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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

The New CPG

Pepsi’s Greenhouse Accelerator Now Taking Applications for Its Second North American Cohort

Big food continues to seek big innovation by inviting younger, leaner startups to participate in food- and beverage-focused accelerator and incubator programs. This week, PepsiCo announced it will be holding a second North American cohort for its Greenhouse accelerator program, which works with small CPGs operating out of the U.S. and Canada.

According to the press announcement, Pepsi will choose 10 startups to participate in the six-month program. Selected companies will receive $20,000 in funding and work with PepsiCo personnel on product development, supply chain management, media relations, and sales and distribution, among other areas early-stage startups must address. At the end of the program, one company will be awarded an additional $100,000 in funding.

To be eligible for the program, companies must be based out of the U.S. or Canada, have a product or service currently available in the market, and have more than $1 million in annual revenue, according to the Greenhouse Accelerator website.

Pepsi says is also looking for what it calls “purpose-driven” brands — i.e., companies whose products or services address issues in the food system, such as plant-based protein, sustainable packaging, and finding more natural ingredients for food and beverage products. 

Greenhouse is one of a growing number of food-focused accelerator and incubator programs run by major CPGs, including those by Chobani, Barilla, Mars, and many others. Part of the motivation behind this trend is that programs such as these are simple ways for large food companies to access new products, service, and technologies without spending huge amounts of money on R&D — an area they typically only allocate about 1 to 2 percent of their budget to.

Pepsi launched Greenhouse in 2017 in Europe before expanding the program to North America in 2018. Past participants of the program include Hapi Drinks, who makes sugar-free kids’ beverages to fight childhood obesity; YoFit, a plant-based beverage company that makes high-protein “milk” out of chickpeas; and alt-seafood company Sophie’s Kitchen.

Applications for the Greenhouse Accelerator are open until January 6, 2020.

Mark Your Calendars to Apply to These Food-focused Startup Accelerators

Business may be winding down for the year, but it’s never too early to start planning for 2020. If that includes applying to a startup accelerator, there are a few programs to note this month either taking applications right now or in the very near future.

January normally brings a slew of new announcements and application deadlines, so be sure to check back next month for more details, dates, and programs geared towards food-focused startup growth.

FoodFutureCo
Remote/New York, NY

FutureFoodCo works with companies moving from early-product-market phase to early-majority stage (that is, having some mainstream appeal). Focus areas include CPGs, plant-based food (including seafood), agtech, and reducing food waste.

Four to six companies are chosen for each four-month-long cohort. Participants get mentorship opportunities as well as $10,000 and lifelong access to the FutureFoodCo network. Chosen startups don’t have to relocate to NYC but should expect to travel there at points during the program.

Applications are open until December 15, 2019.

TechStars Farm to Fork
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

TechStars Farm to Fork accelerator works specifically with companies using technical and digital means to change parts of the food system, from agriculture to supply change to curbing food waste. It counts Renewal Mill, Spoonshot, and EIO Diagnostics among its alumni. 

Relocation is a requirement for this one. The program, which TechStars does in partnership with Cargill and Ecolab, is based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and participants are expected to be there for the three-month-long period. TechStars provides workspace, along with mentorship and networking opportunities, access to potential investors, and a $100,000 convertible note. 

Applications open on January 6, 2020.

Terra
Remote/San Francisco, CA

Terra is a joint effort by startup network RocketSpace and food- and agriculture financing company Rabobank. The program accepts companies up and down the food chain, whether you’re a CPG, agtech startup, or creating sustainable packaging.

At minimum, applicants should be in the seed to Series B stage, have a product, service, or technology already in the market, and have the ability to travel to San Francisco for the program kickoff and Demo Day. Participants spend roughly one month ideating on a pilot and four months executing that pilot, though actual time commitment is determined on a case by case basis with each startup.

Applications typically open in January. Stay tuned for specific dates.

Newsletter: Personalization in a Tech-centric Food Era, Plus Food Tech Hacks for Your Thanksgiving Prep

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Customizing our food is a decades-old practice we’ve come to expect if not outright demand when it comes to the way we eat. Fast-casual chains like Chipotle and Sweetgreen are built on the idea of each person customizing a meal to their specific eating needs. Most of us will to some degree customize the traditional Thanksgiving spread tomorrow, using plant-based ingredients in place of meat or maybe even turning the whole meal into a bowl of ramen. Meanwhile, there are reportedly 87,000 ways to order a drink at Starbucks. Can our food and beverage consumption get any more customizable. 

