Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Spoon Plus

A Conversation With Bear Robotics’ John Ha on LG Deal and The Future of The Company

“But the really important story is not about 51% acquisition. It’s more about we are acquiring their robotics business,” said Ha. “Among LG conglomerates, we’re the ones who’re going to carry on with the robotics business globally. And that’s, I think, the really major news item.”

That Bear was inheriting LG’s robotics business was hinted at in the coverage, but in our interview John made it clear that Bear will be steering the strategy and technology development going forward for the entire company.

Another surprise from our interview? That Bear is planning to still IPO in the future.

From Ha: “We have enough funding to put into R&D, and then we’re planning for an IPO as our next step. We can probably break even in two to four years.”

A key component of the partnership will be adapting Bear Robotics’ platform to develop robots for additional sectors, including factories, warehouses, and even the home. While LG has previously shown consumer-friendly robotic concepts at events such as CES, Ha believes Bear Robotics’ software expertise will likely accelerate the commercialization of home-oriented robots.

“For us to get into new areas and make breakthroughs is so much easier now…LG has a lot of plans for the home. We can help them save time and improve their products to get to market faster.”

Ha noted that because Bear was one of the pioneers in this space of service robots, he believes his company can serve as a well-established partner for other robotics companies that want to integrate their solutions into new verticals.

“We are opening our platform,” said Ha. “We already have around a little bit over five companies working together. They’re using our platform to build their robotics applications. And they can sell through our network. They can use our installation service or tech support. It’s still early stage, but I think it makes sense

Subscribers to Spoon Plus can watch the full conversation and read the transcript to our interview with John Ha.

The Spoon 2023 3D Printing Deep Dive

To hear what’s happening in the world of 3D food printing, The Spoon brought together some of the leading thinkers in the world of food printing for a conversation about the current state of this nascent market.

We discussed the current and future outlook for software-controlled printed food, beverage printing, meat printing technology, food printers for space travel & more!

Speakers:

  • Jonathan Blutinger – Coauthor, The future of software-controlled cooking

  • Anjan Contractor – CEO, BeeHex

  • Marine Coré Baillais – Founder, The Digital Patisserie

  • Giuseppe Scionti – CEO, NovaMeat

Video Sessions: Food Robotics Outlook 2023

We also heard from entrepreneur and restaurant operator Andrew Simmons, who is reinventing his neighborhood restaurant with digital technology and robotics.

Atish Aloor told us how his company CloudChef is creating a way to digitize the chef and building an operating system for repeatable, high-quality cooking.

Mark Oleynik of Moley and Khalid Aboujassoum of Else Labs discussed the opportunity and challenges of building cooking robots for the home kitchen.

Arthur Chow of S2G Ventures and Buck Jordan of Vebu Labs discussed the funding environment for food robotics startups and how the market’s unique characteristics make it different from other food tech verticals.

This content is for Spoon Plus subscribers. However, if you are interested, you can learn more about Spoon Plus here. 

Video Sessions: How ChatGPT & Generative AI Will Change The Food Biz

The summit included the following panels:

The Potential Applications of Generative AI – Speaker: Neil Sahota (UN AI Advisor, former IBM Master Inventor, Author “Own the A.I. Revolution: Unlock Your Artificial Intelligence Strategy to Disrupt Your Competition”

Generative AI & The Future of Restaurants – Speakers: Hadi Rashid (cofounder, Lunchbox) and Matt Wampler (CEO & cofounder, ClearCOGS)

Creating Next-Gen Proteins with AI – Speakers: Geoffroy Dubourg-Felonneau (Machine-learning lead, Shiru)

Customer Interaction & AI: What’s the Future? – Speakers: Deon Nicholas (CEO, Forethought AI), Benjamin Brown (Head of Marketing, ConverseNow).

These sessions are available for subscribers of Spoon Plus. To get access to these sessions, you can subscribe to Spoon Plus here.

CES Session: The Future of Farming (Video & Transcript)

The first session we will feature is titled ‘The Future of Farming’, a panel which featured experts on gene-edited crops, molecular farming, and vertical farming.

The session description:

The numerous challenges facing today’s farmers require them to be ever-more-efficient to survive. In this session, we’ll look at how farmers are employing automation, IoT, biotech and more to create the farms of the future.

