Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Smart Kitchen Summit

SKS 2019: The Key to Sustainable Protein Might be Fermentation, not Plants

When you hear the term alternative proteins, your thoughts likely jump to plant-based foods, or maybe even cultured meat.

But there’s actually a third way to create high-protein meat alternatives without plants by leveraging a relatively old technology, and that is fermentation. At SKS 2019, Dr. Lisa Dyson of Air Protein, Perumal Gandhi of Perfect Day, and Morgan Keim of Motif FoodWorks discussed how their companies are using genetically engineered microbes to ferment sustainable, highly customizable proteins.

If you’re intrigued by all the buzz around the alternative protein space, it’s worth watching the whole video below. (You get to learn how Air Protein makes protein from air, c’mon.) Here are a few takeaways from the conversation:

Fermented protein is super sustainable
Plant-based protein is certainly more environmentally friendly than animal protein, but fermented protein has the potential to be even more sustainable. Dr. Dyson noted that their protein is made using only energy (which can come from solar or wind) and elements of the air. Bonus: unlike farming, it can scale vertically, is independent of weather conditions, and makes protein incredibly quickly.

It’s more efficient, too
One of the perks of fermenting protein is you can get really granular about which molecules you want to create, eliminating waste. “If you just want one part of, say, a dairy molecule, why create the whole thing?” asked Keim onstage. “Why not just make the one part you actually need?” Having that sort of control over the protein leads to more efficient R&D processes for all sorts of animal alternative products.

Fermentation isn’t *that* out of this world
Dr. Dyson noted that growing protein from fermentation “may sound like science fiction,’ but it’s actually quite close to our current standard methods of growing many staple foods — including yogurt and beer.

Gandhi echoed this sentiment. Perfect Day, which dubbed their proteins “flora-based” after the microflora used to create them, noted that fermenting protein isn’t anything new. “We’ve been using it for 40 years now,” Gandhi said. “We’re just applying [the technology] in a new way.”

Watch the full video below to learn more about what Keim called “the next generation of what non-animal foods will be.” It’ll make you rethink the protein on your plate.

SKS 2019: Growing Protein: The Emerging Food Tech Ingredient Market

SKS 2019: How Tech Companies Large and Small are Fighting Food Waste

Food waste is a pervasive issue in the food system, one that strikes up and down the supply chain. But not everyone realizes that roughly half of all food waste occurs not in restaurants or on the farm, but in the average consumer’s kitchen.

Seems like something that tech should be able to fix, right? That’s why we’ve teamed up with the Future Food Institute (FFI) for The Wise Kitchen, our initiative to raise awareness about, celebrate collaboration around and foster innovation towards reducing food waste in the home.

Chiara Cecchini of the FFI and SKS founder Michael Wolf introduced The Wise Kitchen initiative at SKS 2019 last month. (If you’re interested, make sure to get on our email list here.) After the unveiling, Cecchini sat down with Stacie Thompson of Ovie, Dr. Dochul Choi of Samsung and Isabella Lane of Smarter to take an in-depth look at the behemoth that is food waste and discuss how different companies are fighting it throughout the food ecosystem.

If you hate food waste (don’t we all?), you should really take some time to watch the whole panel below. Here are a few quick takeaways:

Home food waste has a simple cause
Of course, people aren’t wasting food at home intentionally. They love food and saving money. Why, then, do people end up throwing away almost half of the food they purchase? According to Thompson, the reason is simple: “We just forget about it.” That’s exactly what Ovie, which tracks your food and reminds you how fresh it is, is trying to fight.

Food waste won’t be solved by one company
It’s all well and good to have startups coming up with new strategies to cut down on food waste, like by tracking your leftovers and giving insight into what food is in your fridge. To make any sort of widespread change, large corporations also have to get on board. But as Lane pointed out, that can be a challenge — though one that they’re working to overcome at Smarter.

Home waste extends beyond just food
Dr. Choi made the point that waste in the home doesn’t just apply to food. It can also cover other resources like plastic, water, and even energy. Conserving these elements is also critical to making a more sustainable planet. After all, Dr. Choi pointed out that the food system is circular — fixing one waste stream will have a domino effect to help us fix others.

