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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Next-Gen Cooking

Solar Cooking Startup GoSun Adds Water Filtration To The Product Lineup

GoSun, a company that makes everything but the kitchen sink when it comes to solar-powered kitchen gear, has added, well, a kitchen sink as part of a new solar water sanitation product called the GoSun Flow.

Announced last week, the GoSun Flow is a full solar or USB powered water sanitation system. Beyond the baseline product, which includes a pump, filter, water bank and solar panel, the Flow will have a number of upgrade options such as a sink and a shower that could make the Flow a complete away-from-home water station. The company will start taking orders in May for the Flow and prices for the baseline product will start at $139.

Adding water to the product mix makes sense for GoSun. The company was already providing cooking gear for campers and the off-the-grid crowd and had started to add other products to the lineup over the past year including reusable portable cutlery and portable chillers. With a solution for water, the company makes their solar kitchen pretty much self-sufficient and adds a bath (or at least a shower) to boot.

If there is a company well-positioned in the cooking space to take advantage of uncertain times, it’s GoSun. Just as people have started panic-buying 25 pound bags of flour and rice at Costco to hunker down for the long-haul, GoSun can help the neighborhood doomsday prepper actually cook their food while being fully off the grid.

The company seems to agree now is their time. In addition to launching new products like Flow, GoSun is equity crowdfunding its next round of capital through StartEngine. They’re already raised $637 thousand and is aiming for $1.07 million at a $14 million valuation. Last year the company sold $1.5 million in product, so that puts their valuation at a somewhat rich 9 times revenue, but like I said, a company like GoSun is one of the few companies in the space that could benefit from the uncertainty.

Could the COVID-19 Outbreak Save Meal Kits?

When I get anxious or stressed out, my natural response is to cook elaborate meals for myself. Following complex recipes soothes me.

But I understand that that is absolutely not the case for many folks out there. Nonetheless, in a time where we’re not supposed to be leaving the house, there’s only so much delivery you can order in — and so many meals of spaghetti you can make.

That’s where meal kits could come in handy. They’re delivered to your door (no venturing out to grocery stores!), contain ingredients for a balanced meal, and give folks who might not be super comfortable in the kitchen some training wheels to get them cooking. On top of that, most meal kit services are at least slightly cheaper than ordering delivery, especially when you factor in tip.

I reached out to a few meal kit companies to see how the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent social distancing is affecting them. And the news was uniformly positive! Unlike many food-related companies, meal kits are actually seeing a boost in sales.

Purple Carrot’s founder and CEO Andy Levitt told me that the company had seen a “sharp increase in demand for our plant-based meal kits since COVID-19 has been shifting consumer behavior.” A representative from HomeChef emailed me that the company was seeing an “unprecedented increase in orders” with “more people cooking at home.” Over email, Blue Apron’s CEO Linda Findley Kozlowski also noted that the company had seen “a sharp increase in consumer demand.” No one would disclose exact numbers.

All of the companies I contacted emphasized that their employees were following CDC guidelines to ensure food safety during sourcing and packing. One benefit of meal kits is that the ingredients are packed in a warehouse, which means there are also fewer people touching your food and less chance of contamination than in a supermarket.

As we’ve written about time and again on The Spoon, the meal kit industry has been struggling for quite a while. Will this recent boost in subscribers be enough to sustain meal kits? Levitt is optimistic; he anticipated that the demand would continue even after the COVID-19 pandemic dies down.

I’m perhaps less so. The basic problems for meal kits — managing disparate supply chains, encouraging customer stickiness, making recipes easy enough for anyone to cook, and competing against food delivery — will still be present in our post-coronavirus future.

True, maybe some folks who are trying out meal kits now will get hooked and decide to continue on that path. But overall, if meal kit companies want to survive I think they’ll have to continue to innovate to cater to shifting consumer needs by focusing on retail, enabling more customization, and creating easier, faster recipes.

But for now, meal kits are filling an important need for consumers who want to cook more at home, but aren’t sure how. It’s a small but noteworthy silver lining in the time of COVID-19.

