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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

The Weekly Spoon

Newsletter: In-House Vs. Third-Party Delivery App Showdown, The Rise of Personalized Menus

It’s only July 9 and I feel like I’ve already written “delivery is table stakes” this year so many times it’s lost some of its meaning. But it — the phrase and the delivery model itself — is here to stay, and businesses who aren’t at least working towards a strategy in that area will lose competitive advantage as more consumers migrate towards getting their food dropped at the front door.

That’s not a brand-new revelation. Restaurant owners, tech companies, and investors alike have been saying as much for some time. What is new, however, is that there are now more ways for restaurants to do delivery than the two extremes of pay for your own fleet or sign up with a third-party service. The new middle ground starting to get more attention is powered by technology.

A lot of it’s about using tech to drive more users to restaurants’ in-house apps, rather than to a third-party service like DoorDash or Grubhub, since restaurants risk losing some brand integrity and valuable customer data the minute they ink a deal with a third-party service. Companies like ShiftPixy, whom The Spoon talked to recently, are answering this problem by building software platforms that help restaurants drive more traffic and orders through their own mobile apps, but enable them to still take advantage of gig-economy-style driver fleets. ShiftPixy provides its own W-2 drivers to restaurants it works with.

Another company, Olo, offers a similar tech platform with a slightly different model, where they essentially partner with third-party services like Uber Eats and Postmates so that a restaurant doesn’t have to. The result could be the best of both worlds. Teriyaki Madness, for example, works with Olo and says it hopes to have 50 percent of its orders coming through its own mobile app and 50 percent coming through third-party apps by year’s end.

Third-party Delivery Apps Are Still Growing
Teriyaki Madness’ goal is a wise one to strive for right now, because even with increased talk of putting control back into the hands of restaurants, it’s clear third-party delivery services aren’t going away any time soon. That fact was underscored this week by eMarketer’s latest forecast, which predicts third-party food delivery apps will see upwards of 44 million users in the U.S. by 2020.

The forecast includes the usual suspects of third-party delivery and where they stand in the market, numbers that could swap around at any time, given how competitive food delivery is and how difficult attracting and retaining customers actually is, even for the top players.

What eMarketer does make clear, however, is that giving consumers more choices will be the key to driving growth for restaurants in the future.

Restaurant Menu Personalization Is on the Rise
An avenue for creating more choice in the restaurant will be through the menu itself. It’s a topic The Spoon’s Mike Wolf discusses often, and this past weekend he picked up that thread again on a podcast with Scott Sanchez, CEO of THE.FIT.

THE.FIT uses AI to help diners comb through restaurant menus and find items best suited to their dietary needs and preferences. While THE.FIT’s business is specifically focused on those with a lot of restrictions (e.g., Keto, gluten-free), this trend of using technology to personalize restaurant menus is one we’re going to see a lot more of. Large quick-service chains like McDonald’s are already employing AI-powered tech in some stores, while others, most recently Dunkin’, hint at similar initiatives for the future.

It will almost certainly play a role in the future of delivery. What that looks like, exactly, isn’t clear yet. But companies — whether a third-party service or a multi-unit chain using its own app — which use it to offer customers not just more choice but more relevant choice will be at a competitive advantage. At least, that is, until AI and personalization become table stakes themselves.

Until next time,
Jenn

Newsletter: Some Assembly Required, Is IKEA the Future of Food Tech?

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I spent a good chunk of the weekend building a cocktail robot. It was a kit I bought from MyBar.io, and to save $100 bucks, I opted for the DIY version ($299), all assembly required. And though it took a lot longer than the two hours the company said it requires to build (it’s still not done), I’ve actually had fun putting it together.

So much so, that when FarmBot announced yesterday it was launching an assemble-it-yourself vegetable garden robot, my first thought was “Hey, I could probably build that, too.” (SMASH CUT to my wife, just shaking her head).

But both MyBar and FarmBot got me wondering if we won’t see more DIY in our connected kitchens in the future a la IKEA. There are a few reasons why hardware food tech startups might want to borrow a page from the Swedish home furnishings giant.

First, DIY means something much different now than it did even a couple years ago. The MyBar kit I bought featured 3D printed parts, and the wiring required no soldering or crimping. Much like a piece of IKEA fürnitüre, there isn’t any real expertise needed going into the project, anyone with the set of instructions can do it.

Second, shifting the assembly labor to me is perfect for a tiny startup. Instead of spending their limited human resources on building each order, they can focus on design and product improvement.

And then there is the shipping. IKEA saves a ton of money in shipping because everything arrives in flat boxes. So too can cash-strapped startups save money by skipping the centralized assembly. The MyBar arrived at my door in a regular rectangular box. Inside there was no need for custom-fitting styrofoam to protect a put-together MyBar, as each separate flat piece was wrapped in plain ol’ bubble wrap. And, like IKEA, it even came with an allen wrench!

Obviously not every kitchen device will become DIY. I can’t imagine trying to put together a June oven or a Samsung smart fridge on my dining room table. But for small startups getting into the hardware game, DIY may be the best path to $$$.

Here’s a Tip: Learn How Your DoorDash Driver Gets Paid
If DIY isn’t your thing, especially when it comes to making a meal (no judgment), just about every restaurant does delivery now, and the biggest third-party delivery service of them all is DoorDash (raising $2 billion helps you build marketshare).

However, if you’re using DoorDash, you should know what is actually happening when you tip through its app. Jenn Martson broke down the controversy over DoorDash using tips to cover a “Dasher’s” base pay, and bottom line: The tips you’re leaving don’t necessarily translate into more dollars for your driver. In our consumer quest for convenience, we need to stop and see who’s paying who and how much.

We too, Have the Meats
Chances are good that if you are reading this, you’re doing so quickly, so you can get back to and finish up your work faster, so you can get out and celebrate the 4th of July holiday (and we don’t blame you).

If you’re grilling this Fourth, or at all over the summer, there are two things we wanted you to know about.

MEATER, which makes a wireless, connected meat thermometer, launched its new MEATER Block yesterday. It comes with four probes, all of which can be used to monitor four separate pieces of meat at once. Perfect for guests who prefer their steaks done differently, or for when you’re cooking different types of meat at once.

