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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Startups

SKS 2019 Is In Two Weeks And We Couldn’t Be More Excited

With Smart Kitchen Summit just two weeks away, we’re getting really pumped to share with you what we’ve been working on for the last few months.

We had the first SKS in 2015 in an old cannery, and every year we’ve grown to include more speakers, sponsors and attendees, and this year we are really outdoing ourselves with our biggest summit year.

I wanted to share with you some of the things we’ve been working on and why we’re so excited.

Welcome to the Waterfront

When you go to Seattle, the one place you usually want to be is on the waterfront, and that’s where we’ll be for two full days at Bell Harbor Conference Center.

But great views isn’t the only reason we moved to a new venue. Moving to our new home  allows us to really expand our content, and we have more fantastic sessions than ever. This year we explore themes like the future kitchen, next-generation interfaces, the changing eater, new sources of protein, the impact of robotics and AI on the food system, the reinvented restaurants and much much more. Heck, we’ll even be talking about space food.

Networking Goes Next Level

One reason SKS has become indispensable is because it’s where those in the world of food tech and smart kitchen come to meet new partners, find innovative startups and, in general, do deals.

And in 2019 we’re taking this next level with our first-ever networking app. We are partnering with Brella to create a customized networking experience called SKS Connect that will allow attendees to find others schedule one on one meetings at the show. Once you buy your ticket, we will email you details to sign up for Brella SKS Connect!

Our Amazing Speakers

Every year the Spoon team searches for those who doing the most interesting work in the future of food and cooking and tells their stories. SKS is where we invite them to have a conversation with our community tell their stories live and in person.  This year we have an amazing group of founders, makers and visionaries, ranging from IBM Watson’s lead researcher to someone creating protein from thin air to the creator of Europe’s most successful connected recipe platform in the Cookidoo to India’s equivalent to Martha Stewart. We’ve got investors, hackers, inventors and makers, all coming together to help us take stock of the future of food and set the course for the next year.

Plus, the whole Spoon team will be here and who doesn’t want to meet us?

So Many Great Startups

Each year at SKS we bring together some of the most innovative new startups in the world of food tech with our Startup Showcase. This year we’ve doubled the innovation, not only bringing together amazing food tech startups but also we’ve launched a new Future Food showcase where you can see what some of today’s most innovative food startups are working on.

Touch and Taste The Future

SKS isn’t just about great content and networking, it’s where you come to touch and taste the future. Our startups, sponsors and partners will have all sorts of innovative products, food and innovations on display, including some product launches that will make news at the show. You’ll be able to taste plant-based sea food and chicken nuggets, edible cutlery, cricket protein and so much more. You’ll see new cooking robots, new types of cooktops, countertop chocolate appliances to just name a few.

So if you just attend one event of the year to help you understand where the future of food and cooking is going, make it this year’s SKS.  Whether you’re looking for a new partner, an investor, a new employee or just want to figure out your food tech strategy, SKS 2019 is where you should do it.

There are only two weeks left (and just one week left to buy double pack tickets), so hurry up and get your tickets today! Use the discount code SPOON for 15% off your ticket.

Eat Safe Verified Wants to Fight Food Recalls and Waste with Radical Transparency

Remember last year’s notorious romaine lettuce recall? That was only one of hundreds of food recalls in 2018 alone. These outbreaks are the sort of food safety issues that a new startup called Eat Safe Verified (ESV) is trying to mitigate. Their solution? Putting more information into the hands of consumers in the form of an app that lists details about the contaminant testing, ingredient sourcing, manufacturing and more behind each product.

We were pretty intrigued by this concept, so we chose ESV as one of the 12 finalists for the SKS 2019 Startup Showcase. To give you a little taste of the action, we spoke with founder and CEO Kiran Kastury about how radical transparency can help solve widespread issues like food waste, allergic reactions and contamination.

Check out the Q&A then get your tickets to SKS to see Kastury pitch live in Seattle this October!

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

First thing’s first: give us your 15-second elevator pitch.
Eat Safe Verified makes software that brings people and food closer together. Consumers can gain valuable insights into their food, while food businesses are able to easily share information across their supply chain to expedite their business processes, thereby ensuring effective transparency, communication, and collaboration.

What inspired you to start your company?
My co-founder and I collectively have spent years working in bio-tech, specifically in the food testing and analytical services sector, where we saw a huge number of food companies unable to effectively show their customers how they strove to make the best product possible. Furthermore, we were tired of hearing about situations like food recalls, consumers getting sick because of allergens or food contaminations, and food getting lost and wasted by the ton. We believed that in today’s tech-driven world, there had to be a better way for people to learn more about their food, and a better way for companies to easily share information throughout their network.

