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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Connected Kitchen

Perfect Company Files Second Patent Infringement Claim Against Drop

The ongoing court battle between Perfect Company and the maker of the Drop scale took another turn this week when Perfect announced a new patent and an additional patent infringement claim again Adaptics Limited, the maker of the Drop scale.

According to the press release, Perfect Company has been issued an additional patent for its smart scale and recipe app platform. The new patent builds on and expands the company’s original patent (the basis of the original patent infringement lawsuit) by adding additional claims such as adding user override capabilities to add ingredients out of order and auto-advancement to the next step when an ingredient is added.

This is the latest in an ongoing multiyear legal battle between the two companies who have been tussling over intellectual property related to scale based smart cooking platforms. After the original lawsuit was filed in 2014, Adaptics soon requested a review of Perfect Company’s patent. However, things didn’t go Adaptics way. Earlier this year the US Patent office validated the Perfect Company claims.

I asked Perfect Company CEO Mike Wallace why they’ve decided to pursue Adaptics so aggressively, particularly in light of what seems to be a revised strategy by Adaptics to  deemphasize Drop branded smart scales and an increased focus on licensing their software to partners.

According to Wallace, it doesn’t matter how Adaptics goes to market since what they are selling is a scale-based smart measuring system that infringes on Perfect’s intellectual property.

“Their intention is to sell a scale to every end user of the Drop software whether it comes from a sale on Amazon or a large appliance purchase,” said Wallace via email. “I wouldn’t characterize their revised business plan as a pivot as much as an adjustment to pursue additional revenues and marketing dollars to drive users to their scale-based recipe system that competes directly with ours. Bottom line, a scale and an interactive recipe is at the heart of their technology and the way they have implemented it is a gross violation of our IP.”

I also reached out to the CEO of Adaptics, Ben Harris, to get his response about the Perfect Company’s latest legal salvo and this is what he said:

“We believe the cases are completely devout of merit; the patents are not valid because they don’t invent anything that wasn’t already well known and we don’t infringe on the patents as they are defined – so we look forward to our day in court. We plan to vigorously defend the lawsuit, and to date, all the rulings have been procedural – stating simply, that the case can proceed.”

Perfect’s effort to protect its intellectual property makes sense when considering that the company is working with large brands who are using the company’s technology. Perfect has announced partnerships with Vitamix and Nutribullet, both of which utilize the Perfect scale based system and app technology as foundations for their new products.

In late 2016 and early 2017, Adaptics announced their own deals with GE and Bosch that had the large appliance makers using the Drop software to power their smart appliance efforts. It remains to be seen if and how this legal battle will impact these partnerships.

Mealhero Combines Ice, Steam and the Cloud for European Meal Kits

The biggest hurdle I’ve had with meal kit subscriptions is all the work it takes once you get the ingredients. Sure, they’re portioned, but you still have to do a ton of prep work and be a halfway decent cook to make them turn out. Plus, you have to use up the ingredients before they go bad.

Mealhero, a two-year old startup based in Belgium, wants to have overcome these issues through a combination of frozen food plus connected high-tech steamer, and have taken to Kickstarter to expand their European footprint.

Quick note: It’s not easy to suss out all the mealhero details outside of the subtitled Kickstarter video, as almost all of their promotional materials are in Dutch. We reached out to them with some questions, and didn’t hear back at the time of this writing. UPDATE: Jeroen Spitaels, Co-Founder and CEO of mealhero, emailed us back with answers to our questions, which are pasted below.

The mealhero service is comprised of three parts: a box of frozen ingredients delivered to your home, an app to help you assemble your ingredients into a recipe, and a connected three-container steamer to cook them automatically.

The app knows what ingredients you have and can suggest a recipe, or you can assemble a combination of foods how you like. The frozen ingredients include vegetables, starches, and meats and come in their own containers, each with an RFID label. Once selected, you scan each container on the steamer and place the ingredient in its own compartment. The steamer knows how long to cook each individual component, so you don’t have to actually do any cooking.

According to mealhero’s Kickstarter video, they offer 100 ingredients, which can be combined into 300 different meals. And since everything is frozen, it keeps longer.

While most people probably don’t want every meal steamed, mealhero does seems to be taking the friction between meal kit delivery and actual usage. In a similar vein, Tovala combines specialized meal kit delivery designed for its own oven appliance. And Nomiku offers a similar prepared meal service for its connected sous-vide cooker. And elsewhere in the Netherlands, IXL has it’s E-cooker, another three compartment cooker that uses pulsed electric fields for precision heating (and it took home the Innovation Award at our recent Smart Kitchen Summit).

Mealhero currently has customers in Belgium and the Netherlands, and is using Kickstarter to raise $75,000 to grow the business.