The panelists for this session included:

  • Vonnie Estes, VP of Innovation, International Fresh Produce Association (Moderator)

  • Haven Baker, Co-Founder, Chief Business Officer at Pairwise

  • Amit Dhingra, CSO | Professor and Department Head, Moolec Science | Texas A&M University

  • Katie Seawell, Chief Commercial Officer, Bowery Farming

This content is available to Spoon Plus subscribers. If you would like to subscribe to Spoon Plus, you can do so here.

The CES 2023 Food Tech Review

Despite all that hard work, we still made time to check out many of the food tech startups making their way to Las Vegas in January and, now, we have included all of that research in the CES Food Tech 2023 Review.

Before you read this report, here is a quick note on how we structured this review:

Category: We included a number of different categories for the food tech review. We categorized each company into the primary category they represented themself as for CES 2023. These categories included everything from agtech to kitchen tech to food robotics.

One sentence description and company HQ location: We also included a short one-sentence description of each company’s product and where they are headquartered.

Company description: For each company, we included a description of the company and what they were showing at the show. These were sourced from the company’s announcements, The Spoon’s own articles, as well as, if possible, from checking them out on the show floor during CES.

Mike’s Take: For most companies, we included a quick take about their product or technology to provide some context around their showing at CES and how we see them fitting into the broader food tech market.

Video: Since we know that showing is often the best way for someone to get a quick understanding of a product, we tried to include a video about each company. Some of the videos were shot by The Spoon at CES, others were captured by the company or another publication. For additional context, for each video, we included who produced the video and, if possible, a general time frame for when it was created.

Mapping Them Out

Our Japan partners at SIGMAXYZ created a nice graphic mapping out the different food tech startups they found at CES. The categories, by and large, correspond with how we saw them, with only a few difference. You can click on an enlarged version of the map here.

 

If you’d like to read the full report, you can subscribe to Spoon Plus, our premium research service, here. 

SKS Invent 2022 Video Sessions

In fall 2022, we asked the question that got it all started: How will the consumer meal journey change over the next decade as technology and innovation around new business models are introduced at every step from farm to consumer plate.

The result was a two days full of learning, community and connections at SKS 2022.

This is the full video archive of all the sessions at SKS 2022.

You can see the list of speakers from SKS 2022 at the original event page here.

Panel: The State of the Smart Kitchen

Almost a decade into the industry’s effort to digitize the consumer meal journey, it’s time to take stock: Where are we and where are we going?

Speakers: Menting Gao (Kitchen Stories/BSH), Ben Harris (Fresco), Kai Schaffner (ex-Thermomix, CookingPal), Michael Wolf (The Spoon, moderator)

Innovator Showcase 1: Future of Cooking

This set of featured innovators will showcase the products that are building that recreate the cooking experience. Companies include: Celcy, Cuisine Machine and Remy Robotics

Fireside: The Story of Electrolux GRO

Electrolux’s GRO concept is a complete rethink of the consumer kitchen. We talk to Electrolux’s innovation lead to hear about the process of building a new approach to the consumer kitchen in a well-established appliance brand.

Speakers: Tove Chevally (Electrolux), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)

Panel: Building an Innovation Engine for the Future of Food & Cooking

Big companies are increasingly looking for new ways to build toward the future. In this session, we hear from two global brands about how they are doing just that.

Speakers: Tove Chevally (Electrolux), Lars Roessler (BSH), Allen Weiner (The Spoon)

Innovator Showcase2 : Discovery

These companies are building products that assist consumers with new ways to connect with food. Companies pitching during this segment include Here Here Market and Eatiquette.

Fireside: Building The Star Trek Drink Replicator with Cana

Earlier this year, a new product debuted that seemed straight from the pages of science fiction: a drink replicator. The Cana is a product that will be able to make almost any type of beverage, from cola to beer to wine to coffee. We talk with the company chairman Bharat Vasan about the story behind Cana and what it means for the future of personalization in the kitchen.

Speakers: Bharat Vasan (Cana), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)

Panel: A Look Forward: Predicting The Future of Consumer Kitchen

What will the consumer kitchen look like in 10 years? To answer that question, we bring together a panel that spends lots of time thinking about where the future of food and cooking is going.

Speakers: Bharat Vasan (Cana), Chris Young, (Combustion), Joe Ray (Wired), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)

Innovator Showcase: Personalization

The future is not one-sized-fits-all. In this innovator showcase, we hear from startups building products to help personalize our experience with food and nutrition. Companies featured include: Versaware and Elo Health.