What’s the most challenging part of getting a food tech startup off the ground?
I think that education and awareness are probably the biggest hurdles for food tech startups right now. In the case of ESV, we are embarking on a mission of introducing the concepts of information sharing and transparency to an industry that hasn’t been faced with this sort of disruption just yet. We’re confident that with the right product however, we can transform how food is perceived by people on a daily basis.

How will your company change the day-to-day life of consumers and the food space as a whole?
With launching ESV, we are well on track for achieving the free flow of information all the way from the farm to the consumers’ fingertips. Consumers wouldn’t have to spend the significant amount of time they do now worrying about whether or not they are eating a potentially harmful allergen, putting irresponsibly created food in their bodies, adhering to dietary restrictions for heath or personal reasons. I think that ESV is the answer to ensuring that things like consumer miseducation, consumer harm, or food loss cease to happen as regularly.

Come watch Kastury pitch live onstage at the SKS Startup Showcase next month! Get 25% off your tickets here.

Anrich3D Wants to 3D Print Food Personalized Just For You

The concept of 3D printing food is already pretty futuristic. Add in nutrition personalization, and you get something that sounds even more like it’s straight out of Star Trek.

That’s exactly the device that Anrich3D, one of the finalists in our SKS 2019 Startup Showcase, is trying to make. The soon-to-be-incorporated company is developing a system of 3D printers which can precisely dispense food based off of an individual’s particular nutritional and aesthetic preferences. Pretty radical, huh?

We spoke with Anrich3D founder and CEO Anirudh Agarwal about why he thinks 3D printing could make food more nutritious, affordable, and accessible. Check out the Q&A then get your tickets to SKS to see Anirudh pitch live in Seattle this October!

Give us your 15-second elevator pitch.
We produce personalized meal plans for health enthusiasts based on information from health trackers, apps, wearables and medical check-ups. Each meal is personalized to the individual using multi-material food 3D printing at scale.

What inspired you to start your company?
Most people don’t know what to eat. There are many apps and services out there to give you very personalized advice. But there are no services to convert those apps into meals. Moreover, humans are good at and enjoy creativity, while number crunching is a machine’s forte. I may want to decide what physical form of food I am in the mood for or even what cuisine, but I don’t want to measure every ingredient according to my nutritional requirements.

A food 3D printer can provide personalized nutrition integrating data from all the apps, wearables and even medical records that exist to create the mathematically optimized meal for me — inarguably, the best possible thing I could be eating. It is said, “It’s 80% nutrition and 20% exercise.” With this, I never have to worry about my 80%!

What’s more, it can produce little bite-sized pieces I call “foodlets” so as to make every bite perfect and an absolutely effortless experience. The peak of convenience beyond what any fast food restaurant can provide. And when machines make it, with scale, it can be available and affordable for all.

With “fast-food” made healthy, we can liberate people to always have a healthy option no matter how busy or broke. There is a saying in Hindi, “Jaan hai to Jahan hai”: if you have your health, you have the world! Health is the foundation of our productivity. With optimal nutrition and therefore good health within grasp, people can reach their full potential and propel humanity forward. And of course lower instances of diabetes, obesity and other lifestyle diseases. A lower strain on the healthcare system. Preventive healthcare!

It doesn’t end there. With enough scale, we can transform the supply chain for food by applying manufacturing inventory management techniques. We can work with grocery stores to minimize inventory and even utilize the fresh produce left at the end of each day to minimize food waste. With more efficient distribution, we may be able to reduce world hunger if not eliminate it completely!

I could go on about specific ground-level applications, but this is the overarching vision. This drives me and gives me a reason to wake up in the morning!

What’s the most challenging part of getting a food tech startup off the ground?
Where do I begin! Food is a touchy subject. Literally — we need to be careful about what is literally touching the food! We need regulatory approval (FDA for the U.S.) for the parts, the machine and the process of preparing the food. We also need food handling certification for all personnel that handle the food.

Food is also “touchy” figuratively. People have deep emotional connections to their food. A new form of food may have a psychological barrier to cross for acceptance. We need to focus on demonstrations and education and make this “new” thing mundane and “normal” with exposure for the majority to adopt it. The good thing is, instead of giving supplements powders, we want to focus on real food ingredients and just give the precise proportions of those!

How will your company change the day-to-day life of consumers and the food space as a whole?
Food 3D printing at scale has the potential to make “fast” food healthy. In other words, make healthy food convenient and affordable!