SKS 2019: Introducing The Wise Kitchen + Harvesting Tech and Innovation to Reduce Food Waste

SKS 2019: Here’s What Investors are Looking For in Food Tech

Here at The Spoon we often write about funding news for new food tech companies: how much they’re raising and what they’ll do with the money. But what about the investors who are allocating these funds? How do they decide which ventures are worth investment?

We gathered four VCs to talk about just that at SKS 2019. In the panel, Tom Allison of ZX Ventures, Nate Williams of UNION Labs, and Brian Frank of FTW Ventures spoke with Brita Rosenheim of Better Food Ventures about the dynamics of investing in the food tech space.

If you’re curious about what investors are looking for in this area or are a startup hungry for funding, you should definitely watch the full video below. Here’s a quick overview to whet your appetite:

The food tech space has lots of opportunity
Rosenheim summed things up pretty well when she said, “We’re really at the infancy of the food tech sector in terms of potential.” Frank, who is a longtime SKS attendee, echoed this thought as he reflected on the growth within the conference itself. SKS was originally focused on consumer tech but now has expanded to cover tech from restaurants to supply chains to waste management in addition to the consumer sphere. Nonetheless, “it’s under-invested and under-managed,” he said. In short, there’s plenty of opportunity.

Big Food is getting involved, too
Allison, who’s the Head of Investment Strategy and M&A at ZX Ventures, part of AB InBev, spoke about how Big Food is trying to formulate its investment strategy to mimic the efficiency and agility of smaller independent companies. One takeaway? Look at untapped resources within the company (e.g., spent grain) and figure out how to capitalize on it. (Protein!)

Hardware is, well, hard
Williams, the Entrepreneur in Residence for Union, a new spinout from Kleiner Perkins, dropped some truth bombs about the difficulty of investing in hardware. “[It’s] extremely hard to execute well,” he said. “The be honest, lean startup [mentality] is bulls—t when it comes to hardtech investing.” Especially compared with the relative ease of scaling software.

Check out the full video below to hear more about what opportunities these investors are looking for — and their current favorite food tech product.

SKS 2019: Investing In Food Tech: Hardware, CPG & Future Food

SKS 2019: Why Big Food is Betting So Heavily on Startup Accelerators

So you’re a new food startup who wants to level up and get some funding and mentorship. Or you’re a big CPG company who wants to uncover the latest food trends and acquire companies already tapping into them.

The answer for both quandaries might be food accelerators or incubators. Key word: might.

At SKS 2019, we dove into the wide world of food accelerators: what are they, which types of food companies should consider them, and why they’re suddenly all the rage. Weighing in on this conversation from the stage were Natalie Shmulik, CEO of The Hatchery; Tessa Price, Program Manager of WeWork Food Labs; and Peter Bodenheimer, Partner & Managing Director of Food-X.

If you’re contemplating applying for an accelerator program or just curious what they actually entail, you should watch the whole video of the panel below. Here are a couple of standout points made by our speakers to spark your interest:

What do food accelerators look for?
All of the panelists agreed that when searching for candidates for their programs, fit is critical. Shmulik emphasized the importance of a good founder presence. Price said that companies have to align with WeWork’s values and offer some technology that can accelerate WeWork’s ecosystem. For Bodenheimer, though, one of the biggest factors is persistence. “When the sh*t gets tough, will they stick with it?” he asked.

Why are food accelerators so hot right now?
You may have noticed that food accelerators seem to be popping up left and right lately. According to Bodenheimer, this is at least partially because of Big Food companies. He explained that large food and beverage companies typically only allocate 1-2 percent of their budget to R&D, so they turn to accelerators as a way to access more innovative products. Sometimes this can be productive, but other times it can be muddy, especially if the Big Food company doesn’t have a clear objective for their program.

So, what are the newest food trends?
Of course I wasn’t going to let these industry experts off the stage without asking them about the innovative new trends they were seeing bubbling up at their respective accelerator/incubator programs. Shmulik noted that more and more companies were looking to make eating an experience, not just a task. Price spoke about personalized nutrition and on-demand ordering, and Bodenheimer said he’d seen a lot of companies tapping into food as medicine, plant-based offerings and CBD.

