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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Perfect Day Launches Ice Cream Made from Cow-Free Milk, and We Tried It

Since we first heard about Perfect Day, the Silicon Valley startup making dairy without animals, we’ve been eagerly waiting to see what their first product would be.

That time has finally come. Today Perfect Day is doing a limited release of three ice cream flavors made with its cow-free dairy. They’re selling 1,000 orders of an ice cream trio that includes a pint each of dry ice-packed Vanilla Blackberry Toffee, Milky Chocolate, and Vanilla Salted Fudge. The cost will be $20 per pint (so $60 total) plus shipping. That’s pretty significant, but compared to some of the fancier plant-based ice creams out there, it isn’t completely outrageous — especially when you consider the level of tech that went into making Perfect Day’s product.

Perfect Day makes its dairy by genetically modifying microflora to produce the two main proteins in milk: casein and whey. They combine the dried proteins with plant fats, water, vitamins and minerals to make a lactose-free product that has the same properties — taste, consistency, and nutritional breakdown — of milk.

Far left, plant-based ice cream. Perfect Day’s ice cream in the middle and right. (Photo: Catherine Lamb)

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to visit Perfect Day’s labs and give their ice cream a taste. Co-founders Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya laid out three ice cream samples for me to try: two were theirs, and one was from an unnamed plant-based dairy company.

After I tasted the first bite, I could tell immediately which of the three were Perfect Day’s; they tasted just like ice cream. Creamy and smooth, I was almost surprised how much it didn’t surprise me at all. All I could think was “yep, that’s ice cream.”

According to Pandya, the company landed on ice cream as their first product because it’s “synonymous with dairy delight,” and because there’s not a really good plant-based option for ice cream on the market right now. “They all lack the right mouthfeel,” he said. Perfect Day’s, however, exactly copied the experience of eating a spoonful of ice cream — without the odd iciness or aftertaste that can come with plant-based alternatives.

Left: Perfect Day’s protein alone. Right: Mixed with water and fat to make “milk.” (Photo: Catherine Lamb)

In tandem with their new product launch, Perfect Day is also doing a rebrand of sorts. They’re now calling their core product “flora-based” dairy, as the milk proteins are made by genetically engineered microflora, not plants or lab-grown cells. “We want people to know it’s plant-based but not from plants, it’s an animal product but without animals,” Pandya explained.

Since it doesn’t come from an animal, the company has to be careful about how they refer to the ice cream on its packaging. To avoid ruffling the FDA’s feathers, the flora-based ice cream will actually be labeled “frozen dairy dessert.” Pandya pointed out the importance of keeping the “dairy” term in there for safety, as Perfect Day’s milk would trigger dairy allergies just like the stuff made by cows.

Perfect Day’s master plan is to focus on B2B sales and provide their dairy technology to large CPG companies in order to “make the greatest change possible,” according to Pandya. However, they decided to do this initial launch under their own brand to get their name out there and establish the legitimacy of their product. Eventually they envision partners putting “powered by Perfect Day” on their packaging.

Photo: Perfect Day.

In short, Perfect Day wants to become synonymous with their animal-free milk. And they might actually have a good chance. Startup New Culture is also creating dairy proteins through fermentation, though they’re still a ways away from being able to do a product launch. Of course there are all the plant-based dairy competitors, from oat milk to almond milk and beyond. But while some of these options do a pretty good job of imitating dairy, they can’t hope to have the exact same nutrition, taste, and physical properties of milk. Perfect Day can.

Ice cream — er, frozen dairy dessert — is just the start. Pandya told me that they’re working on dozens of prototypes. Just the other week I saw an Instagram post from the company featuring bagels topped with cream cheese made from their dairy. So far the startup has raised $61 million in funding and has a staff of 60.

Today’s release is a one-time deal. Pandya said Perfect Day’s ice cream will be more widely available in 2020, either through partners or under their own brand. Based off of my taste test, I think their technology has the potential to (and I hate this word, but it fits here) disrupt the way that we make and consume dairy alternatives. If you want to try Perfect Day’s flora-based ‘scream for yourself, you can order it starting now on their website.