No two people are the same. Everyone has different needs and goals. Food 3D printing at scale has the potential to make individual-level personalization available and affordable for all. Beyond personalized nutrition, people crave a personal touch. For some people, a sandwich is most convenient, while it may be a wrap or hot pocket for others. Some want a dish displayed traditionally, while others may like their toast carved as a dinosaur. With 3D printing, this personal touch can also be added.

Armed with personalized nutrition and this personal touch, Anrich3D can change the perception of food and what form it can take! Star Trek anyone?

For kids, healthier food can be delivered in the shapes of their favorite characters to improve their motivation to finish the meal. This can be made into a gamified nutritional educational program for kids where they unlock more characters by finishing each meal. As the levels progress, they need to identify ingredients and make estimates for the amounts of each ingredient in a balanced meal. The program gradually helps them acquire the taste for healthier foods and teaches them about healthy ingredients and nutrition along the way!

This can be a government-mandated nutrition course in every school all over the world to raise a generation of healthier kids with an acquired taste for healthier food and a deep understanding of nutrition to create a healthier and more productive tomorrow!

Even beyond all that, Anrich3D can streamline the food supply chain from farm to grocery store to your plate so as to minimize waste and redistribute existing produce to minimize hunger. Mobilizing forces across countries, we can end world hunger!

Come watch Anirudh pitch live and at the SKS Startup Showcase next month! Get 25% off your tickets here.

Rotten Avocados? StixFresh’s Sticker Will Keep Them From Going Bad

Have you ever bought a bunch of avocados that ripened so quickly you had to throw them away before you could use them?

Well I have, and I’m not the only one. In fact, almost half of food waste happens at home, often because of scenarios like the one above. StixFresh is a new startup that’s combatting downstream food waste in grocery stores and consumer kitchens — with a sticker. They’re also one of the finalist companies who will pitch live at the SKS 2019 Startup Showcase in October.

We spoke with StixFresh cofounder and CEO Moody Soliman to learn a little more about these seemingly magical food waste fighting stickers. Check out the Q&A below then grab your tickets to SKS before they sell out.

Give us your 15-second elevator pitch
At StixFresh, we’ve developed a food-safe sticker that can extend the shelf life of fresh fruit by up to two weeks. This simple sticker can be applied at any point along the produce supply chain.

What inspired you to start StixFresh?
My co-founder and I both have an unyielding passion for bringing innovative technologies to market that ultimately improve people’s health, safety and quality of life. This is exactly what we saw in StixFresh — a technology that truly has the potential to change the world. It will not only have an economical benefit, but it will also have enormous social and environmental benefits across governments, companies and communities around the world.

What have you found to be the most challenging part of getting a food startup off the ground?
In a food tech startup, efficacy and safety go hand-in-hand. You are not only faced with the challenge of developing an innovative and potentially disruptive technology that has to work, but it must also be 100% safe. Because of our backgrounds, this has been our focus from the get-go. Nevertheless, this requires extensive R&D and product development work. This takes significant resources in the form of time and money in order to do it right, neither of which are a luxury for most startups.

How will StixFresh change the day-to-day life of consumers and the food space as a whole?
StixFresh will (1) significantly reduce fresh food waste by extending shelf-life via an all-natural process, and (2) maintain the food’s freshness longer, thus allowing many communities (especially developing ones) to consume fresh, natural, organic foods they were not able to access previously.

Furthermore, fruits and vegetables account for the largest portion of wasted food in terms of mass. So, by reducing the food waste that makes up a significant portion of today’s landfills, StixFresh will help reduce our carbon footprint and foster more responsible stewardship of the huge amounts of natural resources required to grow our food. StixFresh will not only help consumers save money, it will also help farmers, governments, companies, and communities provide food sustainably, as well as help address the issue of climate change.

Come watch Moody pitch live and at the SKS Startup Showcase next month! Get 25% off your tickets here.

David Kay on Why Consumers Will Love Cultured Meat (Just as Soon as It Gets to Market)

When talking about cultured meat (that is, meat made without animal slaughter), one of the first names that comes up in conversation is Memphis Meats. This Silicon Valley startup was the first company to start serious development in the cell-based meat space four years ago, and they are still on the cutting edge today.

We invited Memphis Meats’ Senior Manager of Communications and Operations (also its first employee), David Kay, to speak about the potential of cell-based meat at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) next month alongside Lou Cooperhouse of BlueNalu. But we got a little eager, so we went ahead and asked Kay a few questions about the meat alternative revolution and how he thinks consumers will react to eating meat grown in a bioreactor.