THE SPOON: 1. Is mealhero currently available anywhere?

Jeroen Spitaels: mealhero is available in Belgium and The Netherlands. It is geographically limited because of the recurring food service, which we aren’t able yet to ship worldwide.

2. Do you currently have any funding, or are you doing this entirely through Kickstarter?

We already have some funding, Kickstarter is mainly to get more customers and further expand our market. Besides the funding aspect as well.

3. It looks like if successfully Kickstarted, you will roll out in September of 2018. Is this correct? Where will you be rolling out to first?

Correct. We will be rolling out in Belgium and The Netherlands.

4. What is the Kickstarter money going towards?

The production of the smart steaming devices. For now we have funded everything ourselves together with our partner. Which basically means the entire technological development. So the Kickstarter support will be used to – in fact – manufacture all the devices.

5. How much to does mealhero cost? Will the price change once you reach the market?

Retail price is 319 [EUR, $369 USD] for a smart steamer and 1 foodbox. Kickstarter price is 229 [$265 USD] for the smart steamer and 1 foodbox. Afterwords, customer are able to order as many foodboxes as they like for which the price will vary between 9,5 [$11] and 6,5 EUR [$7.54] per meal, depending on the total order size.

6. How do you plan to avoid the challenges other Kickstarter hardware projects have encountered?

At first we did all of the developments ourselves, afterwards we teamed up with an experienced partner in hardware product development for electronics, mechanics and design. Doing so allowed us to gain access to a broad range of possible suppliers for the devices. Furthermore, there is also a consumer guarantee as is the case for all consumer electronics.

7. How do you plan to avoid the challenges other meal kit delivery services have faced?

I’ve been lucky enough to grow up in a family food business in which I’m the 3rd generation. So we already have quite a bit of experience within the food industry. Besides that I believe it is also one of our core strengths that we’re always very open towards partnerships. For instance for the logistical supply chain, we are partnering up with specialized firms.

Hestan Cue System Adds Chef’s Pot To Cookware Arsenal

The Hestan Cue, a connected cooking system that features an induction burner and – up til now – a single choice of cookware in a Bluetooth-enabled pan, just added a new cookware option: the Chef’s Pot.

Announced today, the Chef’s Pot is similar to the Hestan Cue pan in that is features a smart Bluetooth module and syncs with the smart induction burner that comes with the Hestan Cue system. Like the pan, the Chef’s Pot can also be used with the Hestan Cue app, the three of which (cookware, burner, app) orchestrate a guided cooking experience with synchronized video tutorials that communicate with the pan and induction burner system.

Adding a pot also makes sense since even if you’re new to the kitchen, you’ll eventually need more than one piece of cookware. With the Chef’s Pot, owners of the Hestan Cue can now make soup, braise a chicken or slow cook some pork. To accommodate the new culinary directions enabled by a pot the Hestan Cue app has also added new recipes.

Like the Hestan Cue itself, the Chef’s Pot isn’t cheap. The new connected cookware runs $299, which is a pretty penny since you can pick up an entire cookware set for about two hundred bucks.

Long term, you have to wonder whether the Hestan Cue technology will find its way into more Meyer cookware. Meyer, Hestan Smart Cooking’s parent company, is one of the world’s largest cookware companies, it’s growth fueled in the 80s in part by Stanley Cheng’s innovations in non-stick cooking surfaces. Thirty years later, it’s possible the company’s next wave growth will center around intelligent cookware.

Is Amazon Considering Making A Smart Fridge? Probably Not (But Maybe)

Is Amazon working on a refrigerator?

Maybe.

Recent patent applications suggest the company is researching advanced refrigerator technology around spoilage detection while they also expand efforts to help you order groceries and have them delivered inside your home. Taken together with their investment in smart home tech and growing interest in the kitchen, one scenario could have the company creating a smart fridge.

Skeptical? You should be. It probably won’t happen. But there are signals it is at least a remote possibility, so let’s analyze them and speculate about the possibility of an Amazon Smart Fridge.

First the patent applications.

Amazon Files Fridge Patents

In September, Amazon filed two related patent applications that centered around spoiled food detection in refrigerators.  The first patent application, filed on September 14th of this year, is called “Image-Based Spoilage Sensing Refrigerator” and centers around utilizing internal cameras to detect spoiled food. The system would use both infrared and visible spectrum cameras to detect spoilage of food and then send an alert to a mobile device.

This patent application was designed to work in concert with a scent-based sensing system defined in another patent application (also filed on September 14th) called “Scent-Based Spoilage Sensing Refrigerator” that utilizes a variety of sensors to detect gasses emitted from spoiled food and then sends an alert to a mobile device.