Yes, actually, and largely thanks to tech. As we discuss often at The Spoon, apps and other tools powered by AI and machine learning, big data and analytics, as well as food science and research are making it possible to customize our food  right down to our DNA. That includes food not only at restaurants or holiday feasts, but also with our daily meals and snacks, our dietary needs and restrictions, and even our grocery shopping lists. 

Customizing and personalizing our food through tech, however, is a relatively new practice. While some standardization is beginning to occur — notably in the QSR drive-thru lane — this space is right now a pretty fragmented one, with many ideas and solutions but no clear idea yet as to how they come together to help us eat smarter and enjoy our food at the same time.

That’s why we created Customize, a one-day executive summit slated to take place on February 27 in NYC. During the one-day event, which will be held at WeWork’s 85 Broad St. space, The Spoon will examine topics from the world of food personalization, including microbiome-based nutrition, AI-powered grocery recommendations, new developments in CPG products, and much more.

We’re already got a great lineup of speakers to talk about the impact of personalization in the grocery store, at the restaurant table and in our own kitchens, and we’re adding more every week so make sure to check them out!

Want to learn more? Head over to The Spoon Publisher Mike Wolf’s post introducing the event, then grab tickets before they sell out (which they will).

Nutrition is one area where customization is going to be huge, and indeed is already showing up via apps and websites that help users determine the kinds of foods they should be eating and plan out meals and diets.

Trouble is, it’s one thing to download an app that promises to help you eat healthier. It’s another to actually take the time to track the food you’re eating and determine whether it has any actual nutritional value in your life (hey, iceberg lettuce).

That’s where companies like Foodvisor come in. As my colleague Chris Albrecht noted recently, the French nutritional coaching app startup lets users simply snap a picture of their food then, using computer vision and deep learning, the app analyzes it and auto-creates a nutritional report of the food. The company just raised $4.5 million in fresh funds, and it’s one of a growing number of food-tracking apps out there. Another notable example is Bite.ai’s app, which also offers consumers visual food tracking through their smartphones.

Getting consumers to actually change out unhealthy eating habits for smarter ones is, of course, a whole other mountain to tackle, and one we’ll be discussing more of at Customize. 

Last-Minute Food Tech Hacks for Thanksgiving

Of course you may have more immediate concerns around customization, like how in the heck you’re going to get dinner on the table on time and with every dish at the right temperatures.

Fear not. Chris put together this handy guide that highlights a few pieces of connected-kitchen gear that could make your cooking easier, some of which you can still grab before your Thanksgiving cooking commences.

Finally, if you are planning on going to CES and are looking to explore some food tech in Vegas, make sure to check our Food Tech Live event. If you want to showcase your product at FTL drop us a line, and if you want to attend you can request a ticket here.

Feast responsibly,

Jenn

Purple Carrot Is Launching an Incubator Program for Plant-based Food Brands

Got an early-stage startup developing plant-based consumer packaged goods? Purple Carrot may be able to help. The plant-based meal kit company just announced a new incubator program called The Garden Incubator that aims to invest in plant-based CPG companies and help them scale up.

Each selected participant gets $250,000 in seed round funding provided by VC firm Unovis Partners and its New Crop Capital fund. Unovis specifically invests in companies developing plant-, fungi-, and cell-based protein replacement foods, and counts AlephFarms, Beyond Meat, and Good Catch among its portfolio companies. Purple Carrot is also a member of the firm’s portfolio.

In addition to the seed funding, Purple Carrot will work with companies on improving and growing strategy, branding, financial modeling, data analytics, operations, and fulfillment areas of their businesses. 

“The plant-based space is in the midst of a powerful transformation with a range of early-stage brands that are struggling for investment dollars, product-market fit, and distribution. With The Garden our goal is to accelerate the positive trajectory of qualifying brands, improve their focus and enable rapid and improved distribution in the U.S. and beyond,” said Purple Carrot founder and CEO, Andy Levitt said in the press release tied to the announcement.

Needless to say, the major criteria for joining The Garden Incubator is a focus on plant-based food products. According to the program’s website, the program looks for “early stage plant-based CPG companies with unique and scalable products.”