If you’re more of a plant-based meat eater, we celebrate you as well, and my colleague, Catherine came up with this handy guide for grilling Beyond Meat’s burgers and sausages (they’re both delicious), which you can wash down with a tasty cold brew.

Have a great and safe holiday!

Newsletter: I Have Seen the Future, and It is Pizza

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Want to know where the food tech industry is headed? Look at pizza.

Americans love pizza and eat tons of it, so there is a constant demand. And where there is demand there is competition, and competition begets innovation.

And there was a lot of innovation in pizza in just the past week:

Pizza continues to disrupt itself up and down its stack. Robots can work at autonomous restaurants to make consistently delicious pies around the clock. Since pizzas are all (mostly) the same shape, new types of eco-friendly packaging (good-bye non-recyclable greasy box!) can be easily scaled up and adopted on a national or global scale, even. And software-powered autonomous driving could bring more efficient routing and faster delivery (also, around the clock).

The point is, our appetite for pizza isn’t going to disappear, so it’s actually a perfect platform for trying out new technologies like these. You want to see the future of food tech? Keep your eyes on the pies.

And if you want to see the future of food tech up close and personal, get your ticket to our upcoming Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle. Hurry, before our ultra-early bird tickets are gone!

I’ll vouch for this

Food delivery is booming, and it’s not going away any time soon. This presents existing restaurants with a problem: how do they get people off of their couches and into restaurants?

One answer could be to pay for their ride.

Spoon writer Jenn Marston recently brought to light a bit of news buried in a recent Nation’s Restaurant News podcast. An exec for TGI Friday’s said that the casual dining chain has been using Uber vouchers as a way to increase foot traffic. In a very reductive nutshell, restaurants are picking up the cost of getting you in their door.

This is incredibly smart and something that really wasn’t possible a few years back when there were just cabs and busses. And it seems especially smart for Uber, which, unlike DoorDash or GrubHub, could actually create a two-way revenue stream with vouchers. Earn money dropping people off at a restaurant, then the driver could pick up a delivery order to take on the way out.

For restaurants, it’s the opportunity to tie special offers in with the Uber vouchers to bring people in and get them to spend money. At the very least, people might pony up for more drinks knowing they don’t have to drive home.

To Infinite Acres and Beyond: Ocado Moves Into Indoor Farming, Robots Invade the Grocery Aisles

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While there are still plenty of questions around what exactly the future of indoor and alternative farming systems looks like, most will agree that tech will play a big role, as more companies look to tools like AI, predictive analytics, and other such programs to power their farms.

This is perhaps one reason UK-based tech company Ocado has decided to get in on indoor farming.

The company, known for its robot-powered grocery tech, joined existing indoor farming companies 80 Acres and Priva in announcing a new “turnkey” solution for indoor farming that will not only streamline much of the growing process through technology, but also leverage things like AI, automation and predictive analytics — tools Ocado employs regularly in its work with companies like Kroger. Together, the three have formed a new company, Infinite Acres, which looks to grow produce 24-7 in densely populated areas.

The idea is to get greens and other produce, like strawberries and bell peppers, to the store or the customer’s home the same day they are harvested. In that way, it makes sense to design indoor farms to live within cities, and Ocado has even said it eventually wants to co-locate these farms next to or near its customer fulfillment centers.

Ocado is known for its robot-powered smart warehouses, so will there be bots scurrying about between those rows of leafy greens? There’s no official word yet that will happen, but one can easily imagine a scenario where robots assist with harvesting the produce, then carry it to a nearby fulfillment center for packing and delivery.

Robo-Backlash Arrives at the Grocery Store
Robots in the workplace, though, have their downsides, and we saw a less enthusiastic response to them this week in a couple places.

As my colleague Chris Albrecht wrote yesterday, both Walmart and Ahold Delhaize have expanded their use of robots in stores. Unfortunately, not everyone loves the idea of encountering a bot in the cereal aisle. As Chris noted, at least initially, “the theory of robots being efficient helpers is running into some harsh realities.” Those include robots breaking down, robots freaking out customers, and in general making human employees feel more robotic than ever.

But are all these issues short term? “Some of these potential missteps in implementing robots could be because we are still in version 1.0 of this automation experiment, and there seems to be a mismatch between the customer expectations, robot design, and the tasks being handed over to robots,” Chris wrote. In theory, at least, those things might become non-issues when version 2.0 of these bots rolls around.

DoorDash Continues Its North American Takeover
Meanwhile, the onetime dark horse of third-party delivery, DoorDash, has expanded again, this time via the great bastion of suburban casual dining, Chili’s.

The two companies announced this morning they’ve inked an exclusive partnership to deliver Chili’s meals across the U.S. But it would seem that Chili’s decision to go with DoorDash (over, say Grubhub or Uber Eats) has less to do with suburbia and more to do with technology and DoorDash’s ability to seamlessly integrate its system with Chili’s existing POS, thus causing as little disruption as possible to existing operations.

As I wrote earlier today, “This ability to integrate almost seamlessly into existing restaurant systems may be key for third-party services in future as they rush to gain and retain customers.”

Whether that’s enough to help DoorDash grab the top spot in the third-party delivery market remains to be seen. And even if it were to, other events this week suggest there may soon be a new player in town that U.S. third-party delivery services have to contend with. This week, Amazon announced it’s closing down its Amazon Restaurants business — but that doesn’t mean the tech behemoth is washing its hands of the restaurant delivery game. Instead, it seems Amazon was at the same time part of a massive fundraise by UK-based Deliveroo. Which means Amazon may have shuttered its in-house restaurant-delivery business to focus time and money on expanding Deliveroo’s presence to this side of the Atlantic. It would also make an already competitive food-delivery market hotter than a basket of jalapeño-topped nachos from Chili’s.

Stay tuned,

Jenn

Newsletter: Knife-wielding Robots, Incubators and Accelerators Explained, and $200 Coffee

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I heard an interview with comedian Neal Brennan in which he said a guiding principle for him is asking “And then what?” He uses it in terms of success and personal happiness, but as a journalist, it’s a good reminder to not just think in the moment, but also look at what lies ahead.

“And then what?” came to mind when I wrote a story this week about how researchers at Iowa State University built a knife-wielding robot. Through a bunch of incredibly complicated math, the robot can coordinate and combine a series of push, press and slice motions to cut up an onion. Sure, the technology is crude right now, but nonetheless: a robot can autonomously use a knife to figure out how to chop food, and even adjust its actions when something unexpected (like hitting something hard while cutting) happens.