Perfect Day co-founder Perumal Gandhi will be speaking about forging the future of protein at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) in Seattle this fall! Early Bird tickets are on sale here. 

First Chop Pivots from Consumer Sous Vide to Prepared B2B Meal Service

Famed Silicon Valley entrepreneur and advisor Steve Blank has said that “a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” That’s why it’s not uncommon for a startup to pivot during its lifetime as it searches for that repeatable model.

So I wasn’t too surprised when I saw that First Chop, a company that started out selling protein-only consumer meal kits complete with their own sous vide circulators, had pivoted and moved towards selling more complete meals to businesses.

I originally covered First Chop back in November of 2017, writing:

FirstChop is looking to stand out in the competitive meal shipping space in few ways. First, it only does meal proteins: chicken, beef, lamb, etc.; no vegetables, no starches. Second, all those proteins are cooked, and then frozen and vacuum sealed, so you can eat them on your own schedule. And third, the Bay Area-based company is basically giving away a sous-vide wand so all customers have to do is put the frozen bag of meat in hot water to prepare it.

Turns out that “all customers have to do” was actually big ask.

I talked with First Chop Co-Founder and CEO, Ajay Narain, today who said that there were two big issues with his company’s original plan. First was that customer acquisition costs got too high and it unsustainable to go directly after consumers. The other big issue was that the sous vide element proved too much for most customers.

“Sous vide was too steep a hill to climb.” Narain said, “[Customers] had to understand the benefit of sous vide and buy into the premise that the food would come out better and pay a bunch of money to try it out.”

Spoiler: they didn’t.

It wasn’t just educating them on sous vide, Narain said. Even if they used the wand perfectly, customers still had issues with the cooking method. Sous vide cooking takes a long time. You have to heat the water to the right temperature, then slowly heat the protein, which, in the case of First Chop’s food, took even longer because it was frozen. All in, customers were looking at more than an hour before they got to eat a First Chop meal.

Plus, Narain said, while sous vide heats food to a precise temperature, that temperature often isn’t as hot as people want when they eat. “The food comes out the perfect temperature, but for most people it’s not hot enough. It’s 140 degrees, but you’re used to piping hot food in your mouth.”

Facing all these challenges, Narain and co. decided to pivot this past January, shifting from a direct-to-consumer model towards a B2B model. With the revamped meal service, the sous vide wand is out and carbohydrates are in. First Chop now still fully prepares, cooks and assembles chef-prepared meals, but they are now in two pouches that you re-heat in the microwave. Instead of an hour, meals take two minutes.

First Chop is now aiming to sell to food service companies like Aramark, but before they can do that, the company first has to show some ground level interest. As such, First Chop piloted its new service with an unnamed Bay Area company earlier this year. The company is preparing for a more full launch in the next few months, but Narain said that during its first business trial, First Chop sold as much product than it sold in its first year as a consumer play.

While that kind of initial return is definitely good news for the privately funded First Chop, the company is venturing into a crowded market. There are lots of companies looking to sell into offices through various innovative means. Byte Technologies licenses out smart fridges. Markov pairs its high-tech microwave with a meal kit solution. And the just-launched-in-the-U.S. Genie is a one-touch machine that cooks and stirs freeze-dried meals in a cup. Not to mention all of the office catering startups.

With its pivot complete, now we’ll have to see if First Chop’s pivot has paid off and whether it’s found its repeatable, scalable business model.

A Few Summer Deadlines for NYC Food Tech Accelerators

You can count on a few things for any summer in New York: the hum of thousands of air conditioning units, lengthy sessions in the park, the unmistakable smell of garbage on the curb. And nowadays, you can also count on a few lingering applications deadlines still open for the city’s fast-growing tech accelerator scene.

While many programs have already wrapped their application process, we dug up a few more NYC-specific ones that are still taking applications, with cohorts slated to start around fall 2019.

If you want the lowdown on food tech accelerators and whether your company would benefit from one, check out The Spoon’s recent Food Tech Fireside chat.