Check out the interview below then grab your tickets to SKS. They’re going fast!

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Memphis Meats is growing animal meat without the animal. Give us a high-level explanation of how you do that.
We start by obtaining animal cells from high-quality livestock animals. We figure out which of these cells are most capable of self-renewal and which ones give us the potential to express the characteristics we desire with respect to taste, texture and aroma. Once we select these cells we feed them nutrients. The nutrients are, at a high level, the same nutrients that the cells would get in nature — amino acids, water, oxygen, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals. The cells grow, multiply, and create muscle tissue (aka meat). At scale, this will take place in a facility that is similar to a beer brewery. We call this process “essential nutrition” because we can produce just the meat consumers desire and nothing more.

What’s the reasoning behind developing cultured meat?
With the global population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, demand for meat is expected to double. But given the amount of resources modern livestock production requires today — a third of the world’s arable land and fresh water — we simply won’t be able to meet that demand. At Memphis Meats, we want to enable our food system to feed an increasingly hungry planet while preserving both the planet and cherished culinary traditions. We expect cell-based meat production will coexist with conventional meat production, and that together these methods will meet demand.

When will we actually be able to eat cell-based meat? When do you guess it will first enter the market and how long will it take before it’s available in your average supermarket?
While we are working as fast as we can to bring a product to market, we are also cognizant that our number one priority as a food company – and as a nascent industry – must be ensuring product safety and consumer trust. Key to this is establishing a sensible regulatory framework. We are committed to providing consumers with Memphis meat through appropriate regulatory channels. While other innovative industries might follow the “move fast and break things” Silicon Valley ethos, we firmly believe that our product release must be done in a responsible and transparent manner.

Why is communication such a critical aspect of the alternative protein revolution?
From the earliest days at Memphis Meats, we have seen communication as a crucial responsibility of cell-based meat companies, and a necessary tool for establishing trust with consumers. We had our media debut, including a viral video of the world’s first cell-based meatball, when we were less than six months old and had only four team members. Since then we have regularly updated the public as we’ve reached milestones in product development, regulation, fundraising and our growing team. We want to empower consumers to make their own decisions. We are confident that, if provided with the facts, consumers will be enthusiastic about cell-based meat.

What do you think is the biggest hurdle cultured meat has to face? Consumer acceptance? Regulatory issues? Labeling pushback?
We will be ready to go to market as soon as a regulatory path is established in the U.S. We are grateful for the speed and openness that both agencies have demonstrated so far in regulatory conversations, and we look forward to continuing to provide them with the information they need to make informed decisions.

Keep an eye out for more speaker Q&A’s as we ramp up to our fifth year of SKS on October 7-8 in Seattle! We hope to see you there.

Orchestra Provisions Is Trying to Bring on the Insect Revolution through Cricket Spice Blends

On the whole, people are still pretty wary about eating bugs. They might try the occasional cricket tortilla chip or scoop of protein powder, but overall, consumers — at least Western ones — are a little creeped out by munching on insects.

One company pitching at our upcoming SKS Future Food competition is trying to make an easy way for people to incorporate bugs into their diet. Orchestra Provisions makes a line of spices, such as curry powder and za’atar, which are blended with cricket powder. We spoke with founder Kate Stoddard about why she decided spice blends were the way to get people to eat more insects. If you want to see her pitch live (and taste the buggy blends for yourself), be sure to get your ticket to SKS in Seattle this October!

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

First thing’s first: Give us your 15-second elevator pitch
The concept of entomophagy provides a biodiverse superfood that has the capacity to feed billions sustainably. This unique product line introduces a culture that harbors aversion to eating insects to bugs in an approachable way that changes little about the culinary process. Orchestra provisions’ spice line is used just the same as regular spices, but is based off of a cricket powder boasting 2.5 grams of protein per serving! One cannot see, taste or smell the crickets in these gourmet mixes. Gram to gram, crickets have more protein than beef, more calcium than milk and more iron than spinach. Crickets are also a great source of prebiotic fiber and taste like sunflower seeds. Requiring a fraction of the land, feed and water compared to beef or pork, crickets also emit very few greenhouse gases. Bonus: their waste is yet another useful product; garden fertilizer called “frass”. Orchestra is involved currently in the R&D phase of formulating a protein powder that will easily substitute in for less sustainable protein sources.

What inspired you to start Orchestra Provisions?
I am inspired by the way food culture and nutrition shape our ecosystems. Humans are destroying the very land that sustains them and I want to be a part of finding solutions that restore balance and harmony.