Here is a mockup drawing of the fridge included in both of the patent applications that show where gas-based spoilage sensors would be placed in the fridge:

Both patent applications go into a lot of detail about how exactly the systems would work, but the essence of these concepts is that Amazon wants to put digital eyes and a nose into your refrigerator to automatically detect when food is spoiled and let you know.

As with any patent applications, you need to take them with a grain of salt. Amazon files a whole lot of patents these days and more often these do not turn into granted patents. But the very fact Amazon is researching spoilage detection is interesting in itself, even if it’s not enough.

Amazon Investment in Kitchen Commerce

For the last few years, Amazon has invested in kitchen replenishment and ordering platforms. First, there’s Amazon Dash Replenishment Service, the integrated automated ordering system that today is largely about replenishing non-spoilables like coffee filters or printer ink. However, there’s no reason why the same technology couldn’t work in a fridge.

Then there’s the Amazon Echo and Alexa. Over half of all Amazon Echos are ending up in the kitchen, and Amazon continues to build out the capabilities of their Alexa-powered voice assistants to act as virtual grocery shoppers.

We’ve also seen Amazon continuing to invest in their own mobile app to enable new commerce possibilities. Just this week the company announced it had added augmented reality capabilities to its mobile app. One could easily imagine the mobile app getting alerts from a smart fridge to tee up a new set of groceries.

Amazon’s Recipe-Driven Commerce Patent

Amazon’s fridge patent applications are no doubt intriguing, but things get even more interesting when considering Amazon IP such as its patent for recipe-driven commerce. Amazon was issued a patent in 2015 to enable for recipe-driven commerce that breaks down a recipe and inserts ingredients into a virtual shopping cart.

Here’s an image from the patent filing showing a recipe with a commerce/shopping cart component:

The patent application was originally filed in 2011, which shows you how long Amazon has been thinking about food and automated ordering.

Amazon Is Investing in Unattended Delivery

Last week, Amazon revealed Amazon Key, a new initiative centered around unattended delivery. The idea here is an Amazon delivery person would be able to enter your home to deliver a product while you aren’t there. The system utilizes an Amazon smart video doorbell and works with smart lock partners to enable access.

While Amazon Key could be used for pretty much anything Amazon delivers, unattended delivery makes lots of sense for groceries given fresh food needs to be put into a fridge at some point. Of course, an Amazon fridge isn’t necessary to make this all happen, but as long as Amazon is moving down the path of automated ordering, it could be one of many potential scenarios.

Amazon’s Partnership With Kenmore

A couple of months ago, Kenmore made news by announcing it would start selling its appliances via Amazon. It was a big deal since this was the first time in the brand’s century-plus history that it would sell outside of a Sears’ sales channel.

As I wrote here, the deal was a big win for Amazon, while Sears/Kenmore will also benefit from Amazon’s e-commerce capabilities. At the same time, Sears continues to struggle and, long-term, this deal could the first step towards new business models where Kenmore works with other players to help develop partner products. Who’s to say that at some point Amazon doesn’t consider working with Kenmore to make a refrigerator or – as they did with Whole Foods – just buy the company?

Amazon Loves Food

This one might seem obvious, but Amazon loves the food business. If the surprising acquisition of Whole Foods wasn’t enough to convince you, certainly their decade-long investment in grocery delivery, experimentation with new store formats, their drive-through pick up concept, Fresh subscriptions and various other initiatives are signs of how excited Amazon is about the food market. And why not? They know along with Walmart that food is the biggest portion of consumer wallet spend outside of housing and transportation (roughly 13% of consumer household budgets go towards food).

Much how Amazon eventually invested in hardware for entertainment because they saw a huge opportunity for new business models as the living room became digitized, who’s to say they won’t think the same thing about food as the kitchen goes through the same digital transformation?

The Fridge Is The Heart Of The Kitchen

In some ways, one could argue the fridge is the heart of the kitchen. Samsung certainly thinks so, doubling down on a strategy around their Family Hub refrigerator this year and likely continuing to bet on the smart fridge. Rumors have been floating for the last couple years that Amazon was making a kitchen computer – which eventually turned into was the Echo Show – but who’s to say Amazon wouldn’t just consider moving the technology for the Show into the fridge itself alongside all the other tech they are have developed for the kitchen?

All The Reasons They Won’t Make a Fridge

As I said, there are lots of reasons not to make a fridge. One is the company usually invests in smaller, low-cost hardware products in new categories. Another is there’s a good chance that if Amazon wanted inside our fridge, they would simply consider making a retrofit solution similar to the Smarter fridge cam.  And if they wanted to make a home storage device, why not just make a front-door locker system, something akin to an Amazon locker for the front door?