Future Food Co
FutureFoodCo helps companies grow from early-product-market phase to having at least some mainstream appeal (a category often called “early majority”). The program looks for food projects and entrepreneurs ready to scale up on a proof of concept. It counts Zoni Foods, Shroom Snacks, and Ozuké among its alumni.

Four to eight participants are selected for each five-month-long cohort. FutureFoodCo looks for small companies on track to gross more than $1 million in annual sales. While the program is based in NYC, participants do not have to relocate full time in order to take part in the program.

All participants receive $10,000 (4–8 percent equity) along with mentorship and advising opportunities, as well as the usual access to networking and potential investment.

Applications for cohort 6 are open now.

Food-X
Food-X kind of doesn’t need an introduction to Spoon readers at this point. The 14-week program — one of the most well-known in the food tech sector — works with early-stage companies from across the food system, though Program Director Peter Bodenheimer noted earlier this year that ingredient tech and “advanced technology” are two ares of focus for Food-X.

For the Fall 2019 cohort, Food-X offers $65,000 in cash (for 8 percent equity) upon a participant starting the program, office space (participants must relocate to NYC), mentorship, access to the Food-X community, including alumni, and access to potential investment opportunities.

Food-X typically takes eight companies per cohort. Applications are open until July 14.

Accel Foods
While it’s more of a venture fund than traditional accelerator, Accel Foods works with up-and-coming CPG companies to scale their businesses and get products to market. Specifically, the fund looks for brands that already have some loyal customer base and are on track to grow to $250 million and above. The fund started in 2013 and since then has grown to managing three separate funds that equal $85 million.

Current members of the Accel portfolio include Alpha (Plant-Based) Foods, Soozy’s, who makes grain-free baked goods, and Wandering Bear Coffee.

Accel takes applications on a rolling basis, and participation is determined case by case. Interested companies can drop the fund a line to kickstart the process.

Purple Orange Ventures Announces Fellowship Program For Alt Protein Scientists

Purple Orange Ventures (P.O.V.), a seed fund based in Berlin, Germany, announced the launch of a new fellowship program aimed at alt-protein projects and ideas.

Dubbed The Entrepreneurial Scientist & Engineer Fellowship Program, the fellowship will provide grant money and mentorship for scientists and engineers using, well, science and engineering to create products that mimic the look, feel, and taste of meat, dairy, and seafood without using any animal byproduct whatsoever.

“We want to accelerate the animal-free foodtech movement in Europe, UK, Israel & Singapore,” P.O.V. investor and Managing Director Gary Lin wrote in a blog post when he announced the fellowship. In keeping with that, the fellowship is open to those currently residing in those regions or countries.

The Fellowship, for which P.O.V. has partnered with The Good Food Institute, New Harvest, ProVeg International, and the ProVeg Incubator, differs from the usual startup accelerator or incubator in a few different ways. Most notably, the selection criteria is much narrower: the Fellowship’s homepage states that applicants should have a “Ph.D in science, engineering or related field with ideally commercial work experience or Master’s degree with a minimum of 2 years of commercial work experience.”

It’s also different in that it’s not about growing a company, as startup accelerators do, but rather, to validate whether a project is strong enough to warrant starting a company. To that end, participants will spend time testing their projects in the lab setting, receiving feedback from potential customers and stakeholders, and adjusting the product based on that feedback. The end goal is to get a project closer to a commercial reality.

The chosen few get €120,000 (~$135,379 USD) in grant funding across 12 months. The grant is non-dilutive. Participants also receive coaching and mentorship, networking opportunities, as well as a chance to work at P.O.V.’s facility in Berlin and a lab setting in Berkeley, CA.

Should a fellow choose to incorporate their company by program end, there’s potential for P.O.V. to invest, though that’s not a foregone conclusion.

Fellowships in food, food science, and food technology are becoming more plentiful these days. P.O.V.’s program joins the likes of the Future Leaders for Food and Agriculture (FFar) Fellows program, UC Davis’ Innovator Fellowship, and the Kirchner Food Fellowship.