When we write about robots now, it’s often in the context of taking over a job that’s menial, repetitive or dangerous. But the ability for robots to do human-style tasks is accelerating. Iowa State’s robot is only on onions now, but carving more intricate/delicate things like meat won’t be that far behind. Flippy the robot can grill a burger and fry up chicken tenders, and its creator, Miso Robotics, has already said it is working on programming Flippy to do prep work like, say, chop onions.

When robots can do those tasks more precisely and consistently than people, what does that mean for our human workforce and us as a consumption society? Over the past year we’ve said that these are questions we need to start asking. But as robots get better and more skilled, we need to start “and then what?” right now.

If you have any thoughts on the subject, drop us a line, or join or our Slack Channel to chat with other food tech executives.

An email newsletter I’ve become addicted to lately is “What’s the Difference?” by Brette Warshaw. In each issue, Warshaw breaks down how subtle things are difference (this week’s is biodegradable vs. compostable).

In much the same way, my colleague Jenn Marston did an excellent piece over the weekend on the difference between startup incubators and startup accelerators. The explainer came about because of our Food Tech Fireside Chat we held last week, I feel like it’s one of those questions that a lot of entrepreneurs want to ask, but might hesitate out of fear of looking stupid.

Never fear! We’ve got your back, shy food tech entrepreneur. TL;DR: An incubator helps a startup that is really more of an idea, an accelerator helps a company that’s already up and running.

You should definitely check out Jenn’s whole piece because it provides more background and insight, as well as a handy list of food tech startup accelerators and incubators that you should look into.

Finally, what better way to wash down this week’s newsletter than with a $200 bottle of coffee.

That’s right. Two. Hundred. Dollars. For a bottle of Elemental Beverages’ limited-batch Gesha coffee which, as Catherine Lamb writes is “made with beans that score 90+ on the Coffee Quality Institute’s Q Grading Scale, which puts them in the top 0.1 percent. The beans also cost a whopping $450 a pound.”

Catherine pounded down a bottle of the $200 coffee (sidenote: she did not share) and came to the conclusion that it was “crazy delicious.” Check out her full review, and if you want bragging rights to your own ridiculously expensive bottle of coffee, act quickly — it’s almost sold out.

One thing you definitely want to get your hands on before it sells out is a ticket to our upcoming Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle. This year’s show promises to be bigger and better than ever, so grab your early bird discount ticket today!

Newsletter: Entering the Golden Age of Vending Machines

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On a recent trip to San Francisco, I enjoyed a steaming hot bowl of ramen that was fast, delicious… and came from a vending machine. Last week, PanPacific unveiled a beer vending machine that uses biometrics to verify the age of the buyer. Briggo announced this week that it is opening up a second automated Coffee Haus robo barista at the Austin airport.

We are entering the golden age vending machines, and I am totally here for it. (You will be too.)

No longer dull black boxes with half-filled coils of Doublemint gum and Texas-sized cinnamon buns, vending machines are increasingly complex devices that are equal parts robot and IoT-connected automated storefronts.

All this is to say that vending machines are the new food court. Only this food court 2.0 requires little real estate, no on-site staff, and can operate around the clock in busy places like airports, hospitals and dorms. Need a meal before your 6 a.m. flight? No problem!

But all the automation and convenience in the world is useless if these machines serve a cruddy product. The good news is, they don’t. Briggo roasts its own high-end coffee. Yo-Kai Express’ menu was created by a Michelin-star chef. And PanPacific’s beer vending machine can be outfitted to serve any kind of craft brew to satisfy even the most discerning of palates.

Vending machines are also poised to change the way we eat. The smaller footprint means more meal choices in a smaller space. The connected devices will provide data on inventory and sales for more accurate and efficient supply chain and logistics. Taken together, this will mean hungry people, especially those in a hurry, will have more and healthier meal choices (and will spend more money).

That sure beats a sad row of Texas Sized Cinnamon Buns.

Elsewhere, it’s felt a bit like the Battle of Winterfell here at The Spoon over the past month, trying to keep up with all the plant-based protein news. While Beyond Meat is set to go public this week, Impossible Whoppers will be available at all 7,000+ Burger Kings by the end of the year. Fake meat is going mainstream, baby! Though, all that demand is generating its own problems, as we learned that Impossible is having a hard time keeping up.

To help you understand the onslaught of plant-based protein news, Catherine Lamb, The Spoon’s own Arya Stark, launched our Future Food newsletter this week. In addition to slaying, she’ll break down all the innovation, deals and developments in the world of alternate-protein you need to know. Sign up for it here!

Also, we’ve been launching our full session videos from The Spoon’s ArticulATE conference last month in San Francisco. Check out talks with Creator, Albertsons, Starship and Auto X, as well as a presentation from the Director of Google Brain.

Finally, with ArticulATE in the books, we’re busy working on our flagship food tech executive summit, SKS 2019, where we’ll be talking about the future of food, the kitchen, food robots and more! You’ll want to be sure to be in Seattle in October, and as a newsletter subscriber you can get 15% off our Ultra-Early Bird pricing by using the discount code NEWSLETTER.

Until next week!

Weekly Spoon: The Intelligent Edge for Food, Specialty Coffee Expo Takeaways, Beyond Moves Beyond Tyson

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In a previous life, I wrote a lot about consumer broadband technology. As with any industry, the world of Internet and broadband has a lot of inside baseball conversation, and one of the evergreen themes the industry wrestles with is whether or not the intelligence in the network should reside centrally or at the edge.

In the 90s, the industry talked about network computing. At the beginning of this century, it was about fat vs. thin clients. Later we started talking about distributed and edge computing. While the terms change and technology evolves, this a conversation the world of tech has been having – and continues to have – ever since the network became the lynchpin to everything that we do.

Why am I talking about this in a food tech newsletter?

Because for the last couple of years, I’ve been thinking about how the power of technology – digitization, software, robotics – is reversing what has been a longstanding megatrend towards centralization of nearly everything in food. All along the food value chain – from big ag to food manufacturing to food retail – the primary focus of innovation up until the past decade has been towards a concentration of the means of production, distribution, culinary expertise and pretty much everything else to gain massive efficiencies of scale. If we’re going to feed a rapidly growing population, why not apply what we learned from Henry Ford and other titans of the industrial age to food?