Unlike startup accelerators, which usually run for a set period of time, incubator programs typically have no set start and stop date, and take applications on an ongoing basis. As of right now, no deadline is affixed to The Garden Incubator’s program. Those interested in applying can simply fill out the application.

Purple Carrot was acquired by Tokyo-based Oisix, Japan’s largest meal kit and food delivery service, in May of 2019. For now, its focus on plant-based products remains somewhat unique in the world of accelerators and incubators, though given the popularity of plant-based foods, that will change soon.

Chobani Creates a Food Incubator Cohort for U.S. Veterans

CPG heavyweight Chobani announced this week it is adding a new cohort to its popular Incubator program, this one designed to help current and former armed service members who are also food entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

Dubbed, The Chobani Incubator Veterans Cohort, the program is set to take place over one week this December, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Participants will head to the Chobani offices in Soho, NYC to learn about sales, marketing, and food innovation from Chobani team members.

For the program, Chobani has partnered with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University, an organization founded to help veterans transition into post-service careers. Besides offering higher education and general career training, the IVMF foundation also has an entrepreneurship program those participating in the Chobani cohort will be able to connect with.

Misty Fox, Director of Entrepreneurship IVMF, noted in a statement that the partnership with Chobani will provide veterans “with critical start-up environments that provide consulting, networking and administrative support — a big advantage early on in a business life cycle.”

Chobani has already chosen the three companies who will participate in the Chobani Incubator Veterans Cohort:

J. Lee’s Gourmet BBQ Sauce. The Biloxi, MS-based company was founded in 2013 by Army Veteran James Lee and his mother Helen Lee, and creates BBQ sauces designed specifically for diabetics. The products are already available at stores like Walmart, Publix, and Kroger as well as at military commissaries and via Amazon.

Amore Congelato. Founded this year by Naval Reserve Officer Thereasa Black, the Chantilly, VA-based business makes gelatos and sorbets sweetened with agave nectar.

Savor the Flavor. started back in 1992 by the current generational founder’s grandmother, the Sumter, SC company produces hand-bagged southern staples like grits and rice mixes.

The program is something of a first-of-its-kind in terms of offering military veterans an incubator-style setting in which to start growing a food business.

SKS 2019: 3 Things We Need to Create New and Better Forms of Animal-Free Protein

The future of alternative proteins is about way more than plants. That was the main takeaway from a talk my colleague Catherine Lamb hosted this morning at The Spoon’s SKS conference in Seattle.

Joining Lamb onstage were Dr. Lisa Dyson, cofounder and CEO of Air Protein; Morgan Keim, the Corporate & Business Development Manager of Motif FoodWorks; and Perumal Gandhi, cofounder of Perfect Day. All three are experts on the white-hot alternative protein space. All three run companies that are creating new forms of protein, using not animals or plants, but microorganisms, technology, and — in one case — the air itself.

Onstage, the three of them and Lamb discussed some elements we need more of to make alternative proteins more widely available to the average consumer and care for the planet at the same time.

1. Better Production Methods
As Dr. Dyson outlined in her talk, traditional protein, whether derived from animal or plant, requires land. As the recent burning of the Amazon forest illustrates, this way of farming is not sustainable for either the planet or the 10 billion people expected to be on it by 2025.

Air Protein’s solution is to remove land from the equation. Using a technology originally developed by NASA, Dr. Dyson’s company created a closed-loop system to feed microorganisms carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and nitrogen to create a carbon fermentation process that makes proteins.

You can read an in-depth profile of how the technology works here. Onstage, Dr. Dyson focused more on the possibilities a company like Air Protein could introduce into the food system, like saving land and preserving natural habitats. For example, a traditional soy farm would have to be the size of Texas to produce as much protein as an Air Protein farm the size of Disney World can make.

2. More Ingredients
Motif FoodWorks also uses a fermentation process to, as Morgan Keim explained onstage, create better versions of animal-based foods we know and love and, in many cases, are loathe to part with, doomed planet or no (ahem, cheese).

At SKS, Keim noted that one of the keys to making alternative protein more widespread is finding and including the kinds of ingredients that will help it function just as real meat (or egg or dairy) does. For example, is there something that can be added to alt protein that will help it maintain the right color once it’s in the form of a burger patty and cooking on the grill? What ingredients could make alternative proteins as digestible as their animal counterparts?