But still…

Conclusion: Gene Munster, My Apologies

The Amazon fridge question reminds me of a few years ago when folks speculated whether Apple would make a TV. One analyst in particular, Gene Munster, seemed to bet his whole career on the idea before eventually admitting he’d been wrong.

Part of the reason Munster speculated for years about an Apple TV was there were lots of signals.  Patent filings, investment in digital entertainment platforms and the recurring pattern of Apple coming up with a new hero consumer product every couple years fed into Munster’s thinking.

So, while I don’t intend to become the Gene Munster of the Amazon fridge and wage a multiyear speculation battle about why its the right thing to do, I figured I’d at least play Munster for a day and ask the question: will Amazon make a smart fridge?

Probably not.

Buy maybe.

Right now, Amazon AR is Kinda Silly for the Kitchen, but Just Wait

Amazon released augmented reality (AR) capabilities through its iOS app yesterday that allow consumers to place virtual versions of objects in real world settings through their phones. The number of products you can place is currently limited, but there is a Kitchen category where you can preview how virtual wares will look on your countertops or in cabinets.

Right now, the feature is more fun than truly useful in the kitchen (I can see it having more of an immediate impact in the living room). Mostly because a lot of the kitchen items are small, like a Cookie Monster mug which I don’t really need augmented reality to show me how much space I need on my counter.

If you’re looking for some utility, the app might be useful for bigger countertop appliances like toaster ovens or slow cookers to get a sense of how they would fit and look in a smaller kitchen. Or if you want to get a sense of how a style of kitchen barstools would look. Or you can get a sense of how a red toaster will work with the current color scheme of your kitchen.

The virtual mockups are definitely rough, and there really aren’t that many items to preview right now. But right now isn’t really the point. Amazon is a company that definitely does not live in the present, it’s always got one eye on the future and setting itself up for success then.

You can see how this would be helpful with larger appliances such as a refrigerator, or oven hood or cooktop to see how it will look. And the ability to provide real-life room mapping would be of great use, for example showing it a space and Amazon pulling up all the appliances that would fit there, or appliance colors that would go well with your existing decor.

There was one bit of unexpected coolness from my brief AR experiment. When I Airdropped the pictures from my phone to my MacBook, it immediately brought up the corresponding page to buy the product on Amazon in my browser. Well, “coolness” may not be the right word, but never let it be said that Amazon is not the master of the frictionless purchase.

You can check out the AR capabilities right now in iOS. Jut go the Amazon shopping app and click on the camera. From there you can find the best place for that Cookie Monster mug.

Why Do Some Smart Kitchen Companies Succeed While Others Fail?

Teforia, the maker of a $1000 (originally $1500) connected tea infuser, announced this week that they would shut down immediately.

In a letter to customers, Teforia CEO Allen Han wrote: “we simply couldn’t raise the funds required in what is a very difficult time for hardware companies in the smart kitchen space.”

I’m not entirely surprised the company couldn’t raise funds. High-priced consumer product startups with a business model that feels even vaguely similar to that of Juicero have experienced pushback from potential investors ever since the high profile juice startup went under. While the two companies are certainly different in many respects, there were enough similarities (high price point, subscription business, easily replaced with alternative methods) to warrant the comparison among a jittery investor class.

But as I read Han’s letter, I started to wonder if what he said is true: are smart kitchen companies having a hard time? Or, as I started to suspect, are some having difficulty while others are flourishing?

On the one hand we have seen companies like Juicero and Teforia struggle and go out of business. But then there are companies like PicoBrew, Perfect Company, and InstantPot, all of which have thrived as they’ve brought new products and approaches to the kitchen.

As I thought about this, I started thinking about the differences between the companies that are succeeding in this space vs. those that go out of business. As it turns out, I think there are some lessons we can learn from observing companies that have had success in this market.

Here are a few characteristics of those companies who are succeeding in the smart kitchen market:

A product should give the consumer new capabilities that would otherwise be too difficult or time consuming without it

A good example is PicoBrew. If you’ve ever wanted to make beer but didn’t want to the mess of traditional home brewing, the PicoBrew is a game changer. By applying precision brewing, pre-proportioned ingredients and the ability to brew famous recipes for well-known microbreweries, the startup from Seattle has created a reliably successful model of creating new products every year as they march down the cost curve with each product.

Teforia, on the other hand, made tea, something billions of people do everyday in their home without much effort.  While the concept of adjusting flavor notes and antioxidants is an interesting concept for a tea aficionado, as it turns out tea is something that you can make rather easily.