What have you found to be the most challenging part of getting a food startup off the ground?
Too many to list, but this may be yet another source of inspiration. To be brief, the top two challenges: The psychology of aversion to entomophagy and creating a market for more sustainable and responsible foods.

How will Orchestra Provisions change the day-to-day life of consumers and the food space as a whole?
The positive impacts of entomophagy are immeasurable and vast. One intent is to conserve more wild lands to preserve native and wild ecosystems where future generations can learn, observe and be in nature. Another goal is to feed the mouths we have managed to bring onto the planet without destroying it. Perhaps the most important vision is to integrate insects into the western diet by proving them as a gourmet experience that is anything but new to human history. With all of these sustainability goals, the day to day adjustments should be seamless, changing little about the way consumers buy and prepare meals. This is why my product line overcomes aversion, because it integrates into people’s busy lives efficiently and effectively.

Come watch Kate pitch live and taste Orchestra Provisions’ buggy products at the SKS Future Food Competition next month! Get 25% off your tickets here.

Hooray Foods is Trying to Crack The Holy Grail of Plant-Based Meats: Bacon

For those trying to cut down on meat in their diets, bacon is often one of the last to go. It’s just too dang delicious and there aren’t any good substitutes that mimic its fatty, smoky flavor and crisp-chewy texture.

However, that might change soon. Hooray Foods is a new startup (seriously, they just began operations in February of this year) trying to crack the as-yet unsolved code of how to create plant-based bacon. I got to speak with founder and sole employee Sri Artham last week at the Good Food Conference in San Francisco, and also try out his “fake”-un for myself.

Artham, who previously founded Ganaz, an app which helps combat labor shortages on farms, decided to focus on bacon because he thought it would have the biggest impact. “If you disrupt the pork belly market, you can disrupt the entire meat industry,” he told me. Since he doesn’t have a food science background, he just headed straight to the kitchen and started experimenting. “There was a lot of naiveté and trial and error,” he said. But after a billion failed experiments, he had his first product.

Hooray is currently more of a side hustle — Artham and makes all the “bacon” himself in just 4 hours per week — but he’s seeking funding and has plans to bring on another full-time staff person starting soon. Hooray Foods already has its bacon on the menus of two restaurants, both in San Francisco, and Artham plans to expand to more foodservice partners before eventually launching in retail. He didn’t disclose pricing details but said his product would soon be on par with premium bacon, since his product is made with readily-available ingredients and simple production methods. (Unlike other meat substitutes, it doesn’t require extrusion or custom machinery.)

A “B”LT featuring Hooray’s plant-based bacon.

Hooray Foods is smart to plant its flag in the alternative bacon space, which doesn’t have a lot of competition right now. But I doubt the space will be so open for long, though. Hooray is super small and will take a while to scale up, assuming it gets funding. In that time, Big Food companies such as Tyson, Kellogg and Kroger, which are already devoting their massive R&D teams, manufacturing facilities, and retail relationships to developing and selling their own meat alternatives, could start making a plant-based bacon of their own.

Hooray Foods will also likely face competition from smaller startups. During the Good Food Conference, Ecovative announced Atlast Foods, their spinoff company which makes scaffolding for meat alternatives out of mycelium (mushroom) roots. Their example product? Bacon.

I got to try a piece of Hooray’s bacon and thought it was in the ballpark of the real thing. It had a nice savory, fatty taste and the texture was chewy. That would work for people who like their bacon on the lightly-cooked side, but if you like it borderline burnt, like me, it wasn’t quite there, even after a long cook time. It also didn’t quite nail bacon’s smoky flavor. But if you put it on top of, say, an Impossible Burger or crumbled it on top of a plant-based taco, it would definitely approximate the bacon experience.

People love their bacon, so there’s certainly room for a couple players to take a swing at making alt-bacon. But if Hooray wants to cement its first-mover advantage, they’ll have to get their bacon on more plates — and quickly.

Meet the 10 Finalists of the First Ever SKS Future Food Competition

On Tuesday, we introduced you to the 12 Startup Showcase finalists who will pitch at the Smart Kitchen Summit {SKS} this October. Now it’s time to meet the first ever Future Food cohort: 10 startups creating innovative new CPG products out of groundbreaking or sustainable ingredients.

Read on to get acquainted with the Future Food cohort finalists, who are making everything from cricket seasoning powders to upcycled ice cream to chewing gum that boosts your immune system. Then be sure to snag your tickets to SKS to see both them and the Startup Showcase pitches live this October!