If you want to hear the rest of the panelist’s up-and-coming dining trends to watch, or learn more about food accelerators in general, watch the full video below.

SKS 2019: Building a Food Accelerator

SKS 2019: Connected Appliances Have a Lot of Potential, but Are Still in “Early Innings”

Wired’s Joe Ray made waves last month when he wrote a piece stating that the smart kitchen is actually pretty dumb. We argued that the smart kitchen isn’t dumb, it’s just in its early stages, and that there’s a lot of ways that connected devices can actually make cooking easier and more frictionless.

Given the wide range of opinions on the topic, it’s no surprise we brought Ray onstage at SKS 2019 — alongside Nick Holzherr of Whisk and Mario Pieper of BSH Home Appliances — to talk about what is and isn’t working in the future kitchen. If you work in the appliance game or are curious about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of new kitchen devices, it’s worth watching the whole video below. But here are a few big points that came out during the panel:

In the kitchen, experiences are the new “things”
Holzherr, whose shoppable recipe company Whisk was acquired by Samsung NEXT six months ago, told the SKS audience that consumers are beginning to prioritize experiences over things. That trend holds true in the kitchen. Millennials are spending significant amounts of time looking at recipe sites and food hacks online, but aren’t always successful at translating those inspirations into meals. Holzherr sees this as an opportunity. “By connecting hardware and software, we can create new, better experiences and make them more convenient.”

Siloes aren’t good in the smart kitchen
Pieper agreed that user experience is critical when it comes to developing connected devices for the kitchen. One thing that can hinder that experience is siloed technology. Which is why BSH puts a lot of emphasis on its products engaging with other appliance companies to make sure that the whole future kitchen ecosystem works smoothly. “We want to cooperate, we want to be open,” he said. Lest Amazon and Google completely take over

When it comes to connected devices, we still have a ways to go
Onstage, Ray was still skeptical about many of the devices and technologies vying for space in your kitchen. One thing he said resonated with all the panelists, however: it’s still early days for the smart kitchen. As of now, consumers still like holding onto their cooking traditions and having the option to use physical interfaces instead of just apps. Voice technology isn’t as useful as it could be. And all too often, when it comes to connected appliances, it’s a case of tech for tech’s sake.

But that doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way. As Ray put it, “We’re in the early innings” of the smart kitchen. Holzherr likened some of the pricier connected kitchen appliances available now to the microwave right after it hit the market in the 1950s. At first, the microwave cost thousands of dollars, and therefore didn’t sell very well for decades. As price went down, however, it grew more and more popular until it became the ubiquitous appliance you see today.

Overall, it was a really frank conversation about the potential — and limitations — of the smart kitchen. Check out the full video below!

A Conversation About What is (And Isn't) Working in the Future Kitchen

SKS 2019: Plant-Based Foods Aren’t Going Anywhere, But Taste is Key

Ask almost anyone in the food space about the biggest trends they’re seeing, and odds are they’ll mention one thing: plant-based. From meat to dairy to eggs, plant-based alternatives to traditional animal products are becoming more and more commonplace — and tasting better and better.

Considering the ubiquity of plant-based dining, we invited a few experts to come speak about the trend at SKS 2019 earlier this month. Author and scientist Dr. PK Newby, Bjorn Oste, co-founder of Oatly, and Daniel Scharff Director of Strategy & Analytics for JUST,  took the SKS 2019 stage to unpack the plant-based dining trend: who’s catalyzing it, what products they want, and why is it gaining so much popularity right now?

If you’re curious about why ‘plant-based’ has suddenly become the buzzword du jour, it’s worth watching the whole video below. Here are a few high-level takeaways from the conversation:

Health is a big driver
There are many reasons that people shift towards a plant-based or flexitarian diet: ethical concerns, environmental motivations, etc. But according to Scharff, health is another big driver. “The number one reason for dietary change isn’t weight loss,” he said. “It’s health.”