But now, through the power of tech, we’re seeing a reversal of this century-long trend, where digitization, software, IoT, AI, and robotics are unleashing a massive reinvention of food systems and unleashing pockets of innovation and the power of creation everywhere you look.

What this means is we are seeing the great decentralization of food intelligence. In food retail, IT, robotics and digital powered micromanufacturing start to make its way to the different storefronts. In the restaurant space, we’re beginning to see automation and robotics to create hamburgers at the quality a Michelin star chef would make them, only without the chef. And at home, we’re witnessing the emergence of digital technologies used to grow food and prepare food and beverages beyond the capability of the home cook.

No matter what we want to call it – digitization of food, the intelligent edge for food (distributed fooding?) – I see it everywhere I look, including in this week’s news…

Photo: Garrett Oden.

One example of the intelligent edge of food is in coffee.  Our coffee tech expert Garrett Oden was at the Specialty Coffee Expo this past week and wrote about how Bellwether is moving coffee roasting from the roastery into the coffee shop with their tech-powered coffee roasters. Others like Bonaverde are creating multifunction coffee machines that give the home coffee user new capabilities through technology.

Distributed, digital powered intelligence.

And last week, we talked about robots bringing micromanufacturing to the grocery store aisles, fresh-tossed salads to vending machines and making amazing burgers in restaurants.  Sure, automation has been a big deal for in food for some time, but mostly in centralized environments. What’s different now is the advancement in software, sensors, and robotics to mimic essentially some of the things only a person had been able to do more recently.

Venture investor Avidan Ross, who spoke on our investor panel last week at ArticulATE, talked about just this topic and how while we’ve been automating food production for decades, it’s only in the last few years where we’ve seen robotics advance to the point where new capabilities in the creation of food using these technologies have been possible:

“I think what’s interesting now is that we’ve been able to move into chaotic unstructured environments at the endpoint,” said Ross.

This, by the way, is the same point made by Google’s robotic chief, Vincent Vanhoucke, at the same event. From this morning’s post by Chris Albrecht:

Vanhoucke’s team is working on taking the things robots do well — moving around — and marrying that with advancements in computer vision and deep learning to make robots more useful in the messy and complicated real world. And it turns out that food in particular, with its different textures and properties, is quite messy and complicated.

In short, technology is enabling us to do things with food at the edge in a way that was not possible before. Whether it’s the peace dividends from advancements software, autonomous cars, AI or what-have-you, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the world of food is seeing the emergence of distributed intelligence that is creating a new wave of innovation that will continue to disrupt the food systems for decades to come.

There was lots of interesting news this week outside of coffee, robotics and the intelligence edge for food, including continued activity in the world of alternative protein. Catherine wrote this morning about the recent exit of protein giant Tyson from its investment in Beyond Meat on the eve of the plant-based meat startup’s IPO. She also covered a new startup trying to create animal-free cheese using a process they describe as “recombinant protein technology.”

In the consumer kitchen, Innit partnered up with contract manufacturer Flex and Google to create a suite of ingredient solutions to fast-track the development of smart kitchen appliances. On the delivery front, Google got approval from the FAA to do drone delivery, while Postmates beefed up its delivery location roster in advance of its IPO.

Finally, there are just a few days left to get the best price of the year for Smart Kitchen Summit tickets with Super Early Bird pricing.  Use the discount code NEWSLETTER for an additional 15% off (use this link to have the promotion automatically applied).

That’s it for now. Have a great week everyone!
Mike

P.S. We’re launching a Future Food newsletter covering alternative proteins, cell-based meat, bioreactors and more! Interested? Subscribe here.

Weekly Spoon: ArticulATE Takeaways, a Robot Market Map, Restaurants Love Plant-Based Proteins

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To be honest, I’m a little robot-ed out. We held our first ArticulATE food robot conference this week, launched our 2019 Food Robot Market Map, then I went on a food robot eating tour of San Francisco (post coming soon!) and attended another robot conference.

Phew! I think I’ve forgotten how to interact with actual people.

Thankfully, all of these things were awesome (I have a fantastic job), especially ArticulATE. We had a packed room filled with reps from startups, restaurant chains, grocers, roboticists and more. The panels gave us some real insight into the present and future of food automation. If you couldn’t make it, bummer! We’ll see you next year and we’ll have videos of all the panels up early next week.

In the meantime, check out the awesome Food Robot Market Map my colleague Jenn Marston put together. It lists all the major players in the space in one handy-dandy downloadable chart. And to tide you over, here are some tasty high-level ArticulATE takeaways from myself, Mike and Catherine:

Human are shunning food-related jobs
This came up again and again throughout the day. Albertsons has a hard time finding truck drivers, there aren’t enough restaurant cooks, and in terms of a job, people today would rather have the flexibility of driving for Uber. According to our panelists, the acceleration of automation is happening in part because companies need it to fill in these gaps to operate their businesses.

Everybody loves robots
Part and parcel with the labor shortage, every major restaurant and grocery chain is experimenting with robots in some way. Some are in learning mode, some are engaging with a solutions provider or building their own, some are in process of deploying small betas, some are looking to scale nationally.

Robots are in the back and front of house
The restaurant business is seeing lots of robotic action, particularly in QSRs in back of house operations, but also lots of experimentation and evaluation in other aspects like delivery and front of house.

Grocery gets on-board
Grocery chains have for some time been looking at robotics, which thus far seems to be most widely deployed in logistics and supply chain. That said, it is moving into on-floor point-of-presence deployments for a variety of tasks like restocking, cleaning, food production (Breadbot!).

Vending, vidi, vici machines
Vending machines are no longer just coils of Doublemint gum or limp coffee. These are high-tech operations that can serve up complicated meals and fuel data-driven precision for improved stocking and maintenance. Expect to see these takeover airports, hospitals and office buildings.

Human chefs are still safe… for now
Despite technical advancements, there’s still nothing that can beat the good ol’ human hand. So you chefs can rest easy… just watch your back.

Thanks to everyone who spoke, demoed and attended the show. This was our first one and we learned a lot that will make next year’s ArticulATE even better.