A product should be either affordable or provide immense value 

The Thermomix TM5 is one of those products you’ve probably heard about but very likely don’t have. That’s because the 12-in-1 multicooker commands a pretty penny and has only recently become available in the US.

Normally one would not put the words  “$1500 countertop appliance” and “popular” in the same sentence, but Thermomix has seemingly cracked the code by creating an uber all-in-one appliance that slices, dices and cooks you dinner. The company continues to evolve the product as well, adding a connected recipe community and an associated app that continues to gain traction.

While the Teforia critical acclaim showed its value relative to the status quo, the value wasn’t differentiated enough from low-cost knock-offs like this Gourmia tea diffuser which sells for about a tenth of the price.

Smart Kitchen products need a community

Want to sell lots of product? Create an active and passionate community.

Perhaps the best example of this is the Instant Pot. The popular connected pressure cooker has an extremely active social community which includes a Facebook group of nearly three-quarters of a million Facebook users who share recipes and cooking tips online. Independent Facebook Instant Pot communities, each numbering in the tens of thousands, have also sprung up to facilitate recipe sharing.

While some might say a sizable community is the result of a viral product, Instant Pot’s case suggests the opposite where a product’s success was fueled by the community. Early on, the team behind the Instant Pot worked to actively build a community of Facebook influencers who would spread the word. Word got around, and the product started gaining traction. Eventually, the product moved up Amazon’s sales charts, and the combination of a strong community reinforced by sales momentum created a virtuous circle that continues to this day.

There are others ways to build and leverage communities to sell connected kitchen products. ChefSteps created a community around high-quality video content before they launched their first hardware product in the Joule, while Anova started its community with crowdfunding campaigns and the company continues to water and feed the #anovafoodnerd community even after they were acquired by Electrolux.

Smart kitchen companies need to experiment with multiple business models

Smart kitchen product success often relies as much on business model experimentation as it does on cool technology. The Perfect Company is a good example of this since the company has not only created a successful line of low-cost connected scales like the Perfect Bake and Perfect Drink, but they’ve also actively worked with large appliance brands to create a separate line of licensing revenue for their technology. Last year the company announced a deal with Vitamix for their tech, while this year they announced a new deal that provided the technology foundation for the newest generation of the Nutribullet. The company has also created a new business line that creates insights around consumption metrics tied to their scales.

I don’t know if Teforia was actively looked at other models (the company pointed us to their statement on their website), but I would have been surprised if they hadn’t at least looked for licensing partners for their tea brewing tech.

Of course, it should be noted that often times a fate of a company is due to a number of factors beyond their control. The Juicero news no doubt added strong headwinds for Teforia as they searched for more funding and, if Juicero never happened, we might not be talking about Teforia.

Lastly, while every segment, including the smart kitchen, has their share of Juiceros or Teforias, anything more than a casual look around shows there is no shortage of companies innovating and succeeding in the future kitchen space.

 

Thermomix Reaches New Milestone: One Million Connected Appliances

Thermomix, the popular all-in-one multicooker with a high price tag (~$1500), has reached a new milestone: one million of the Thermomix cooking appliances have connected to the company’s online cooking platform, Cookidoo.

The milestone was reached this month when the one millionth TM5 – the company’s latest generation cooking appliance – connected to the Cookidoo platform using the Cook-Key, a Wi-Fi enabled recipe platform accessory that replaces the standard recipe cookbook “chip” that comes with a TM5.

As can be seen below, the Cook-Key started shipping last August and hit the one million milestone this month.

Cook-Key units connected. Source: Vorwerk

The Cook-Key and Cookidoo represent a significant new strategy and revenue opportunity for Thermomix. The Thermomix TM5 ships without built-in connectivity and the customer is limited to those recipes on a given recipe chip. With the Wi-Fi enabled Cook-Key, the customer can connect to the Cookidoo recipe portal and access thousands of recipes from other Thermomix users or through curated collections of recipes from Thermomix at $4 a pop. The Cook-Key itself is about $112 dollars and the customer subscribes the Cookidoo recipe platform for $39 a year. A back of the envelope estimate puts the Cook-Key and Cookidoo revenue today at approximately $150-$200 million a year.

And the company isn’t done. While there is no official word of how many TM5s are in the field today, one can assume that the company has sold anywhere between one and two million since the end of last year when they last updated their numbers. At the end of 2016, the company revealed that a total of 3 million TM5s are sitting in customers homes, and I would guess that number now sites between 4 and 5 million. Assuming a total of 5 million Thermomix TM5s, the company would only be at 20% adoption for its online recipe platform.

Those numbers could also grow as the company expands its reach into the potentially lucrative US Market. The Thermomix made it to the US this year, but it still remains to be seen if the company’s traditional direct sales model will translate to the US. As a hedge, the company has been trialing other sales channels such as Williams-Sonoma.