Dr. Newby echoed this idea, siting studies which showed that plant-based diets are key to longevity and chronic disease prevention — as well as the health of our planet. Since millennials are motivated by health and sustainability, she said, they’re a primary driver for the adoption of plant-based food.

Mission matters
It may seem like new companies (of Big Food corporations) are popping up every day promising a unique twist on plant-based foods. But according to Oste, companies can’t just slap the term “plant-based” on their products and expect to see a loyal customer base spring up overnight. “Consumers care about companies on a mission that are authentic, transparent, and value-driven,” he said. In short: You can’t just talk the talk. You have to walk the walk, too.

Taste is king
All of our panelists agreed that, while mission and health are key, taste is still king. “Taste will always be first,” said Dr. Newby. “It’s the primary driver.” The others? Cost, followed by convenience. But the overall conclusion was no matter how sustainable, healthy, or affordable a plant-based product is, if it doesn’t taste amazing — it doesn’t have a chance.

Scarff went one step further. He said that animal product alternatives don’t only have to taste great, but also has to look, cook, and eat like the original product. “It has to replicate the experience that they’re used to,” he said, referencing consumers. That’s one of the reasons that JUST is so adamant that they sell their plant-based egg next to actual egg cartons in the grocery store.

Dr. Newby finished her talk with a bold claim. “The future is absolutely meatless,” she said. It’s too early to say if her prediction is correct, but there’s one thing we can be sure of: the plant-based revolution is here now, and it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

If you want to hear the full conversation, check out the video below.

SKS 2019: The Plant-based Revolution

SKS 2019: For the Future of Kitchen Design, Think Hydroponic Grow Cabinets and Robot Furniture

When you think about it, the basic design of a kitchen hasn’t changed much in the past 50 years. Most of them have a fridge, a sink, cabinets, a stove, an oven, and counters. Sure, there’s been innovation around smart appliances, but the layout of the kitchen itself has essentially remained the same.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. At SKS 2019, Veronica Schreibeis Smith of Vera Iconica Architecture and Suleiman Alhadidi of the MIT Media Lab spoke about how the kitchen is begging for a major design renovation to embrace evolving consumer needs.

If you’re at all interested in design, you should watch the whole video below. As a little teaser, here are some of the biggest takeaways from the discussion.

Kitchens can help you eat healthier
To make a kitchen more futuristic, we don’t necessarily need to transform everything into a robot. According to Schreibeis Smith, simple design solutions are all we really need to help people have more ease — and mindfulness — in the kitchen. That could take the form of climate-controlled cabinets to help preserve nutrients in food, or even hydroponic grow systems built into the kitchen itself.

For small kitchens, automation is key
We might not be headed towards a Jetson-like robotic kitchen anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean that automation won’t play a part in the kitchen of the future. Alhadidi showed off his work at the MIT Media Lab, which is trying to create design solutions for millennials living in small urban spaces and need all of their rooms to be multi-functional. Hint: the term “robotic furniture” comes up at least once.

If you want to learn more about how smart design can transform not only how we cook, but the kitchen itself, be sure to check out the whole video below.

SKS 2019: Designing for the Next 50 Years: Rethinking Kitchen Design

SKS 2019: The Kitchen Evolution is In a State of “Good Chaos”

What’s next for the smart kitchen? What sort of new appliances will be gracing the countertops of the future, and what sort of technologies will power them? In short: What will it look like to cook at home in the future?

That’s exactly the question one of our panels tackled at SKS 2019. The discussion was led by The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht, who spoke with Lisa McManus of America’s Test Kitchen, Matt Van Horn of June and Steve Svajian of Anova about what’s coming down the pipelines for kitchen tech. The full video is below, but if you want a few quick highlights read on:

The future of the kitchen is software
Svajian argued that the smart kitchen space started out more hardware-driven, but has recently been shifting to focus more on software. Van Horn agreed. He said that in the early days of the company, people used what he called the “primitive” settings of the smart oven: bake, broil, etc. But now they’re using the automatic cook programs more and more. “That said, the hardware [still] has to be great,” added Svajian.