Robots, however, weren’t the only thing happening this week. There were other non-robot related news bits that we covered:

Plant-based proteins exploded across various restaurants this week. Del Taco expanded its Beyond Meat offering nationally, Qdoba is adding Impossible meat to all of its locations, and JUST’s vegan eggs will be on the menu at Bareburger and Silver Dollar restaurants. And while it might not be protein, Carl’s Jr. is adding plant-based CBD to its “Rocky Mountain High” burger on — wait for it — 4/20.

In more serious news, some of the roughly 39 million Americans receiving SNAP benefits (food stamps) will now be able to purchase USDA-approved grocery items online from Amazon and Walmart. This is a big deal because many SNAP recipients live in food deserts with little access to fresh food. Having access to healthier food options via delivery will translate to healthier eating.

Oh! I lied, there’s one more bit of food robot news. I tried out the Yo-Kai Express hot ramen vending machine here in SF. Sure, the food was delicious, but more interesting? It will accept airline vouchers as payment. Smart idea.

Alright, after a week full of robots, I’m finally heading home to be with my human family.

-Chris

In the 04/19/2019 edition:

I Used Kiwi’s Delivery Robot and it Felt Like the Future of College Food Delivery (Almost)

By Chris Albrecht on Apr 19, 2019 08:00 am
The startup has also expanded delivery to fifteen schools including UC Davis and Harvard.

Restaurant Chains Embrace JUST Egg, Vegan Chorizo as Hunger for Plant-Based Protein Grows

By Catherine Lamb on Apr 19, 2019 06:00 am
Animal-free meat and dairy alternatives have been on quite a roll this week. First Beyond Meat announced it would be in all locations of Del Taco. Two days later, Impossible shot back with the news that its plant-based meat would be available at all Qdobas nationwide. Now several more national chains are embracing plant-based alternatives with […]

The USDA Launches Its Pilot Enabling SNAP Users to Grocery Shop Online

By Jennifer Marston on Apr 18, 2019 12:35 pm
Today, the USDA announced the launch of a pilot program that will make online grocery shopping available to those receiving SNAP benefits. According to the official press release, “lessons learned from this pilot are expected to inform future efforts to expand online purchasing in SNAP.” To start, the program allows those SNAP users in the […]

Carl’s Jr. Will Test a CBD-Infused Cheeseburger on 4/20

By Jennifer Marston on Apr 18, 2019 09:52 am
Yesterday Carl’s Jr. got the internet all giddy when it announced it will sell a CBD-infused burger for one day, in one location. The Rocky Mountain High: CheeseBurger Delight burger will be available on April 20 (duh), at one location in Denver, CO. The burger will come with pickled jalepeños, pepper jack cheese, and Carl’s […]

LG to Develop Food Robots with CJ Foodville

By Chris Albrecht on Apr 18, 2019 08:00 am
Looks like LG is getting into the dedicated food robot space with the announcement today that it has formed a partnership with Korean restaurant chain, CJ Foodville. According to the AJU Business Daily, LG will build a Flippy-like robot that will begin testing this year. LG’s move into more dedicated food robotics isn’t that surprising […]

Yo-Kai Express Dishes Out Delicious Ramen Bowls (and Accepts Airline Vouchers)

By Chris Albrecht on Apr 18, 2019 08:00 am
In the not-too-far-off future, if you’re stuck at the airport at an ungodly hour, at least you’ll have good food to eat, thanks to a wave of high-tech vending machines like the Yo-Kai Express. Yo-Kai Express is built for high-traffic areas (like airports) and can dispense piping hot bowls of ramen 24 hours a day. […]

Jumprope Raises $4.5M for Guided Cooking through GIFS

By Catherine Lamb on Apr 18, 2019 06:00 am
As a teen I was briefly obsessed with making a very complicated, cream puff-heavy pastry called a croquembouche. I tried to make it using text-heavy cookbooks and bad internet photos, but to no avail. Maybe if guided cooking service Jumprope had been around I would have fared better. The startup creates how-to slideshow videos showing you […]

Corporate Catering Service EAT Club Acquires Taro, Launches Zero-Carbon Program

By Jennifer Marston on Apr 17, 2019 01:00 pm
Corporate lunch-delivery service EAT Club announced today it has acquired Bay Area-based meal delivery service Taro. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. EAT Club, who currently serves San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles, bills itself as a “virtual cafeteria” that delivers meals to offices, among them Facebook and Postmates. Workers can log onto […]

Kitchen United Announces Another Expansion for Its Ghost Kitchens

By Jennifer Marston on Apr 17, 2019 11:00 am
Kitchen United (KU) is making good on its promise to open multiple new locations over the course of 2019. The company announced another expansion today, this time for new locations in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as a second spot in Chicago. KU launched in 2017 with the aim to provide extra kitchen […]

Qdoba Expanding Impossible “Meat” Nationwide

By Chris Albrecht on Apr 17, 2019 09:04 am
Qdoba announced yesterday that it is broadening its use of Impossible’s plant-based “meat” to all of its locations across the U.S. The Mexican food chain had been running tests of Impossible in Michigan, and is the latest high-profile brand to expand its use of alternative proteins as restaurants revamp their menus to keep up with […]

Newsletter: Robots are Upon Us, Uber Eats Stats, and Accelerators

This is the web version of our weekly newsletter. You should subscribe to it.

How we perceive time is kinda funny. We are just days away from ArticulATE, our first-ever food robotics and automation conference, and it feels simultaneously there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything don and also that it’s going to be so great why do I have to wait so long?

We’ve put together a stellar lineup, and based on the prep calls we’ve had with speakers, this is going to be a revelatory day for anyone in or thinking about food automation. There are basically only one or two tickets left (for real), and if you act quickly, you might be able to snag one. If you can’t make the show (bummer!), we’ll be posting video of the talks afterwards.

In a bit of cosmic synchronicity, there has also been a ton of food robot news this week, helping set the stage for Tuesday’s show. Walmart announced it was greatly expanding its robotic workforce adding shelf-scanning bots to more than 300 locations, and floor-scrubbing bots to more than a thousand locations. Giant Eagle stores are joining the revolution, adding shelf-scanning robots of their own. And we learned that Truebird will be launching five automated micro-cafes in NYC this year.

All these robots, of course will have an impact on human jobs, and that’s a subject we’ll definitely be tackling at ArticulATE. But as my colleague, Jenn Martson reports, we don’t have to despair too much, at least not right away, as the restaurants in the U.S. currently employ 15.3 million workers and expect to add 1.6 million by 2029.