Fireside: Wonder Wants to Reinvent Food Delivery

Wonder is taking an entirely new approach to home food delivery. The startup with over $800 million in venture funding is delivering chef-created meals to homes and bringing the chef curbside to cook and bring to the front door. We talk with Wonder’s Chief Customer Officer Katherine Prime about Wonder’s vision for the future of food delivery.

Speakers: Katherine Prime (Wonder), Kristen Hawley (Expedite)

Fireside: Food Delivery & the Connected Kitchen With Tovala

Tovala has had massive success for pairing a countertop steam oven with a food delivery business. We sit down with CEO and founder David Rabie to hear about his secrets to success.

Speakers: David Rabie (Tovala), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)

Innovator Showcase: Place & Space

In this showcase, we hear from companies who are rethinking how we utilize space within our homes or the food value chain to create new ways to provide customer value. Companies featured in this pitch session include Fresh Portal, Gardyn, Impact Justice and Koko.

Innovator Spotlight: Building an Airbnb for Instant Pots With Tulu

Tulu is trying to change the way people buy and use home products. Their company is building a platform for customers to buy home products like air fryers or pressure cookers for a limited time through a sharing economy model like Airbnb. We talk with cofounder Yael Shemer to learn about the company’s business model.

Panel: Fighting Food Waste Through Innovation

We all know the stats: Nearly one-third of food is thrown away at home. How can we use innovation to reduce this number while also recognizing consumers are very fixed in their behavior? This expert panel will break it down.

Speakers: Lily Herd (ReFED), Paul Levins (Evercase) Asrar Damdam (Uvera)

Fireside: Reinventing Single-Serve Coffee With CoffeeB

In September 2022, CoffeeB debuted a new system for single-serve coffee that is a complete re-think of home coffee packaging and delivery.

Speakers: Frank Wilde (CoffeeB), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)

Innovator Showcase: Sustainability

These companies are building products that reduce food waste, packaging and more. Featured in this section: Evercase, Perks99, and Trendi.

SimulATE Spring Video Sessions: The Food Web3 Summit

Earlier this month, SimulATE Spring convened the leaders pioneering in food & web3. Now you can watch all the sessions here!

The second installment of the SimulATE event series, we explore how the world of web3 will impact restaurants, CPG, ag, community building, and more.

Subscribers to Spoon Plus can get access to all of the sessions below.

The Food Robotics Market Report 2022

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant to a meal cooked entirely by robots instead of human chefs, would you taste the difference? 

Or imagine walking up to a sleek vending machine and ordering a bowl of hot, freshly made soup or a tossed green salad.

This future is here today as the food robotics industry has been one of the fastest growing sectors in food tech. This growth is in part due to the challenges faced by the restaurant and food service industry over the past couple years, as well as confluence of advancements in automation and robotics that have fueled a new cohort of startups to enter this space. 

Restaurants have been the largest end-market for food robotics over the past five years as they look to address the rising cost of labor and increase efficiency. Research conducted by Square found that 62% of restaurants say that automation would fill critical gaps in managing orders placed online, at the restaurant, and via delivery apps. 90% of restaurants agreed that increased automation for back-of-house operations would allow staff to focus on more important tasks. 

Automation in restaurants serves as a solution to improve the efficiency and productivity of restaurant employees, automate repetitive and mundane tasks, speed up service, streamline interactions between businesses and guests, advance guest recognition and customer relationship management, address language barriers, enhance personalization, and provide entertainment and novelty to the guest experience. In-house automation offers benefits to restaurant operating costs including labor, food waste, real estate, and rent as well as changing consumer preferences in regards to omnichannel ordering and food safety. On the other hand, consumer-facing kiosks allow restaurants to bring their food to markets it might not be able to reach with the investment of a large retail space. 

The intersection of food and robotics presents new business model opportunities including white label robotic offerings, wholly robot-powered restaurant brands, and robotics as a service business model. Food robotics can be applied to help power entirely new operating models such as ghost kitchens to make them more efficient and keep operating costs low.

This report will evaluate the factors driving food robotics innovation, explore the different contexts in which food robotics are used with a focus on in-house automation and independent consumer-facing kiosks, analyze the advantages and disadvantages of this new technology, dive into major players, explore challenges and barriers to development, overview the investment landscape, and discuss the future of food robotics.

This report is for subscribers to Spoon Plus. If you would like to subscribe, learn more here. 