Solar Foods Will Start Selling Gas-Fermented Protein by 2021

Making protein from thin air may sound like something out of science fiction, but it’s exactly what the Helsinki, Finland-based company Solar Foods is doing. They use a technique called gas fermentation to create edible protein using only two inputs: air and electricity.

A few months ago we got to interview Solar Foods CEO Pasi Vainikka and learned that the company was gearing up for an initial product launch in 2021. By 2022 they plan to build a factor factory that could make 50 million meals worth of their protein — called solein — per year.

It seems Solar Foods is sticking to their timeline — and even accelerating it. This weekend The Guardian reported that the Finnish company plans to sell 50 million meal’s worth of solein in supermarkets within two years (so, by 2021). The solein will apparently look and taste like flour and cost €5 ($5.64) per kilo. It will be used as an ingredient to add protein to food products, and can also apparently be woven into fibers to mimic meat or bread.

Solar Foods plans to apply to the EU for a novel food license by the end of this year so that they can stay on track to begin commercial production in 2021. They’ve already started pre-engineering on their factory.

While I’m all for making protein for unexpected sources, I wonder if this timeline is a little ambitious. Solar Foods has a couple of obstacles to contend with that might make their vision to put solein in 50 million supermarket meals in the next two years a little… tricky.

The first hurdle is regulation. The European Commission describes novel food as “derived from new production processes (UV-treated food (milk, bread, mushrooms, and yeast.))” Solein is made by genetically engineered bacteria. That certainly falls under the umbrella of new production processes, but the EU is notoriously cautious of GMO’s, so they might be hesitant to approve solein. At the very least, hoping for a less than two-year turnaround for regulatory approval is… optimistic.

The second hurdle for Solar Foods will be consumer acceptance. Will people want to eat protein that’s made from carbon dioxide processed through bacteria? It doesn’t sound terribly appetizing. Then again, according to Vainikka solein will have quite a neutral flavor and appearance, so maybe consumers wouldn’t even know.

Regardless of whether they meet their 2021 production goals, Solar Foods is on track to be the first company to bring gas fermented protein to market. But they won’t be the last. In the U.S. Kiverdi and are Novo Nutrients transforming CO2 into products like oils and fish food. Across the pond, U.K.-based Deep Branch Biotechnology is making animal feed out of the CO2 in industrial waste gas.

Gas fermentation could have implications far beyond the feed lots or the grocery store. Solar Foods is working with the European Space Agency to make a prototype device which could make protein for space missions. So come 2021 (or, you know, later), you could soon theoretically be eating the same diet as an astronaut. Talk about science fiction.

Danish Kitchen Tech Startup Ztove Raises Funding and Expands To Retail

Smart kitchen startup Ztove has raised funding, The Spoon has learned, as the company rolls out in retail in its home country of Denmark and eyes further European expansion.

The Odense, Denmark-based company has raised an undisclosed amount from robotics pioneer Niels Jul Jacobsen, the founder of Mobile Industrial Robots, or MIR. MIR, which was acquired by industrial equipment giant Teradyne last year, is also based in Odense.

“Odense has a long tradition in robotics, especially the kind that collaborates closely with humans,” Ztove CEO Peter Favrholdt told me when I caught up with him last week. “I see Ztove in this sense.”

Ztove makes a smart pan and connected cooktops (similar to the Hestan Cue). And while it may not be a cooking robot, apparently Jacobsen saw enough potential to invest in the company as it looks to expand across Europe. With the new funding, the company has moved to a larger office, invested in inventory and has recently gone on a hiring spree.

“We’ve been able to hire new employees both marketing, engineering and software developers,” said Favrholdt.

Ztove recently started shipping its product through retail with Danish national white goods retailer Skousen and also through Denmark’s largest online retailer WhiteAway according to Favrholdt. This was after the company started shipping its product earlier this year to early backers.

Ztove’s growth and international expansion plans are a long way from the company’s early days when Favrholdt was just an inventor tinkering around trying to make a cooking system to help make food for his family.  I first met Favrholdt back in 2016 when he flew to San Francisco to attend an event we were hosting on the future of cooking. Ztove later entered his company in the Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase and won.