It wasn’t all robot news this week. Uber finally filed its S-1 financial documents as part of its march towards an IPO. We care mostly about Uber Eats here at The Spoon, and the filing showed 15 million Uber Eats users ordered delivery in the last quarter of 2018, Uber Eats did $7.9 billion in gross bookings last year, and the company is definitely expanding more into groceries and ghost kitchens.

While Uber looks ahead to its market debut, Catherine Lamb gave us a glimpse into one possible future for alternate protein. Redefine Meat served 3D printed plant-based “meat” to hungry carnivores in a restaurant last week. According to the company, 3D printing allows it to mimic the fibers of meat as well as the way “fat and water is trapped in the meat matrix.” I’d take the red pill to enjoy that meat matrix.

Elsewhere, more seeds were sown for the future of food tech startups this week as Food-X unveiled the latest cohort for its spring accelerator class. Among the eight companies accepted into the prestigious program were an AI for kitchen voice assistants, mushroom coffee, and food for expectant mothers. Not to be outdone, BIG FOOD co., Nestlé announced it was joining the growing list of CPG companies launching its own food and beverage accelerator.

One thing that is accelerating as I type this is time. ArticulATE is just four. days. away. Ack! There’s so much to do and yet I wish it was tomorrow. Hope to see you at the show, and if I do, please say hi and introduce yourself to myself, Mike Wolf or Catherine!

-Chris

The Spoon Weekly: Sweetgreen Robots; Single-serve Coffee Gets Eco-Friendly; Hangover-free Booze

This is the post version of our weekly newsletter. If you’d like to get the weekly Spoon in your inbox, you can subscribe here.

Can a Humble Bag of Coffee Challenge the Mighty K-Cup?

Keurig founder John Sylvan may regret his invention, but he was definitely onto something when he invented the K-Cup. After all, what’s not to love about a system where you just hit a button to get a perfectly portioned cup o’ joe?

Quite a lot, actually. The single-serving coffee pod — whether from Keurig, Nespresso, or others — might be the height of consumer convenience, but it’s wreaking havoc on the planet and often tastes a step or two below what you get at a gas station.

But as I wrote yesterday, entrepreneur Josh Wilbur’s Steeped Coffee method finally launched nationwide this week and could be a competitor to K-Cup. It’s his attempt to combine taste, convenience, and sustainability into a single-serve cup of coffee. It looks like a tea bag, functions sort of like a French press, and is 100 percent compostable.

Whether that’s enough to change peoples’ minds about the K-Cup remains to be seen, but Steeped certainly has the convenience factor going for it, which is key to any company’s competitive edge these days.

Synthetic Booze Could Mean the End of Hangovers

A hangover-free drinking night might be closer than you think. A scientist at Imperial College London has created what’s essentially synthetic alcohol and, as Catherine wrote, “stimulates the same receptors in the brain as alcohol but without all the bad stuff that harms your organs and makes you feel icky.” Called Alcarelle, the substance could be on the market in as few as five years.

Now they just need to create synthetic booze that leaves out the hangover and keeps you from engaging in idiotic behavior that winds up all over Instagram the next day . . .

Sous Vide, Meet the DVR

Mike took us on a walk through time this week when he reminded us how exciting the DVR — better known as TiVo — was when it launched in the early 2000s. But tech was eventually relegated to being just another feature on other products, in what’s known as digital convergence. Now, that concept has come to the kitchen, and sous vide looks to be the next technology ripe for feature-izing.

Anything to save space on the countertop is a welcome addition (subtraction?) in this age of cooking gadgets. So while you’re ditching the Keurig in favor of a more eco-friendly brew, keep an eye on what new features the next generation of all-purpose equipment has in store.

Finally, this morning Mike looked at whether Sweetgreen is looking to roboticize its restaurants. They might be and they’re not the only ones. If you want to hear the latest from both startups and big chains looking to incorporate robotics and automation into their restaurants, make sure to get your ticket to ArticulATE. There are limited tickets left, so you’ll want to hurry. Just use discount code NEWSLETTER10 for 10% off tickets.

That’s it for now.

Thanks, and have a great rest of your week!

Jenn

In the 04/03/2019 edition:

Is Sweetgreen Looking to Roboticize Its Restaurants?

By Michael Wolf on Apr 03, 2019 07:00 am
Last fall, fast-casual darling Sweetgreen became a newly minted unicorn when it raised $200 million at over a $1 billion valuation. At the time, the company’s CEO talked about leveraging technologies like IoT and blockchain to build upon what the company called its “best-in-class” operating model and supply chain to create a restaurant “platform“.

FDA Makes First Step Towards Regulating CBD-Infused Food and Drink

By Catherine Lamb on Apr 02, 2019 07:29 pm
You just got one step closer to being able to legally purchase CBD-infused chocolates, sugar, beer and more. Today the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) released a statement announcing a new action plan to jumpstart regulations for “the lawful marketing of appropriate cannabis and cannabis-derived products.”

Walmart Tries to Challenge Amazon’s Grocery Supremacy through Voice Ordering

By Catherine Lamb on Apr 02, 2019 01:52 pm
I’m not one to get excited about sporting rivalries, but I do get excited about grocery rivalries. And Amazon V. Walmart is shaking out to be the matchup of the decade. Today Walmart made moves to challenge Amazon in the game of voice-controlled grocery ordering by announcing Walmart Voice Order.

Steeped’s Single-Serve Coffee Bags Deliver Instant High-End Brew Without the Environmental Waste

By Jennifer Marston on Apr 02, 2019 11:39 am
As someone who often makes a cup of instant coffee out of sheer busyness laziness, this news piqued my interest: Steeped, a Santa Cruz, CA-based startup, has launched a coffee brewing method that combines the speed of an instant brew with the quality of a high-end, single-serve cup o’ joe.

ezCater Raises $150M to Expand Global Catering Marketplace

By Catherine Lamb on Apr 02, 2019 09:53 am
Today, online catering marketplace ezCater announced it’s closed a $150 million Series D-1 round, co-led by Lightspeed VenturePartners and GIC. This comes nine months after ezCater raised a $100 million Series D round. It brings the catering giant’s total funding to $320 million and puts them at a $1.25 billion valuation, making them a food […]

Video: Amazon CTO Werner Vogels Visits Singapore to Talk AI With Inventors of the Rotimatic

By Michael Wolf on Apr 02, 2019 07:36 am
Back when I worked at Gigaom, every year we’d invite Amazon CTO Werner Vogels on stage at our big cloud computing conference and interview him about the future of the Internet and distributed computing. Nowadays Vogels is conducting his own interviews, heading out to far-flung locales to talk to innovators about how they are using […]

For Cultured Meat, Scaffolding is the Next Big Hurdle. Could LEGOs Hold the Answer?