The company envisions the Thermomix Cookidoo platform as a shopping and recipe platform as well. You can see an illustration of this in the video below where a family utilizes the Cookidoo recipe service with a Thermomix app to manage their food shopping.

Thermomix TM5 and Cookidoo Ecosystem

Will Amazon Key Open the Door to In-Home Delivery?

“I don’t think so.” That was my mother this morning upon reading that Amazon officially launched Key, its in-home delivery service. With Key, Amazon Prime members can have packages delivered directly inside their homes, rather than having boxes left out in the open on a porch or stoop.

For smart-kitchen fans, this means groceries or, one presumes, same-day meal-kit delivery, can be left in the safety inside your house. This sidesteps the issue of leaving food out in direct sunlight or other inclement weather, as well as preventing dastardly thieves who might abscond with unattended packages left outside.

That is, if you are comfortable letting complete strangers into your house while you are away.

Amazon Key - October 2017

We knew this was coming, and Amazon seems well aware of the immediate trust issues in-home delivery brings up and has gone to great lengths to put nervous nellies at ease.

First, Amazon Key only works with Amazon Key-smart locks ($199 – $249) and Amazon Key Cloud Cameras ($149 each). Amazon sends an alert to your phone the morning of delivery with a specific time window for your package’s arrival. Amazon tells you when the delivery van arrives so you can start watching the livestream of the person entering your house to monitor their activity. (You can watch a recording if you miss the delivery.)

Drivers are instructed to knock first, just to make sure they don’t accidentally walk in on someone. If no one answers, they request the door to unlock with their handheld scanner. Amazon verifies the package and delivery address and unlocks the door. No codes are given to the driver. The door is opened just enough to slide the package inside and the delivery person asks Amazon to relock the door. After which, you receive another notification that the package has been delivered.

If you live in an apartment building or have a front gate, it’s a little more complicated, but Amazon says you can securely share any necessary main entrance code via the Amazon Key app.

Amazon is hoping you’ll use this wholistic approach to remote entry to go beyond package delivery and bring other Amazon-related services directly into your home. According to the Key site, “In the coming months, Amazon Key will provide customers with a convenient way to provide unattended access to professional service providers. This includes services from home cleaning experts Merry Maids and pet sitters and dog walkers from Rover.com, as well as over 1,200 services from Amazon Home Services.”

Amazon’s announcement follows Wal-Mart’s announced partnership with August smart locks and Deliv to offer fridge-to-fridge delivery. And while both Amazon and Wal-Mart are definitely cognizant of the security concerns, they both sense a bigger opportunity. As we wrote previously:

According to a survey conducted by NextMarket Insights on behalf of Comcast/August Home in early 2016, about 30% of online consumers said they would give temporary access to a service professional such as a house cleaner or delivery person. While that’s well below a majority, it’s probably enough to encourage Amazon and Walmart that there’s a market for this.

Amazon Key is starting off is small, with availability in only 37 cities across the U.S..

Which brings me back to my mom. I don’t imagine people her age will plunge into letting complete strangers into their home, but that reluctance seems like it might fade with successive generations (plus, she’s retired and home more often). Personally, I’m skeptical, but after reading all of the measures Amazon has put in place, I might be willing to try it. I imagine younger generations for whom riding in a stranger’s car or staying at their house will be even more open to the idea.

Here Are Three Ingredients For Building Services In The Connected Kitchen

Sure, the kitchen of the future will be driven by data and standards, but one crucial element not to be overlooked among all the gadgets and tech is the human touch.

This is one of the insights you can glean from watching the video for the “Building Services for the Connected Kitchen” panel at our recent Smart Kitchen Summit. Brita Rosenheim of The Mixing Bowl moderated this fascinating and forward looking discussion with Lisa Fetterman, CEO, Nomiku; Mike Wallace, CEO, Perfect Company; and Tony Ciepiel, COO, Vitamix.

They cover a wide range of topics, but here are three big takeaways:

Data Brings Out Needed Connections
Connected devices are able to record a lot of data about what, when and how often you eat or drink. This data doesn’t just help the device maker better understand you — but it can help companies throughout the consumption process better serve you.

Perfect’s platform fills in a huge knowledge gap for spirit makers who currently have no idea how their product is used after the sale. And Nomiku’s connected sous vide system, they can identify what types of food you prefer and fulfill accordingly.

Standards are Needed
Right now every connected device has its own app. This can be confusing and overly complicated for the consumer. This obviously is not the best solution for creating a vast interconnected kitchen where your fridge knows when you get home and automatically starts up your sous vide.