According to Favrholdt, that win at SKS helped the company gain momentum that continues to this day (ed. note: I realize we’re tooting our own horn here, but you should totally attend SKS 2019).

“Bringing home the SKS trophy also had a significance,” he told me earlier this year. “Ztove won a couple of grants in Denmark, and in 2017 we were enrolled in the Odense Robotics Startup Hub – an accelerator program for early startups in the field of robotics. In 2018 we got a small investment allowing us to increase the pace and building the company bringing the Ztove products to market.”

And now, with additional funding from their Odense neighbor, the company hopes to pour more gas on the fire as it looks towards the future. And who knows, with their Odense heritage and new investor, maybe that future just may include a cooking robot.

Our Soil Is Dying. FoodShot Global’s New Tech-Driven Framework Could Help Save It

“The loss of organic matter of soil could be the most underestimated environmental crisis humanity faces.”

So Victor Friedberg, founder and chairman of FoodShot Global told me over the phone recently, and there’s a whole load of devastating evidence out there to suggest he wasn’t using hyperbole. The UN has warned there are only about 60 harvests left in the earth’s soils. Plowing and over-tilling have increased erosion by 10 to 100 times natural rates. Meanwhile, deforestation, overgrazing, and pesticides are adding to this degradation.

It’s not the most uplifting bunch of stats, but the story of our soil doesn’t necessarily have to have a tragic ending. “Let’s not get there,” Friedberg says of that ending.

That’s the mission driving FoodShot Global a collective of venture funds, banks, and foundations that have come together as an investment platform that wants to address critical issues in the food and agriculture systems. In 2018, FoodShot decided to tackle the soil issue by launching its Soil 3.0 challenge. Companies and entrepreneurs were invited to submit business, research, and policy proposals for potential solutions to revitalizing the world’s soil. And, more important, FoodShot wanted to find a few companies from the pool of entrants whose solutions could work collectively, forming what the organization calls “a new soil operating system.”

As Friedberg explained it to me, that framework will use technology, science, and farming practices to help the agricultural and food industries better understand through data the state of soil and, armed with that information, make better decisions around everything from growing and harvesting to understanding the types of microbes living in the soil to optimize crop yield.

Friedberg compares it to weather forecasting, which uses a mix of science and technology to gather data about air pressure, humidity levels, wind directly, and temperature, among other things. From that data, we can make all kinds of predictions across our lives, from someone like me deciding to hold a party indoors because of potential thunderstorms to a QSR ordering system being able to recommend a drive-thru customer hot soup on a cold afternoon.

Right now we have no such data-collection system for soil. In fact, we don’t really know much about it. We know that healthy soil teems with microbes, which interact with one another to do things like break down organic materials (e.g., dead plants and animals) and feed nutrients back into the soil. However, Freidberg isn’t far off the mark when he quotes Leonardo DaVinci to describe the state of our relationship to soil in the twenty-first century: “We know more about the movement of celestial bodies overhead than we do about the soil underfoot.”

This is where the winners of Soil 3.0 come into play.

Trace Genomics, who scooped up the main investment, has a proprietary analytics engine that does DNA extraction of the soil then analyzes it to help farmers with track the health of the soil across multiple fields (or even farms) and manage risk of disease. The company was founded in 2015 by Dr. Diane Wu and Dr. Poornima Parameswaran and is based out of Silicon Valley.

FoodShot also awarded two GroundBreaker Prize winners, each of whom receive $250,000. Dr. Keith Paustian’s COMET system guides farmers and land managers through their ranch and farm practices to help them improve their sustainability practices. “He’s creating the first platform in which you can layer soil type data, weather data, decide what crops you want to grow, what rotations you’re going to grow them in, then ultimately determine the greenhouse gas emissions from those choices,” explains Friedberg. Meanwhile, Dr. Gerlinde De Deyn, who took the second $250,000 Groundbreaker Prize, works in plant biodiversity and is creating what Friedberg calls “cutting edge tech” that will allow us to better understand plant biodiversity and the relstionship between plants and microbes in the soil.

A final investment of $35,000 was given to Dr. Dorn Cox, whose mission is to democratize farm data through his OpenTEAM platform, so it can be shared more easily amongst farmers and the agricultural industry in general.