Future Food Finalists

BASE FOOD Inc is a Japanese startup which uses seaweed, beans, and whole grains to make better-for-you alternatives to carbohydrate-heavy foods such as noodles or bread.

Burden of Proof makes sparkling non-alcoholic cocktail with herbs, citrus, and adaptogen cold brew tea packaged in aluminum cans.

Ice Creem Social takes leftover ingredients from kitchens in NYC, such as grain from beer brewing, aquafaba, and hemp, and upcycles them to create sustainable vegan ice cream.

Mighty Gum is Seattle-based company that makes enhanced chewing gum. Their first product, Immunity gum, is packed with extracts of ashwagandha, astragalus, elderberry, reishi mushroom, and zinc meant to strengthen your immune system and help manage stress.

nufuuds combines sustainably grown algae with food staples to create sustainable and nutrient-rich products and meal alternatives.

Orchestra Provisions focuses on mending broken food systems by creating products with sustainable and responsibly sourced cricket protein. Its first product is a spice line with eight flavors, and it’s developing a series of milks and protein powders, too.

Planeteer fights plastic waste in oceans by making spoons that are completely edible, vegan, and healthy for the planet.

Rebellyous Foods is a food production company creating delicious, juicy and affordable plant-based meats for the foodservice market.

Route to India provides consumers with “better-for-you” snacks inspired by Ayurveda while enhancing the lives and livelihoods of rural farmers in India. Their first product is a light, crunchy, healthy snack made from Asian water lily seeds.

Sophie’s Kitchen provides plant-based seafood alternatives, including shrimp, fish fillets, smoked salmon, crab cakes, scallops, calamari and sashimi.

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Curious about this diverse group of future food startups? Join us at the Smart Kitchen Summit on October 7-8! Be sure to get your tickets today and save 25% with code THESPOON25.

Hey, Startups! Applications Are Now Open for These Food-Focused Accelerators

My crystal ball tells me that come early 2020, we’ll get numerous announcements from startup accelerators and incubators opening the application process for their programs. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to wait another several months if you’re ready to start shopping your startup to a program right now. With that in mind, here’s a quick roundup of some remaining food tech accelerator programs still taking applications in 2019.

Are we missing a program? Email tips@thespoon.tech with details and we’ll consider it for inclusion in future versions of this post.

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) Accelerator Program
Kansas City, MO

The DFA, a national cooperative of family farmers in the U.S., is starting to recruit startups for the 2020 class of its accelerator program, which focuses on both dairy innovation and agri-tech areas like data management, herd health management, supply chain, food traceability, and more.

Successful applicants will take part in a 90-day cohort that is a combination of virtual programming and about four weeks of onsite work at the DFA headquarters in Kansas City, MO. Participants get guidance on product development and marketing, as well as access to DFA executives and potential investors. The DFA is specifically looks for companies it can strike longer-term relationships with.

Applications are taken on a rolling basis, while the next program starts on March 30, 2020.

FoodTech Accelerator
Milan, Italy

Powered by Deloitte and based in Milan, Italy, the FoodTech Accelerator picks 10 startups each year to participate in its 15-week program. The program covers a pretty wide range of areas in the food industry, from CPG to agri-tech to automation and packaging innovation. Notable alumni include Inspecto and Wasteless.

Selected participants will work with mentors to validate their products and scale their business. Companies also get access to cash contribution and services (in exchange for up to 6 percent equity), potential investors, workspace in Milan and an introduction to the European food tech ecosystem. The program ends with a demo day where companies pitch to investors.

Applications close on September 30, 2019.

Thrive Accelerator
Salinas, CA

The Thrive Accelerator, run by Silicon Valley-based SVG Partners, is a four-month program geared towards pre-Series A startups working in a range of agritech areas, including supply chain management, animal health, biotech, robotics, indoor farming, and farm software, to name a few. Thrive selects 10 companies to participate in the program, which is part virtual and part onsite in Salinas, CA. The program ends with a demo day at the Forbes AgTech Summit in Salinas.

Thrive invests $100,000 in each startup accepted ($50,000 in cash and $50,000 in program value), with opportunity for further investment. The program also provides two mentors per company, networking opportunities, access to farmers (with whom startups can conduct field trials) and weekly webinars that cover everything from effective fundraising to go-to-market strategies.

Applications close October 31, 2019.

Meet the 12 Finalists for the SKS 2019 Startup Showcase!

Every year, attendees of the Smart Kitchen Summit {SKS} tell us that one of their favorite parts of the two-day conference is the Startup Showcase. It’s a time for our audience to get a glimpse at early-stage companies making innovative inroads in food and watch them demo cutting edge technologies.

