about my own needs,” said Frank. “Food like super persona, and it’s inherently connected and communal.”

And because no one is more integrally connected to the local food community than farmers, Frank knew it was critical for Culineer to make that connection.

“Culineer helps bridge that gap between the farmers and what they are producing with the home cook.”

You can watch our conversation Frank in the video below. If you want to connect with Frank in person and see her pitch at the Smart Kitchen Summit, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - Culineer

SKS 2021: Meet Blix, A No-Cleanup Smart Food Maker

We’re just five days away from SKS 2021, which means it’s time to preview another Startup Showcase finalist.

Today’s featured startup is Blix, a company which makes a no-prep, no-cleanup smart food maker. The Blix food maker uses a patent-protected smart lid which incorporates an integrated blade and RFID tag to enable the user to make a variety of instant meals. The user just adds liquid into the mixing cup, pours in pre-prepared ingredients from a Blix meal pouch and the Blix machine prepares the food in minutes.

Watch The Spoon’s Carlos Rodela discuss the Blix story with company founder Ariel Sterngold. If you’d like to connect with Ariel at Smart Kitchen Summit, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - Blix

SKS 2021: Meet ChocoMake, a Smart Chocolate Machine for the Home Kitchen

If there’s one thing the world can use more of, it’s chocolate tech, and we have it for you with our latest Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase finalist interview: ChocoMake.

In this interview, Carlos Rodela talks with ChocoMake founder and CEO Liora Omer. ChocoMake is a countertop home chocolate making appliance that enables the amateur chocolatier to control taste & texture, shape and the composition of their chocolate creations.

You can watch the video below and learn more about ChocoMake at their website. If you would like to connect with Liora Omer at the Smart Kitchen Summit, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - ChocoMake