All three FoodShot winners will receive guidance, mentorship, and capacity-building resources for maximum impact and scale.

Friedberg explains that these winners will focus both on their individual work as well as what they can do together in terms of contributing to FoodShot’s vision for the farm operating system of the future.

Soil 3.0 is just the start of FoodShot Global’s ongoing Challenge. Each year moving forward, the platform will choose a food-related topic to address. While Friedberg didn’t say specifically which area the next challenge will focus on, he did mention the platform has already considered food-secure cities, alternative proteins, and food-as-medicine as possible areas. Dates for the next challenge are expected to be announced later this year.

For now, the platform is focused on the soil. As Friedberg explains, FoodShot mapped those other topics out and came to the following conclusion: “you’re not going to be able to do any of those things if we don’t fix our soil.”

4 Food Tech Incubators Startups Should Look Into Right Now

Last week, The Spoon chatted with WeWork Labs’ Tessa Price and Food-X’s Peter Bodenheimer about foodtech accelerator programs and what they can offer to startups seeking the next phase of growth.

Brought up during the conversation was an important point that sometimes gets lost: the difference between accelerators and incubators. While the sheer number of programs nowadays means the distinction between the two is often, as Bodenheimer suggested, “interchangeable,” there are still some key differences. Most notably, incubators tend to foster companies who are still very early on in terms of their growth and who may not necessarily be ready to commercialize. And unlike accelerator programs, which typically run for a set amount of time, incubators most commonly take participants on a rolling basis.

Even those distinctions aren’t set in stone, however, and the best way to decide if an incubator is right for your food business is to examine the program details and see if they line up with your own ideas and goals about your business. With that in mind, here are some of today’s most popular food tech incubators:

The Kitchen
Israel

The Kitchen bills itself as a “FoodTech Hub” and takes companies on a rolling basis. It was founded by Israel’s largest food and beverage manufacturer, the Strauss Group, and invites participants from up and down the food chain. Notable members of its portfolio include food safety company Inspecto and cellular agriculture startup Aleph Farms.

To apply, startups are asked to introduce themselves via email that includes an overview of the company, team, and competitive advantage. If your credentials pass muster, The Kitchen will set up an interview process that leads to an eventual meeting with its Office of the Chief Scientist, with whom the buck stops. Chosen companies get a $500,000 budget over a two-year work plan, office space, and assistance from various business leaders in the food industry.

Email The Kitchen to start the application process.

Chobani Food Tech Residency
NYC

In some ways, Chobani’s Food Tech Residency operates more like an incubator than the company’s officially titled Chobani Incubator program. The Food Tech Residency brings startups to Chobani’s facilities so they can work side-by-side with members of the company’s operations team. Since the Residency is all about innovation and improving ideas and solutions, startups don’t have a product in the market yet to be eligible. Successful applicants will be given a chance during the program to pitch their businesses and potentially secure funding.

Chobani is currently taking applications for the next Residency program, which kicks off in September 2019. Applications are open until July 14. Since the program is more tech-focused, traditional packaged food and beverage products are not eligible for this program.

The Hatchery
Chicago, IL

The Hatchery is a massive facility in Chicago that offers food entrepreneurs access to shared kitchen and co-working space. It also maintains an incubator-like program that offers, coaching and consultations, access to a large member network, classes, and opportunities for financing (via The Hatchery’s joint-venture partner Accion).

One of the cool things about this program is its large number of events and workshops open to the public, which give potential applicants a chance to check out the facility and its culture in depth before handing over an application fee. Check the schedule here, and if it’s intriguing enough, you can apply to become a member on an ongoing basis.

Those serious about joining should be willing to base their operations out of the Chicago area.

Union Kitchen
Washington, D.C.

Union Kitchen offers multiple levels of involvement for food startups, from simply using its shared kitchen space in Washington D.C. to joining its incubator program (which it confusingly refers to as an accelerator). For the latter, chosen companies work with Union Kitchen to move from idea to concept and to actual product, and eventually launch their goods and/or services first in the D.C. area and then into other regions.