The solution, however, isn’t so cut and dry. It’s doubtful that any one company will cede control of a platform to another, but as Fetterman points out, things are moving so quickly that no one has time to invent an independent unifying language. Consumers have shown they can live with a multi-app approach (see: navigation on your phone), but will it be a stalemate rather than superiority that determines the outcome?

The Human Touch is Needed
As 80s rocker Rick Springfield once sang — we all need the human touch. And this is true for the connected kitchen as every speaker on the panel talked about the role of personal interaction leading to adoption. Vitamix does 48,000 demonstrations a year to show people how to use its product. Perfect’s cocktail maker is by nature social and almost becomes like a modern day, boozier Tupperware party.

This is just some of what was touched on in the panel. Watch the full video right here and leave a comment with your thoughts on the best path for building connected services in the kitchen.

PicoBrew’s Third Generation Brewing Appliance On Way To Macy’s This November

PicoBrew, which launched a Kickstarter campaign for its third generation beer brewing appliance this last April, announced this week that it has shipped the Pico C to all US backers and will begin general availability of the $549 brewing appliance both at retail and online.

The company will make the Pico C available at a variety of brick and mortar retailers on November 1st, including Williams-Sonoma, Macy’s, Best Buy and Bed Bath & Beyond. The Pico C will also be available on Amazon.

The new additions round out a retail portfolio that already included a big-box retailer (Best Buy) and a high-end kitchen retailer (Williams-Sonoma). With Macy’s, the company will now sell its beer brewing appliance at arguably the country’s most prominent department store retailer, while Bed Bath and Beyond allows the startup to reach budget conscious consumers who normally avoid tony retailer Williams-Sonoma.

PicoBrew also updated us this week on the release timeline for all the extras launched in conjunction with the Pico C.  The PicoFerm connected fermentation tracker rolls out next month, while the PicoStill, a whiskey-maker essential oils accessory for the Pico, will be available this January. The company’s first mobile app, which will allow brewers to track the progress of their fermenting beer, will be available for download this Friday.

If there’s a startup in the connected kitchen space who’s shown itself to be a model of consistency, it’s PicoBrew. For the last couple years, they’ve launched new appliances on Kickstarter, then turned around and delivered the products reliably to backers before eventually moving the product to general availability within six months or so. The Pico C,  essentially a cost-reduced version of the original Pico (now called the Pico Pro), followed the same template.

The company has hinted it plans to follow the same template in the future, so I would expect an even lower priced ($400 retail or so) beer brewing appliance to launch on Kickstarter next year.

Sears Cuts Ties With Whirlpool In Another Effort To Survive

For almost a century, Sears carried staple appliance brands from Whirlpool including Maytag, JennAir and KitchenAid. But amidst the retailer’s struggles to remain profitable in a tough environment, Sears has announced it is cutting ties to Whirlpool and will no longer carry the brand’s appliances.

It appears that the retailer’s decision stemmed from Whirlpool’s attempt to raise margins in an increasingly competitive appliance market environment. In a statement, Sears commented, “Whirlpool has sought to use its dominant position in the marketplace to make demands that would have prohibited us from offering Whirlpool products to our members at a reasonable price.”

The decision is effective immediately and Sears reported that it would sell off the rest of its Whirlpool inventory while immediately pulling subsidiary brands including Maytag and KitchenAid from store floors. Sears will continue to sell its Kenmore brand and other popular appliance brands including GE, Bosch, Samsung and Electrolux.

These recent changes may not be enough to keep Sears from going under and the announcement comes in the last quarter of a rocky year for Sears; the company has been in the process of closing less profitable stores, including all those in Canada and has attempted to reinvigorate its e-commerce efforts through a partnership with Amazon. In a “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” mentality, Sears signed a deal with the Seattle based e-commerce giant to sell Kenmore appliances on Amazon.

Sears business dealings with Whirlpool aren’t entirely over though, the company still manufactures the Sears Kenmore line of appliances and will continue to do so according to Sears. Kenmore is attempting to remain competitive in the connected appliance space, launching a new suite of smart kitchen appliances with Amazon Alexa compatibility at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit.

Whirlpool, on the other hand, has spent the past several years dipping their toes into the smart kitchen space, first partnering with food platform startup Innit, then announcing voice connectivity inside their devices and after dissolving the Innit partnership, buying Yummly, one of the internet’s biggest food & recipe sites.

A Few Early Observations (And Pics) From The Smart Kitchen Summit

The Smart Kitchen Summit was last week and, just like many of you that attended, I had a blast. As it turns out, talking to the leading thinkers, innovators and executives across the food and cooking ecosystem about the future is not only inspiring, but it’s also really really fun.