All tech aside, it has to work
McManus drove home the point that high-tech appliance are great, but they have to actually help people cook better — not just look cool. “We look at things that will make [cooking] easier and more accessible to everyone,” she said. “Things that are practical, that are functional.”

The smart kitchen space right now? “Good chaos.”
McManus summed up the evolution of the food tech ecosystem pretty neatly during the panel. “It feels like a really exciting brainstorm,” she said. “It’s good chaos.” Svajian agreed, equating the space to the evolution of the Web in the late 90’s. ‘The law of entropy is real.’

If you want to hear more about where these three insiders see the fast-paced evolution of the kitchen heading, make sure to watch the full video below.

SKS 2019: Kitchen Tech Futures: A Look At What's Next

SKS 2019: How Data Can Help You Live Longer — and Drink Better Cocktails

You might think that in order to make a perfect cocktail or figure out your healthiest foods, you need to channel the mind of a mixologist or nutritionist. But what if it’s more useful to get into the head of a data scientist, instead?

That’s what Marc Drucker and Jacques Moore of Drinkworks, which makes an automated countertop cocktail and beer making machine, and Victor Penev of Edamam, the company putting a data layer on the Internet of Food, spoke about on the SKS 2019 stage earlier this month.

Penev argued that dietary behavior change is difficult; people don’t like working hard to figure out how to eat better. At Edamam, he and his team are figuring out ways to leverage data to help you figure out what to eat, and then get that food to your kitchen without any added work for the consumer. “It’s a no-brainer solution,” Penev told the SKS audience.

The Drinkworks team is taking that level of personalized convenience and applying it to one of our favorite things: cocktails. The company wanted to create a countertop drinks machine that would be different than anything else on the market. To figure out what that would look like, they turned to data — what people want to drink, what times of day they’re drink it, and how exactly they want those beverages to taste. “Data really is the key to our product development,” said Drucker. “Probably much more so than the traditional ethnographic interview systems we used the first time around.”

Check out the video below to learn how companies are harnessing Big Data to make kitchen products that can do everything from improve your Happy Hour to figure out how to make you eat healthy enough to live to 120 years old. It’s an awesome, nerdy conversation that will make you appreciate just how many numbers go into kitchen product development.

SKS 2019: IBM and McCormick Use AI to Make the Best Possible Barbecue Chips (and More)

Say you’re developing a new barbecue potato chip. You’re using spices from McCormick, which has not one, not two, but over 100 types of garlic flavoring. How do you decide which garlic(s) to use, and in which combinations, to make the best product for your target demographic?

That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) can help. Last year, McCormick, the largest flavor company in the world, went public with its five-plus-year partnership with IBM to build a flavor platform using machine learning. We dove deep into this partnership at SKS 2019, when The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht spoke with McCormick’s Chief Science Officer Hamed Faridi and IBM Principal Researcher Richard Goodwin about how AI can help make better, tastier products in less time and with fewer dead ends.

Check out the video below to watch the entire panel (it’s super nerdy and cool).

Hamed Faridi on the SKS 2019 stage. (Photo: The Spoon)

To whet your appetite, here’s a quick overview of what Faridi and Goodwin discussed in the session.

“The [CPG] iterating process is a very time-consuming, old system,” said Faridi during his onstage presentation. “But that’s the only thing the industry has.” All of that changed when Faridi was driving home and heard an NPR interview with a scientist from IBM’s Chef Watson, a program that develops bepsoke recipes based off of chemical flavor affinities (for example, leeks and chocolate.) Immediately, he was struck: this was the missing piece of the puzzle to develop better products in a smarter way.

Computers can’t taste or smell, so how do they know which flavors taste well together? That’s where data comes in. McCormick has kept all of its data from various flavor development processes and product experiments since the 1980s. IBM’s machine learning algorithms can take those data points and make suggestions about new ingredient combinations without having to go through all the trial, error, and staff training that a human R&D team requires.

The result is a 70 percent reduction in product development time and increased stickiness in the market. Faridi said that the IBM partnership is working so well they expect all of their labs will be using AI by late 2021.

This session was a fascinating look into how a flavor giant and a technology giant have teamed up to make better everyday products. Watch the full video below and get ready for more SKS 2019 content coming your way over the next few weeks!