By Catherine Lamb on Apr 01, 2019 01:55 pm
As of now, cultured meat comes out looking one way: like mush. That’s because scientists have figured out ways to replicate animal muscle, fat, and tissue cells, but not how to make them grow to make fibers.

Welcome to the Era of Cooking Convergence (aka Why Sous Vide is Going the Way of DVR)

By Michael Wolf on Apr 01, 2019 10:00 am
It may be hard to remember in a world with Hulu, Netflix, and Apple TV  Apple TV+, but back in the early 2000s one of the coolest new technologies was this thing called the digital video recorder (DVR).

Impossible Foods Makes Next Big Fast Food Move with Burger King

By Catherine Lamb on Apr 01, 2019 08:39 am
At Burger King, having it “your way” could soon mean making that whopper 100 percent meat-free. Starting today, the fast food chain will offer a Whopper made with plant-based “bleeding” patties from Impossible Foods (h/t New York Times). Called the Impossible Whopper, the burger is now available at 59 stores in the St. Louis, Missouri area.

We Might Be Only 5 Years Away from Hangover-Free Booze

By Catherine Lamb on Mar 31, 2019 06:00 am
For anyone who’s experienced the vision-blurring head pain after a night of heavy drinking, we have an important announcement: A scientist in London has created a synthetic version of alcohol that contains no toxins and leaves you with absolutely no hangover.

Newsletter: Yeast Could be the Key to our Plant-Based Food Future — and CBD, Too

Happy Friday from L.A., where I came for a weekend of fancy toast, museum-hopping, and sipping as much green juice as my wallet can handle.

Just a short way down the coast is the headquarters of Beyond Meat, the startup whose plant-based burgers are making their way onto the plates of vegetarians and carnivores alike, including Bill Gates. This week, the Microsoft founder curated MIT Technology Review’s annual list of Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2019, and named plant-based burgers one of his picks. (He has invested in both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods in the past.)

That wasn’t the only news around plant-based protein this week. Impossible Foods announced that it was bringing its famous “bleeding” meat to Singapore!

Impossible’s burgers get their bloody appearance from heme, which the startup’s scientists make through a process that involves genetically engineered yeast. They’re not the only ones using yeast to make better-tasting meat alternatives: New company Motif Ingredients (a spinoff of Ginkgo Bioworks), which just launched this week, uses modified yeast to “brew” proteins intended for use in plant-based foods. This could lead to an influx of new meat alternative startups, as companies would no longer need their own expensive R&D lab and team of scientists in order to develop an animal-free product.

But genetically modified yeast can make a lot more than just protein. This week, scientists from Berkeley announced they had developed a way to use genetically modified yeast to create CBD and THC.

That’s right, the active components of Mary Jane can be grown in a lab. So in addition to bread, protein, beer, and milk, we can now add weed to the list of things that yeast can make. That’s one mighty microbe.

A bloody Impossible burger.

Let’s shift gears a minute to one of our all-time favorite topics: robots. Also pizza.

This week resident Spoon robo-expert Chris wrote about FedEx’s new delivery robot which can navigate stairs to deliver packages — or a piping-hot pizza — to your doorstep. He also covered Basil Street, a company developing automated pizza vending machines that can cook a pie in three minutes flat. In non-pizza robot news, the makers of Julia, a countertop cooking robot, raised an undisclosed amount of funding this week.

Seems like there’s a lot of really exciting innovation a-brewing in the world of food robotics, eh? If you want to join the conversation, we’re having a Slack Chat dedicated to the topic of automation in food TODAY at 10:30 a.m. PST. Experts from Byte Foods, Augean Robotics, and Kiwi Technology will be joining, and it’s sure to be valuable and, most importantly, fun. Sign up for our Slack Channel (it’s free and super easy, promise) to join. See you then!

Still can’t get enough robots? (We can’t, either.) Our food robotics and automation summit ArticulATE is happening April 16 at General Assembly in downtown San Francisco. If you want a teaser, this week we spoke with Linda Pouliot, CEO and founder of Dishcraft Robotics (yep, she’ll be at ArticulATE!), about what sort of kitchen tasks robots are suited for — and which ones are best left to humans. Early Bird Tickets for the summit are on sale now — get ’em while they’re hot.

With that, it’s time to eat tacos until I can’t eat tacos no mo. Peace.

Catherine

Newsletter: Markov’s “Google Cafeteria in a Box”, Disrupting Office Food & Future of Beer

This is the post version of our weekly newsletter. If you’d like to get the weekly Spoon in your inbox, you can subscribe here.

Office Food is Hot

If you’ve spent any time inside a cubicle farm during your career, you know that office food can often be uninspiring. You forget to pack a lunch and chances are unhealthy options are all you have to choose from when it comes to the break room vending machine.

Luckily for us worker bees, the office lunch is having a moment, in large part thanks to the influence of Google. Google’s food service, under the stewardship of Michiel Bakker (who spoke at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit), has become the industry gold standard by showing how instrumental food is in keeping workers happy and productive.

Most companies, however, don’t have the resources of a Google, which means that emulating the search giant’s food program is often easier said than done. That’s why one startup named Markov has launched a new food service offering called Hot Pantry that they are basically pitching as a “Google cafeteria in a box.”

Readers of the Spoon may associate Markov with their Level smart oven, a cooking appliance that uses patented RF beam steering technology to cook food at different heat levels within the cooking chamber. Markov is still primarily a cooking technology company — the Hot Pantry service comes with their smart oven, after all — but the startup is now partnering up with food companies to stock the fridges (also provided by Markov) of mid-sized companies who do not have similar resources to invest in their food program.