Union Kitchen participants come from across the food industry, though there is a strong emphasis on consumer packaged goods. The program happens in three phases over the course of about a year and a half. Those interested can schedule a tour beforehand. Union Kitchen takes applications on an ongoing basis.

Cornell University and New York State Launch the Grow-NY Food Innovation Challenge

Cornell University and New York State announced today announced the launch of Grow-NY, a food- and agriculture-focused competition aimed at high-growth startups.

Grow-NY, set to take place in the second half of 2019, is meant to enhance existing food innovation in the Grow-NY region, which includes Finger Lakes, Central New York, and the Southern Tier. Empire State Development will fund it, while Cornell will handle the administration aspects.

The competition will take place in installments over the next three years. Each year, it will award $3 million to seven winners: four $250,000 prizes; two $500,000 prizes; and one grand prize of $1 million.

Before the final seven are chosen, however, the competition will select 20 finalists who will participate in mentorship, pitch training, and networking activities, including an all-expenses-paid trip to the Grow-NY region. It all ends at a “pitch summit,” slated to take place in November of 2019. From those pitches, the seven winners will be chosen.

Those winners should, according to a press release, be able to demonstrate a sustainable business model and the ability to make an impact on the Grow-NY region in terms of creating new jobs and giving back to the local economy. Upon selection, winners will be expected to operate in the Grow-NY region.

The region itself encompasses a large portion of NY state that’s already known for its abundant farmland and strong presence in the agricultural space, particularly with dairy. It’s home to companies like Dinosaur BBQ, Empire Brewing Company, Cheribundi, and Wegmans supermarkets. Several universities, from Cornell to Syracuse University to Rochester Institute of Technology, also call the area home, and its proximity to NYC also makes it a natural fit for food and tech innovation.

Agtech in general has seen the rise of many competitions, accelerators, and incubators over the last several years, including Terra, Hatch, The Yield Lab, and several international options.

Applications for Grow-NY are open until July 15. The 20 finalists will be selected in August.

Should You Join a Food Tech Accelerator for the Money?

Here’s a question for you food tech startup CEOs out there: should you join a food tech accelerator just for the money?

Definitely not, at least according to Tessa Price of WeWork Food Labs and Peter Bodenheimer of Food-X.

Of course, funding is funding and can be hugely important for any startup’s growth, but there are more important reasons to join an accelerator say Price and Bodenheimer, both of whom joined me for a live conversation this week in what was our first Foodtech Fireside chat.

One of the main reasons a startup shouldn’t make funding the one and only reason to join an accelerator is the equity ask is going to be bigger than with other forms of funding.

“There’s cheaper money out on the street than accelerator money,” said Bodenheimer. “The deal structures in accelerators for investment typically are different from what you’ll see from just an investor not running an accelerator.”

And while it may seem obvious on its face, another important reason, quite simply, is in the name.

“They have potential to accelerate the growth of a startup in a very compact period of time,” said Price. “The value in the ecosystem is that accelerators provide a fairly safe environment to come together and access resources in a way they aren’t able to when they are dealing with a more traditional VC or angel investor.”

Then there’s also community and connections to the food tech ecosystem that come from spending two to three months in an accelerator.

“Having a density of entrepreneurs working in similar types of businesses, that leads to good things,” said Bodenheimer. “Having a support community is really important, and so is being able to leverage the network an accelerator can bring.”

Finally, food tech accelerators give startup CEOs a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to step outside of the business and look at what they are doing through fresh eyes.

“There’s a saying: sometimes you’re too busy working in your business to work on your business,” said Bodenheimer. “An accelerator gives you an opportunity to work on your business with focused effort.”

We’ve turned the fireside into a podcast you can listen the full conversation with Tessa Price and Peter Bodenheimer on Apple Podcasts or by clicking play below, or you can also listen to and download the episode directly with this link.

How to Tell the Difference Between a Startup Accelerator and a Startup Incubator

This past week, The Spoon hosted the first-ever Food Tech Fireside event, a live conversation between our editors, notable food industry figures, and with some participation from the audience itself (you can listen to a podcast version of the conversation here).