Motif is currently using custom microbes to try and answer some of these questions. As Keim noted during the panel, the possibilities are practically limitless with the right mindset.

3. Transparency
But all those custom microbes and genetic modification processes have to be disclosed to consumers, something Perfect Day’s Gandhi discussed onstage.

Perfect Day, for example, makes a point of calling out that its products are “flora-based” — that is, they’re made from genetically modified microflora (a.k.a. bacteria). But as Gandhi explained onstage, even when discussing GMOs, people are actually more receptive to the product when you don’t try to hide information like that. If companies can effectively explain to the average consumer (read: not vegetarians or vegans) why and how a product like flora-based ice cream is better for them, people will generally be more open to the product.

That’s the hope, at least, and so far over the last few years, consumers have shown an increasing appetite for alternative forms of proteins, even those with genetically modified elements. We’ll be digging more into this movement towards over the next day and a half, so stay tuned for more on new forms of proteins and the role they’ll play in our future food system.

Newsletter: Mapping Food Tech in 2019, Startup Accelerators to Watch

It was less than 100 years ago that the food industry figured out how to mass produce things like baby carrots and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

Nowadays the buzz is around robots that make pizza and cashierless food stores, but that drive to reinvent food has fundamentally remained the same. They may have more technologically sophisticated tools now, but engineers, scientists, food producers and upstarts alike still look for the same thing Krispy Kreme did in the 1950s: how to cost-effectively create consistently good (tasting) food at scale.

Brita Rosenheim, a Partner at Better Food Ventures, captured the current spirit of innovation in food tech this week with an enormous market map she published at The Spoon. Her map lays out the dozens of early-stage startups, mature companies, corporations, B2B technologies, and consumer-facing tools changing the way we eat in the home, at restaurants, in the grocery store, and across many other areas of the supply chain.

Brita included a number of important takeaways from the map around things like the role of personalized eating, whether we need connected content in the kitchen, and where investors are currently funneling their cash. But if there’s one major takeaway from her map, it’s that the food tech landscape is . . . absolutely enormous. And getting bigger every month.

Now we’re at a point where we’re starting to see the landscape shift to be less about tech for tech’s sake and more companies coming to market with solutions that address some of the world’s biggest food challenges. Brita’s belief that “technology will prove to be the single biggest catalyst to solving critical problems across the global food ecosystem” and her inclusion of categories on the map like Food Waste, Sustainability Tracking, and Nutrition suggest we’re slowly but surely trekking towards a more productive future for food tech.


Flavors of the Future
One thing food companies did not have in the 1950s was an AI-powered crystal ball to tell them exactly what consumers were interested in buying.

We don’t have the actual crystal ball yet, but Spoonshot came pretty darn close this week by announcing its AI-powered flavor recommendation platform, which combines data science and machine learning to understand what flavors are currently popular with consumers all over the world (though the company is currently focused on North America) and which ones will be popular in future. The goal? Get this information to CPGs so they can use it for new products and stay ahead of the competition in terms of what consumers want.

Spoonshot is actually one of a few companies now riding the flavor-prediction wave, among them Analytical Flavor Systems and Tastewise. We’re bound to see many more players come to market over the next couple of years, as CPGs look to skip the cost of hit-or-miss product development.


Startup Accelerators to Watch in October
Startups, of course, are a vital part of the food tech landscape, and as Brita’s map above shows, there’s a seemingly endless number of them these days. Part of the reason for that is the huge number of food tech accelerator and incubator programs out there that mentor early-stage companies (and line their pockets) as they develop prototypes, products, and solutions for the food industry.

Like lots of areas of food tech, many of these programs now look for companies grappling with major issues in the food system: reducing waste, finding cleaner meat, and tracing food safety, to name a few. And while the end of the year is a little quieter, there are a handful of these programs taking applications in the month of October. Check them out here.

Last Chance to Snag SKS Tickets
We’re less than one week out from The Spoon’s SKS North America show in Seattle. If you want to attend on October 7–8, now’s your last chance to grab a ticket. And if you want to talk about the evolution of Krsipy Kreme and other restaurant-tech-related topics, hit me up. I’ll be running around the show with the rest of The Spoon crew next week.