I started writing about the growing momentum in startup activity behind new food options for the office a couple of years ago, and this year it seems like we’ve seen even more momentum for this space. Markov is just the latest startup to jump in, and Chris Albrecht this week wrote about a handful of others offering new takes of office food.

I’m excited about this newfound interest in feeding people well at work. So many of us spend a huge chunk of our lives sitting behind a desk, it makes sense for us — and our employers — to be considerate about how we are feeding ourselves.

Photo: Michael Wolf, in Pike Brewing Co’s Beer Museum

AI’s Impact on Food is Growing

The Level oven is just one example of how artificial intelligence — or AI — is becoming more important in food; a trend that shows no indication of slowing down.

Another example of this trend is highlighted in a story this week by Chris which looks at how food industry employers in China are implementing big-brother-esque AI systems to monitor kitchen workers for unsanitary conditions.

From the piece: Installed cameras will monitor the kitchen, and if they catch unsanitary behaviors, as analyzed by the AI, an alert is sent to the manager. The system will also be hooked into equipment like fridges to detect any anomalies that might cause problems.

China’s been perhaps the most aggressive in employing AI in surveillance systems with technology such as facial recognition, so it’s not all that surprising employers would embrace the technology as a way to squeeze more productivity out of workers. The march forward of AI and automation is inevitable in service industry jobs, but it’s also worth noting there’s a growing discomfort among workers and society at large about this technology. Bottom line: the societal reaction to cutting edge technology and its impact on us as both employees and consumers will become as much the story as the technologies — and their capabilities — themselves.

Speaking of automation, it was a topic that came up during a meetup we held this week in one of Seattle’s most historic craft brewpubs, where I led a conversation on one of my favorite subjects: beer. On the panel Annie Johnson, onetime Homebrewer of the Year and master brewer for PicoBrew, said that she believed that automation led to better beer. “To get good beer, you need automation,” she said.

The meetup also spanned other topics, including the big impact millennials are having on the beer market. This generation’s growing influence on all things food has led to a trend that Erin James of Sip Northwest calls the “adulting” of beverages that are traditionally non-alcoholic, such as kombucha and sparkling water.

From Catherine Lamb’s wrapup: According to James, in the millennial demographic, beer has surpassed spirits as the most popular alcoholic beverage. However, this audience is not just driven by taste. “They’re also very value-driven,” she explained. And they value both ingredient sources (local is king), opt for local craft breweries and prefer cans to bottles (for environmental reasons).

We had lots of other great stories this week, so make sure to check them out below.

Also, if you haven’t heard about our new one-day event on food robotics and automation, Articulate, you will want to check out our site. We’ve added some great new speakers, including person leading the charge in robotics for Albertsons, Narayan Iyengar, and Sony’s chief robotics engineer, Masahiro Fujita. Early Bird tickets for this April 16th San Francisco event are on sale now, so get ‘em while they’re hot!

Finally, our CBD slack chat went so well, we’re going to do it again. We will be announcing our new one next week, so make sure to sign up for our food tech slack if you want to participate in the next one!

Have a great rest of your week,
Mike

In the 01/31/2019 edition:
Robots + Connected Kitchen Appliances Can Help Diabetics Manage Diets
Anyone with kids knows that getting them to eat healthy can be a challenge. That challenge is compounded if your child has a disease like diabetes, where their diets must be strictly managed. That’s where Belgium-based IDLab thinks robots can help, especially for older kids who are a little more independent. In the video below, […]

Markov Rolls Out Hot Pantry Food Service, A ‘Google Cafeteria’ in a Box
Let’s face it: Not every company is a Google when it comes to profitability, technology prowess or lunch. Wait, lunch? Yep. Google’s food program has become the gold standard in the tech world and beyond for its healthy choices and focus on sustainability, and has played an outsized role over the past decade in raising […]

Domino’s Just Made It Even Easier to Deliver Pizza — in Saudi Arabia
If you order Domino’s pizza, your days of relaying special delivery instructions to the driver could soon be over. The pizza chain-turned tech company just announced via a press release it has expanded its partnership with location-technology company what3words to Saudi Arabia. Domino’s has already been delivering to geographic locations called Hotspots like parks and […]

Now With 600,000 Users, Chefling Turns On its Machine Learning Switch
Chefling released an update to its kitchen assistant app this week that the company says will create more personalized recommendations. The app update also includes enhanced pantry management as well as smart appliance controls. Previously, we described Chefling’s service this way: With the Chefling app, users can scan barcodes or take a picture of their […]

For the Future of Beer, “New is King” — That Means Cannabis, Automation, and Glitter
Fittingly, we held our Future of Beer food tech meetup last night at Pike Brewing Company’s Beer Museum, which features an epic collection of memorabilia spanning from the invention of beer in 6,000 B.C Sumeria to Prohibition to the craft brewery revolution of today. But we were concerned with where beer is heading next.

Costa Vida’s Journey to Tablet Hell and Back
“It was hard to find that line between encouraging the innovation and maintaining sanity,” Costa Vida’s Dave Conger recently said of his company’s journey into restaurant-delivery technology. As is the case for most restaurants now, the fast-casual chain saw the need to implement delivery and its accompanying pieces of technology into daily operations to keep […]

Is Big Brother Coming to Restaurant Kitchens?
As if food service didn’t have enough to worry about, what with robots predicted to automate many of jobs and put employment of actual humans in jeopardy. Now, even those humans who still have kitchen jobs in the future may have to contend with Big Brother peeking over their shoulder as they work. ECNS.com has […]

Restaurant Delivery Deals Change the Game for Super Bowl Snacking
Vegan burgers, free NFL gear, and mysterious boxes are all part of this year’s lineup.

Giant Foods Opening a Physical Hub for Ecommerce Orders
GIANT Foods announced yesterday it will open a new physical hub in Pennsylvania that only services ecommerce orders. With this move, Giant joins the ranks of grocery stores architecting new experiences to accommodate the growth in online shopping. Opening Feb. 12 in Lancaster, PA, the new 38,000 sq. ft. hub will be called Giant Direct, […]

Lavva Uses Pili Nut to Make Legit Delicious Plant-Based Yogurt
As a lactose-intolerant person who loves her morning yogurt & granola, I’ve tried my fair share of vegan yogurts. Usually I’m disappointed. Most plant-based yogurts are bitter or have an off-putting grainy texture; some just taste like a straight-up cup of either soy or coconut.