This year we got so many applications for this competition we decided to split it up into two groups. The Startup Showcase will focus on food tech, such as connected kitchen appliances, recipe apps and cooking robots, while the Future Food Competition will highlight companies making innovative CPG products.

After much deliberation we’ve selected our 12 Startup Showcase finalists! Meet them below and look out for a post later this week introducing the Future Food finalists. Then be sure to snag your tickets to SKS to see both cohorts pitch live this October!

Startup Showcase Finalists

Anrich3d is developing a 3D food printer which can extrude food to match individuals’ precise nutritional requirements and taste preferences.

Anycart is a recipe discovery and meal planning app with transparent per-serving pricing for each dish. Users can search for recipes, order ingredients for delivery, and get guided step-by-step cooking assistance.

Botrista is a barista robot aimed at making craft beverages more accessible and affordable through automation.

bowl is an automated micro salad restaurant. Customers order their salad via the bowl app and are notified when their personalized salad is ready for pickup at the machine.

CocoTerra has developed the world’s first tabletop, bean-to-bar chocolate maker which can make dark, milk, and white chocolate in about two hours. Users can also create their own custom chocolate blends.

Eat Safe Verified is increasing food transparency by establishing a dedicated communication channel between food companies and consumers. Individuals can look up information about their food such as how it’s tested for contaminants.

Ends+Stems is a meal planning web app aimed at reducing household food waste. It’s a subscription-based service which provides curated meal plans and grocery lists based off of individuals’ dining preferences to reduce ingredient waste.

FET Kitchen brings a world of experts into your kitchen, via a digital screen in your kitchen backsplash, so you can take cooking classes when you want at home.

The HotSpot CookTop has the functionality of a flat top grill with the size and ease of a traditional cooktop so that home cooks can create restaurant-quality food at home.

LEVO is a countertop device that pairs with a mobile app to automate the infusing process, allowing individuals to make their own infused oils, soaps, butters, and more. It can also make CBD infusions.

Millo makes an updated kitchen blender that’s cordless, silent, efficient and beautiful enough to keep on your kitchen countertop. It connects to your phone for remote control and personalization.

StixFresh makes a food-safe sticker which can extend the shelf life of fresh fruit by up to two weeks. The sticker can be applied to produce at any point along the supply chain.

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Curious about this diverse group of food tech startups? Join us at the Smart Kitchen Summit on October 7-8! Make sure to get your tickets today and save 25% with code THESPOON25.

Q&A: Bill Birgen is Developing New Technology to Keep Your Delivery French Fries Fresh

At the Smart Kitchen Summit {SKS} 2018, Bill Birgen got up onstage during the Startup Showcase and started talking about a problem that many of us have struggled with: soggy delivery french fries.

“We’ve all experienced the disappointment of food delivery, when our food arrives after being ravaged — ravaged I say — by the horror of condensation,” he said. Annoyed by the severe drop in quality of certain foods during delivery, Birgen, a former rocket scientist, decided to create a technology that would keep food crisp, fresh, and decidedly not soggy while en route to your home. Thus his company, Soggy Food Sucks, was born.

Birgen won the 2018 Startup Showcase. This year he will return to the SKS stage as a speaker to talk about how he’s rethinking food packaging in the age of delivery. To whet your appetite, we sat down with Birgen to do a quick Q&A. Check it out below then be sure to snag your tickets to SKS before they sell out!

You won the SKS Startup Showcase last year with your startup Soggy Food Sucks (congrats!). Tell us more about it.
The 2018 SKS was the first time I had presented my idea in public. Prior to presenting, I was so filled with tremendous apprehension regarding how my invention would be received. Condensation in food delivery is a gap and a pain that I had never heard anyone complain about. The response from the SKS audience and judges were sources of tremendous validation. Winning SKS and subsequent food industry events is an ongoing source of encouragement and motivation. It all started at SKS 2018. I’m really looking forward to returning to SKS 2019, this time as a member of the broader food industry fraternity and less as the dark horse outsider.

Looking back I can say I am happy with how succinctly I managed to describe the thermodynamic mechanisms, and the condensation nuances surrounding my product. in my 2018 SKS Showcase presentation. I had a few coaches help with my presentation, but in the end, I largely ignored their advice. The advice I kept receiving was to tell a story and avoid being overly technical. For me to be authentic meant being technical. While I didn’t tell a story in a traditional sense, I do feel I was able to be engaging and dare I say entertaining. The Facebook Live stream that I shared online has thousands of view. SKS was fantastic exposure.