Stay cool,

Jenn

Gordon Food Service and Square Roots Launch First Onsite Vertical Farm

Gordon Food Service, one of North America’s largest food distributors, and Kimball Musk’s indoor farming company Square Roots have officially launched one of the latter’s vertical farms onsite at the Gordon headquarters in Wyoming, Michigan.

The announcement, which the two companies made yesterday, follows news from March that Gordon and Square Roots were working together. The aim of the partnership is to build Square Roots Farms at or near Gordon distribution centers across North America. Food grown on the vertical farms will be available to Gordon’s corporate clients as well as individuals who buy from the company’s e-commerce store.

Square Roots farms, which are built inside shipping containers, pack a lot of produce into a very small amount of real estate. Case in point: the new farm at the Gordon HQ will take up less than two acres and is projected to produce more than 50,000 pounds of herbs and greens each year. Square Roots does this by growing plants vertically on panels and using a recipe of LED lighting and hydroponics controlled via software. As with many vertical farms, there’s no soil involved in the process.

“As our network of farms gets larger, it also gets smarter. Cloud-connected farms and data-empowered farmers learn from each other, enabling Square Roots to replicate success from one location to another, seamlessly,” Square Roots wrote in a recent blog post.

The partnership with Gordon also allows Square Roots to expand its Next-Gen Farmer Training Program, a one-year, all-paid entrepreneurial-meets-agricultural program that teaches younger adults both the tech and agricultural aspects of indoor vertical farming, with heavy emphasis on the former. As Square Roots opens more farming locations at Gordon distribution centers across the continent, it will be able to enlist more farmers to the program to man those locations. The number of new farmers varies based on the size of each location. Gordon, meanwhile, operates 175 distribution centers across North America.

So far, the farm at headquarters is the only one announced for Gordon, though more are planned for the future.

Tastewise Raises $5M, Releases New Report on the Importance of Functional Foods

Tastewise, a startup that uses data and AI to help CPG companies gain deeper insights into food trends, announced today it has raised a $5 million Series A round led by food tech investment firm PeakBridge. The round brings Tastewise’s total funding to $6.5 million.

The Tastewise platform, which launched in February of this year, analyzes over 1 billion food photos shared each month, along with a database of U.S. restaurant menus that numbers over 180,000 at this point. The goal of the platform is to provide CPGs and other food companies with granular information about not just what foods are trending but why they’re popular. Companies working with Tastewise can use this data to get a faster, more accurate view of what consumers are looking for with their food, and to create the kinds of products they’ll actually buy.

Over the phone this week, Tastewise CEO Alon Chen used sauerkraut as an example of how the Tastewise platform operates. Right now, according to him, it’s a popular food, but the trend is less about raw cabbage and more about the process behind it, which is fermentation. Of late, fermentation’s become a popular item on consumers’ food lists in part because of its associations with good digestive health as well as brain health. Food companies analyzing data via the Tastewise platform can see such data and consider how they might implement fermentation into their offerings.

“If you want to be ahead of the game and you want to make sure you’re not just hopping on a fad, you need to understand these deeper trends,” says Chen.

Plant-based meat is another hot topic he mentions. Right now, it’s hard to dispute the popularity of plant-based alternatives to meat, beef in particular. But rather than simply follow the lead set by companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, CPGs should instead analyze the data around these trends to they can ask 1) Why people eat meat in the first place and 2) What are their motivations for wanting plant-based alternatives. As Chen says, food companies need to ask, “Is my protein going to actually help these causes?”

Tastewise has bundled these topics and more into its latest new report, also released today and based on findings from Tastewise data, called “Putting Food to Work in the Age of Wellness.” The report looks at the global functional foods market, projected to reach 275 billion by 2025, and examines “a category of ingredients, meals, and preparations that serve a particular function and purpose beyond mere sustenance.” In the context of the report, functional foods include those ingredients and meals that promote things like sleep, weight loss, stress relief, brain health, gut health, and focus, to name a few of the categories mentioned.

Meanwhile, Chen says the new funds will go towards expanding and improving Tastewise’s computer vision analysis in order to further train its AI to “understand the depth of the consumer motivation” behind certain food and ingredient choices.

There is some competition for Tastewise in this sector, from players like Analytical Flavor Systems and Spoonshot, who use AI to help CPGs predict food trends and consumer behaviors. However, the Tastewise platform differentiates itself somewhat by focusing more on analysis of behavior than flavor, acting almost as a fast-tracked version of market research that relies on real-time data rather than focus groups and surveys.