When I decided to create SKS back in 2015, I suspected there might be a few others like me enthusiastic to get together and talk about how technology and innovation are helping us to rethink old approaches in the world of food and cooking.

I was right about that. What was I wrong about? I had no idea how many.

Since the first SKS, we’ve more than doubled the size of the event, expanded to two full days, and brought on amazing partners like Campbell Soup Company to highlight the innovation happening in the space. Leaders from global brands like Google, Whirlpool, Amazon, Sears and Vitamix spoke on stage at SKS about their visions for the future of food and cooking, while founders of leading startups like PicoBrew, June and Perfect Company told us about how they are reinventing old categories and creating entirely new ones.

I am really thankful to all who came to Seattle and shared their time with us.  I learned so much and will be writing about the things I’ve learned (and will learn; I will be watching the videos of the session in coming weeks and sharing them with you), but for now I want to share some pics taken by a few of us, including those captured by my friend Scott Payton, a wonderful event photographer who was on hand both days.

We will be share lots more pics in coming days via posts and over on our Facebook page, so you’ll want to check back here and there often.

Enjoy:

The stage. Image: Ashley Daigneault

The day before SKS, Ashley Daigneault, Tiffany McClurg, and a few other SKS team members were down at Benaroya Hall working to set up while I was working off-site on last-minute preparations for talks and for the speaker dinner. We had decided to get one of those fancy stage backdrops since we thought it would not only look cool but also because thought it would create a better backdrop for videos and pictures. Ashley texted me the picture above just after the sign company had set it up on stage.

View from the stage before the event. Image: Michael Wolf

This is the view from the stage at 8 AM, about half an hour before we opened the doors to the room.

SKS morning during Evan Dash presentation. Image: Scott Payton

This is a great shot of the audience during the first session where Evan Dash talked about how to innovate in the kitchen and cooking.

Surj Patel talks with Chris Young of ChefSteps. Image: Scott Payton

One thing I wanted to do this year was capture some of what happens backstage. I love this photo of Surj Patel, who has taught me so much about the events business.  Here he’s talking to Chris Young, the CEO of ChefSteps. That’s Chris Albrecht, our Master of Ceremonies for the day, in the reflection.

The sponsor area on the promenade at Benaroya Hall. Image: Scott Payton

One of the things I love about Benaroya Hall is the view from the grand lobby out onto the city. This shot is a view from up on the promenade level looking towards the sponsor area.

Institute for the Future’s Rebecca Chesney wows the audience at SKS. Image: Scott Payton

Here is Rebecca Chesney giving a talk about creating a kitchen of actions.  I met Rebecca when I was visiting Google earlier this year and knew her perspective would be great for SKS. I was right. Her talk was excellent; deeply researched and unique. (Yes, we’ll have videos of the talks available soon).

Backstage at SKS. I’m talking to Brett Dibkey of Whirlpool and Brian Witlin of Yummly. Image: Scott Payton

Another backstage shot. I usually spend time talking to my panelists before we go out on stage, going over topics, formats, etc. Here I am talking to Brett Dibkey, head of brands at Whirlpool and Brian Witlin, CEO of Yummly. Ashley Daigneault is talking to Surj Patel in the background. I think Brian Witlin might be my long-lost brother.

Amanda Gold interviews Tyler Florence. Image: Scott Payton

The room is packed for Tyler Florence and Amanda Gold. They didn’t disappoint.

Andrew Deitz of Verdical pitches his company. Image: Scott Payton

Each year we try to make the Startup Showcase better. Last year we mixed the showcase part with happy hour, which was a hit. This year we decided to add a pitch session, which allowed the founders to articulate their company’s vision. This is Andrew Deitz, CEO of Verdical, giving a three-minute pitch for his company.

The judges listen to startup pitches. Image: Scott Payton

We had a rock star lineup of judges this year. This is a great shot of them sitting in the front row listening to the pitches. From closest to farthest: Evan Dash (StoreBound), Lisa McManus (America’s Test Kitchen), Brian Frank (FTW Ventures), Maura Judkis (Washington Post), Shakeel Farooque (Campbell Soup Company).

Richard Gunther and I enjoying a beer served up by HOPii. Image: Scott Payton

After the startups pitched from the main stage, we all went to happy hour where the startups then showcased their products.  After a long day, I made a beeline for HOPii’s table, where I knew I could get a beer from their beer brewing appliance. Richard Gunther of the Home: On podcast also partook.

Those are just a few shots from the first day. I and others from the team at the Spoon and SKS will be sharing more in coming days and weeks.

Again, I can’t thank those who came and spent time with us enough. We are so excited to be building this community with you. Keep in touch, send us your ideas for how to improve, and we look forward to bringing SKS back next year (including to Europe).