Has anything changed for your company since you won the Showcase?
Immediately following SKS2018 TechStars offered me a position in their upcoming accelerator. I did not realize what a huge opportunity TechStars was. Naively, I turned down TechStars, with the expectation that I would be selected as one of the eight startups for Chipotle’s first ever accelerator. When I was not accepted into Chipotle’s accelerator I continued forward, bootstrapping as I had before.

The product itself has recently been redesigned for aesthetics and re-branded as SAVR-pak. The first automated, real production inventory has been received at our distribution facility. Deliveroo has placed a purchase order. GrubHub, and Door Dash cannot be far behind. Marina Bay Sands, Wynn Casinos, Disney and Virgin hotels have all reached out for product and demonstrations. Cambro wants a larger size product that will integrate seamlessly with their larger food delivery platforms.

Subsequent patents have been filed in an adjacent food packaging space. The focus of this new product being the elimination of frost inside frozen food packaging. One of the largest fresh fish processor in Hong Kong has adopted this new anti-frost packaging product.

Think big: How do you envision your technology changing the food delivery experience?
B2C is a massive market that I plan on addressing a year or two down the road, due to the scale of the education and marking required. I will let the public become familiar with seeing my SAVR-pak in food delivery and catering applications before putting it on the shelf at supermarkets, next to cellophane sandwich bags and brown paper lunch bags.

The goal all along of my humble invention was to create a higher expectation for food quality, when it comes to food delivery and storage. Delivering food that is fresher, means less food will be discarded. Aesthetically, it is so much more appealing to open a container sans hundreds of water droplets clinging to every surface. So much of our food experience is aesthetics and perception. Soggy Food Sucks has introduced the SAVR-pak to help with food quality and to reduce waste.

What’s the absolute worst food to eat soggy?
By far the resounding answer from the food delivery industry is French fries. This perspective is biased in my opinion, by the pervasiveness of French fries on our menus. I would challenge this obvious answer, and say spinach salad is the worst soggy food. The spinach leaf has a delicate structure that is quickly compromised by condensation. The result is not just soggy but limp and even slimy spinach, which is wholly inedible. A salad that has been touched by condensation cannot be eaten.

Keep an eye out for more speaker Q&A’s as we ramp up to our fifth year of SKS on October 7-8 in Seattle! We hope to see you there.

WeWork to Acquire Restaurant Coworking Business Spacious

WeWork announced this week it will acquire NYC-based Spacious, a company that helps high-end restaurants turn their dining rooms into coworking spaces for parts of the workday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Spacious has raised $9.1 million to date.

Founded in 2016, Spacious is one a growing number of companies working with restaurants to turn under-utilized dining room real estate into daytime coworking space. Typically, Spacious and other companies team up with high-end establishments that only operate at certain times of the day — for example, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. for dinner — and offer coworking space during hours the business would normally be closed to the public. Spacious manages all logistics around membership, sign-up, and sign-in, and communicates via the Spacious app or website about any changes to the restaurant’s schedule, like it being temporarily closed for a private event.

Restaurants themselves only have to provide the space and limited amenities (e.g., coffee). As I wrote last year, teaming up with Spacious is a smart move for restaurants:

The match makes sense. According to one study, an estimated 5.1 million people worldwide will be using a coworking space by 2022. But not all of them can or want to pay $300 and up for a place like WeWork or Galvanize (more on that in a minute). At the same time, restaurant profit margins are thinner than the blade of a Wüsthof paring knife, and partnering with coworking companies is an opportunity for those businesses to make extra revenue.

The acquisition by WeWork, now officially rebranded as the We Company, is another match that makes sense. Despite labels like “$20 billion house of cards” and much doubt over its impending IPO WeWork has undeniable influence the coworking world. In 2019, the company ventured into the food world by launching WeWork Food Labs, a cross between a physical workspace and startup accelerator for food businesses. Given WeWork’s reach in the coworking arena, the acquisition of Spacious could give more restaurants the opportunity to put under-utilized space to work during off-hours and improve some of those aforementioned razor-thin restaurant margins.

Back in 2018, there was much talk, from The Spoon and others, of restaurant coworking spaces offering more affordable, flexible alternatives to larger coworking entities, and that companies like Spacious could soon be gobbling up WeWork’s customer base. With this week’s news, it seems the opposite is now true.

Disclosure: The Spoon is a launch partner with WeWork Food Labs. Read Mike’s Publisher’s Note here to learn more about why we’ve teamed up with WeWork and the editorial standards we’ve put in place for coverage of WeWork Labs companies moving forward.