“We have a responsibility to better understand consumers,” says Chen, adding that the AI components in a platform like Tastewise are “critical to moving faster” in terms of helping companies decide which areas of food to focus on and products to develop. Now we’ll see if this new funding helps Tastewise move fast enough to edge out the competition.

Barilla’s Investment Arm Launches Startup Accelerator Program

Applications are now open for Barilla’s new accelerator program for startups with sustainable food products and processes. The Italian CPG company’s venture arm, BLU1877, announced this week the launch of Good Food Makers, an eight-week program it is running in collaboration with San Mateo, CA-based food incubator KitchenTown.

Startups chosen for the program will first meet with Barilla’s team to identify challenges in their area of focus that are most in need of solutions, be that a new food item or an improved manufacturing process. From there, companies will set goals for the eight-week program and collaborate with Barilla on them throughout the program. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, applicants to Good Food Makers should already have a product or solution in market.

They should also be working in one of the three areas the program will focus on: the circular food economy, which is all about minimizing waste and making the supply chain more efficient; personalized meal solutions; and healthy snacks.

Participants need not relocate to take part in the program. Besides one week at Barilla’s pilot plant and testing facility in Parma, Italy, all work can be done remotely. While there’s no financial investment for startups participating in Good Food Makers, chosen companies get mentorship and collaboration opportunities with Barilla, as well as access to a wider industry network.

Barilla is just one of the many major CPG brands out there now hosting their own startup accelerator or incubator programs, from Chobani, which runs one of the most well-known programs of any CPG, to Mars, which launched the first-ever cohort for its accelerator this past summer. Linking up with younger, leaner startups is a way for these big-name brands to access both new technologies changing the food world as well as tap into the changing demands from consumers in terms of their relationship to food, whether that’s healthier snacks or curbing food waste in the home.

While Good Food Makers is BLU1877’s first official program, Barilla’s venture arm has worked with startups in the KitchenTown setting before, including sustainable snack company ReGrained and ingredient-tech company Planetarians.

Applications for Good Food Makers will close on November 11, 2019. Chosen startups will be notified of their acceptance by January 13, 2020.

Magic Spoon Raises $5.5M Seed Round for Its Healthy Take on Sweet Cereal

Magic Spoon, a company that makes a healthy sugary-tasting cereal, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding, according to an article on Food Dive. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with additional participation from Joseph Zwillinger (Allbirds), Jeff Raider (Harry’s), and David Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal (Warby Parker).

The company plans to use the new funds to expand its business, make new hires, increase marketing efforts, and create new cereal flavors.

Magic Spoon is a non-GMO, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, and wheat-free cereal that’s keto-friendly and still tastes like a sweet cereal you’d find in a grocery store aisle. It also contains more protein and fewer calories than your typical box of Froot Loops. The company uses a natural substance called Allulose, which is found in some fruits, to get its sweetness. My colleague Chris Albrecht got his hands on some not long ago and gave all the cereals a rave review. The cereal also has to be ordered online and isn’t available in grocery stores yet, though Magic Spoon keeps selling out of inventory so clearly it doesn’t need to be widely available at big-box stores just yet.

Company founders Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz are no strangers to alternative ingredients. Prior to the Magic Spoon, the duo made cricket-based protein bars under company Exo, which they sold to Aspire Food Group in 2018.

Magic Spoon’s one catch is its price: it costs about $40 for four seven-ounce boxes. Lewis told Food Dive he “hasn’t heard much pushback on the price” as of yet. Part of that’s likely due to who Magic Spoon is currently targeting: health-conscious millennials who are used to buying groceries online and paying higher prices for trendy foods.

The company’s main competition comes from The Cereal School, who makes another version of “healthy” sweet cereal and sells it online. Unlike Magic Spoon, however, The Cereal School has made a conscious decision to remain bootstrapped as long as possible, a decision that’s led to some manufacturing issues in the past. The Cereal School’s product isn’t cheap either, at $50 for 24 single-serving bags.

Those price points may work now while the concept of cereal innovation is hot and early adopters are willing to pay. However, either company wants to expand and cater to the everyman at some point, they’ll need to find a way to bring that price point down without sacrificing the quality of the ingredients.

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.