To kick off the series, Mike Wolf explored the topic of food accelerators with Peter Bodenheimer of Food-X and Tessa Price of WeWork Food Labs. And right from the get-go, the discussion prompted a question that, while seemingly basic, confuses the heck out of a lot of people: What’s the difference between an accelerator and an incubator?

Worth noting ahead of any discussion about the terms is that they do overlap to some degree in this day and age. As Bodenheimer said during the event, they’re “interchangeable in certain aspects.” That caveat aside, you can usually tell the difference between an accelerator and an incubator by the companies they accept into their programs.

In other words, it’s all about the stage of growth at which participating companies are.

As their name suggests, accelerators help move existing companies along, or as Price said, “the goal is to work with earlier stage companies who are looking to accelerate their growth.” WeWork’s newly launched Food Labs is one such program. Other notable names include Y Combinator, TechStars, and AngelPad. For most companies participating in these or any other number of startup accelerators out there, the common denominator is that there’s an actual business already in place — that is, there’s actually something to accelerate.

If there isn’t, or if it’s more an idea than established business model, that’s often where incubators come in. “When you think of incubators and studio models, to me [the company is] a little bit earlier,” Bodenheimer noted. “So these may be companies that are not quite yet ready to commercialize. They’ve got the seed of an idea and now they’re working on how to build a little bit of a business structure around that.” In the food tech world, The Hatchery is one of the top incubators for startups and entrepreneurs.

Timeframe is another key differentiator. Typically, accelerators have a fixed time period for everything, from the application process to the actual program itself, which will run anywhere between a few weeks and a few months. And as Price pointed out during the event, a set curriculum is planned out for the duration of the accelerator program.

Incubators, on the other hand, don’t necessarily have an application process and take applicants on an ongoing basis from a variety of different sources. For example, The Kitchen incubator in Israel takes a portfolio approach to its companies, which it works with on an ongoing basis. Chobani’s incubator is another good example, as it focuses on finding compelling, disruptive ideas for the food system then helping companies turn those ideas into sustainable businesses. That said, Chobani is a also a great example of the interchangeable nature of incubators and accelerators nowadays. Traditionally, most incubators wouldn’t operate within a given timeframe; Chobani’s program runs for a pre-defined four-month period.

We’ll see more of those overlaps and nuances in future, and it’s likely the line between accelerator and incubator will get more muddled over time, not less. At the end of the day, finding the right fit should ultimately come down to what you want your company to be and whether a program can help you meet those goals.

Here’s a sampling what’s out there in terms of programs. Mind you, this barely scratches the surface, so drop any additions and suggestions into the comments below:

Food Tech Accelerators:
Food-X
WeWork Food Labs
Y Combinator
BSH
TechStars Farm to Fork
Hatch
The Yield Lab
The Good Food Accelerator
Accelerating Appalachia

Food Tech Incubators:
The Kitchen
Union Kitchen
Chobani Incubator
Kraft-Heinz Springboard
Nutrition Greenhouse
301 INC

Market Map: Food Waste Innovation in 2019 Version 1.1

At the beginning of May, we launched our Food Waste Innovation market map identifying companies building products and services that tackle the 1.3 billion-ton food waste problem.

It’s no small obstacle. With roughly one-third of the world’s food going to waste each year, it’s little wonder that entrepreneurs, startups, corporations and, heck, even the government are starting to address the problem — and using tech to find solutions.

After publishing Version 1 of our market map, The Spoon’s tip line — as well as our individual inboxes — were absolutely flooded with suggestions for other entities to consider for the map. To ensure our map was as accurate as could be, we decided to release an updated version, 1.1, reflecting some of those suggestions.

As is the case with any market map (or company list, for that matter), this isn’t exhaustive. Food waste is a big problem and there are plenty of stealthy startups just getting off the ground that we will surely add as they become known.

While the categories haven’t changed from version to version, we’ve refined some company listings and added others. The hope is to provide as clear picture of the major movers and shakers tackling food waste. And of course, if you have even more tips for future food waste maps, drop us a line.