SKS 2019: Case Study: McCormick & IBM Build an AI-Powered Flavor Platform

SKS 2019: In the Age of Automation and Delivery, What Does the Restaurant of the Future Look Like?

At SKS, we spend a lot of time talking about how technology is transforming the kitchen. But eating obviously goes far beyond the home — specifically into restaurants.

In this panel from SKS 2019 journalist Kristen Hawley spoke with Clayton Wood of Picnic (formerly Vivid Robotics), Derek Pietz of Sweetgreen, and Adam Brotman of Brightloom about how shifting consumer demands and technology is reinventing the restaurant as we know it.

If you work with restaurants, or even just eat out frequently, you should really watch the whole video below. But for all of your impatient folks out there, here are a few high-level takeaways from the conversation:

Restaurants are transforming at light speed
The biggest conclusion from the panel is that restaurants are not only undergoing a dramatic change, but it’s happening quickly. “There’s going to be more change in the restaurant industry in the next five years than there’s been in the past hundred,” said Pietz, pointing to delivery, robotics, digital ordering, and shifting consumer tastes as the main catalysts.

Our concept of ‘the restaurant’ will shift
New technology and menu preferences will not only change the ways that restaurants look (digital kiosks) and function (more delivery), but will also challenge our conception of what a restaurant is.

For example, is a robotic oven a restaurant? Clayton Wood of automated pizza company Picnic would say, absolutely. In fact, robotics can actually help reduce risk for restaurants and help them keep up with changing consumer trends, like the uptick delivery and takeaway.

Customer engagement is more critical than ever
Obviously restaurants have always had to focus on customer loyalty. But recently, with the rise of delivery and automation, restaurants — especially fast-casual ones — have to be more proactive about it than ever before.

Brightloom, which Brotman calls “the AWS or Shopify for restaurant tech,” builds white-label customer engagement platforms. They use data science to help restaurants draw in more diners, facilitate their purchasing experience, and incentivize them to keep coming back for more.

—

That’s just scratching the surface of the knowledge these panelists served up onstage. Watch the video below to catch the whole conversation and keep your eyes peeled for more content from SKS 2019 coming soon!

SKS 2019: Reinventing the Restaurant

SKS 2019: How Can Tech Break Down Barriers to Get More People in the Kitchen?

At the Smart Kitchen Summit we bring together innovators who want to make the kitchen more high-tech, connected, and futuristic. But what does that matter if it doesn’t actually get people in the kitchen and cooking?

That’s exactly the question that the first panel of SKS 2019 tackled onstage last week. Nancy Roman, of the Partnership for a Healthier America, Beth Altringer, of Harvard, and celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor spoke with The Spoon’s Michael Wolf about how we can build a bridge to the future of food and cooking. Without alienating people.

Onstage Roman emphasized that the kitchen of the future should have one goal: building a healthier population. One way to do that is to make it easier for people to cook simple, nutritious meals at home — be it with a new cooking app, a recipe platform, or something else entirely.

For Dr. Altringer, the kitchen of the future isn’t all rosy. In fact, she showed data that suggests outsourcing more and more cooking processes to automation or other convenience measures doesn’t necessarily equate to happier eaters. “People enjoy food more when they know they worked for it,” she said onstage. One way they might cook and enjoy it is by employing her Flavor Genome Project, which is gamifying food preparation to help consumers and chefs figure out better dishes and fix flops.

With all this talk of automation, you’d think that a career chef like Sanjeev Kapoor might be worried about what the kitchen will look like down the road. Instead, he’s excited about it. “It’s an opportunity,” he said onstage. For example, Kapoor leverages social media to reach more viewers and leverages tech to help feed 1.8 million kids per day for his nutrition outreach project.

Overall, it was a really fascinating way to kick off the summit, and a departure from some of the typical conversations you hear around the future of food. If you’re interested in how tech can help us eat better, you can listen to the full video below! Keep an eye out for more content from SKS 2019 coming your way over the next few weeks.

SKS 2019: Building The Bridge To The Future of Food & Cooking