SimulATE: All Sessions From Food Web3 & Metaverse Summit

Here’s the lineup:

  • Building a Crypto Powered Food Future – Amber Case (Unlock Protocol), Chad Horn (Devour Token), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)
  • Welcome to the Foodverse – Supreet Raju (OneRare), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)
  • Jobs in a Web3-Powered Food Industry Amogha Srirangarajan (Carbon Origins), Barry Herbst (The Elliott Group)
  • Case Study: Making an NFT Restaurant with Flyfish Club – David Rodolitz (Flyfish Club), Josh Capon (Flyfish Club), Conor Hanlon (Flyfish Club), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)
  • Building Web3 Burger Joint – Al Chen (BurgerDAO), Perrin Davidson (LA Eats)
  • How Will AR Change Food & Cooking – Lauren Cason (XR Creative Technologist), Michael Wolf (The Spoon)
  • NFT Strategies for Consumer Packaged Goods – Brad Klemmer (Bored Breakfast Club), Brett Fink (Yerb), Perrin Davidson (LA Eats)
  • Chefs Spike Mendelsohn & Tom Colicchio Talk CHFTY Pizzas

 

Spoon Plus members can watch the complete sessions below.  If you would like to learn more about Spoon Plus, you can do so here. 

The Restaurant Tech Summit Sessions

Below is a list of the sessions featured at the Restaurant Tech Summit. 

Subscribers to Spoon Plus can access all of these sessions. If you’d like to learn more about Spoon Plus, you can do so here. 

  • The Analyst Outlook for Restaurant Tech Brita Rosenheim (Culterra), Michael Wolf, Michael Schaefer (Euromonitor)
  • Building a Post-Pandemic Restaurant Michael Schatzberg (Branded Strategic); Trish Paterson (Copper Branch); Josh Phillips (Espita)
  • Dissecting Restaurant Delivery Tech Ava Ghaiumy (Delivery Hero); Geoff Alexander (Wow Bao), Marty Hahnfeld (Olo); Jenn Marston
  • Breaking Free: Going DTC & Network Free Krystle Mobayeni (Bentobox); Ben Leventhal (Resy, Eater); Ashley Daigneault
  • Breaking Down the Ghost Kitchen Tech Stack Jessi Moss (Kitchen United), Corey Manicone (Zuul); Warren Tseng (Just Kitchen); Jenn Marston
  • Automate: The Restaurant Robot Revolution Alex Barseghian (RoboEatz); Carlos Gazitua (Sergios); Ali Kashani (Serve Robotics); Chris Albrecht
  • A Conversation With Dave Arnold Dave Arnold (Cooking Issues; Booker & Dax); Michael Wolf
  • The Virtual Brand Explosion Alex Canter (Ordermark/NextBite); Robert Earl (Virtual Dining Concepts); Andy Wiederhorn (Fat Brands); Kristen Hawley (Moderator)
  • Recipe For Interoperability: Building Towards Open APIs in Restaurant Tech Angela Diffly (Restaurant Technology Network); Robert Peterson (Oracle Food and Bev); Christopher Sebes; Skip Kimpel (4 Rivers Smokehouse)
  • The Data-Driven Restaurant Adam Brotman (Brightloom); Allison Page (Sevenrooms); Scott Lawton (BarTaco); Michael Wolf (The Spoon)
  • Tech Strategies for Workforce & Staffing Challenges Will Clem (Bite Ninja); Paige Newcombe (Fourth); Jenn Marston
  • The Future of Restaurant POS “Jordan Thaeler (Reforming Retail), Bryan Solar (Square), Matt Niehaus
    (Slice); Amir Hudda (Qu)”
  • Tech-enabled Training for the kitchens Michael Wallace; Mike Bell (Miso Robotics); Michael Wolf

Come Along On A Video Tour of a Plant-Based Chicken Manufacturing Plant

This video is a tour of the Rebellyous Foods plant in Seattle. Rebellyous makes plant-based chicken nuggets, patties, and tenders. Our guide for the tour is Rebellyous cofounder and CEO, Christie Lagally.

Our tour starts off with a presentation by Lagally, who gives us an introduction to Rebellyous. After that, we go on a walking tour of the Rebellyous factory.

Note on the tour video: It was presented via the Zoom platform and I was the cameraman (apologies for the lack of camera stabilizer!). I followed Christie around and fielded questions from our partners in Japan.

Enjoy the tour! This video tour is available for Spoon Plus Subscribers. You can click here to learn more about Spoon Plus.