Scott Heimendinger Leaves Modernist to Launch New Cooking Tech Startup: “We Haven’t Conquered Improving the Kitchen”

Longtime cooking technology entrepreneur Scott Heimendinger announced today he was leaving Modernist Cuisine to launch a new startup where he will develop kitchen technology.

Heimendinger made the announcement about leaving his employer of the last four years via tweet:

I decided to catch up with Heimendinger to discuss his plans post-Modernist Cuisine. While the founder of Sansaire and kitchen tech hired gun is keeping his plans under wraps for the near future, he did give me some hints about the general direction and also shared his thoughts on the need for innovation in the kitchen tech space.

Answers have been edited for brevity.

You’re starting something in kitchen tech. Is it hardware?

Yes.

Can talk about the idea or do you need to protect the IP first?

Like so many products, protecting IP is necessary to ward off competitors.  I will be really vague about what it is. I still need to invent my way through the idea. Once I do and the patents are filed and my attorney says it’s ok, I can’t wait to scream from the mountaintops about it.

Is it cooking equipment?

It’s in the kitchen. It’s something that you will use in the kitchen. A physical product that you can use in the kitchen that will improve your experience of cooking.

Is this an idea that came to you in the middle of the night or over years?

It’s a little of both. For better or worse, I get flashes of ideas over time. Most of them are silly or throw away. Every now and then there is an idea that sticks in my head. When I knew I was feeling the gravitational pull of wanting to go entrepreneurial again, I asked ‘What will be something I want to do and something that is feasible for me to do?’

You can rule out tons of stuff because it’s a cool idea, but it requires a ton of money. Or, it’s a cool idea or there’s no way to defend from competition. Eventually I ran out of reasons to rule out the idea.  It was a pretty deliberate process to convince myself this idea was worth taking a leap for.

Did you learn anything from Sansaire experience?

Sure hope so (laughs).  As you know, the end of my story in consumer sous vide was not the happiest story.  I walked away from Sansaire and the company shuttered. 

What Sansaire did do is help me understand why people are serial entrepreneurs. There are all these things you have to figure out.
It’s a big scary monster. It’s in the dark. But once you shine a flashlight on it and look it in the eye, you realize it’s hard but not scary.

The biggest thing I have now compared to when I started Sansaire is the confidence of having done it once and knowing what to expect.

Have you gotten funding?

No, and I hope I can bring this idea to life without outside funding. When I was at Sansaire, we did a Kickstarter and that’s how the business got going. But at some point, we tried to raise money because we were outgunned by bigger players with more money.

I had a very bad experience trying to raise money. It was emotionally taxing, hugely time consuming. And, frankly, if I get to choose, I’d rather focus my time on trying to make good products or make happy customers than do all the things you have to do to fundraise. 

Are you starting this company solo or with partners?

Solo. If I can get away with it, that is how I hope that it will continue to be, at least for a while until it requires more people. 

That is an intentional choice. I have a lot of OCD tendencies, tend to be a perfectionist and very tidy about things. When it’s just me, there’s no one to say “that’s enough”. I get to be the last word on perfection.

Anything you learned from your time at Modernist Cuisine?

When I left previously, there was a project I always wanted to bring to life which was in turn the content of the Modernist Cuisine books into a TV show. Basically Planet Earth for food. I was never able to do that the first time. I got a call when I left Sansaire,  saying hey, ‘Nathan is really interested in doing this. Do you want to come back and make a show?’

Sadly, it hasn’t worked out. For one reason or another we were never able to land it.  I hope someone else in my absence can do it. A TV show that really explains the science of how cooking works in a visual and scientific way is something the world needs, but it was time for me to move on.

So what have I learned? I’ve become a much better engineer. While I’ve been here, not only have I gotten to learn about cinematography. I’ve also become a much better electrical engineer and software engineer. I’ve become much better at a bunch of disciplines.

Did consulting for Anova on their smart oven contribute to getting your entrepreneurial juices flowing?

Yes it did. It reminded me how much I love working on problems where we put ourselves in the mind of the user. I love working with the team at Anova because we’re all focused on how do we make the best design decisions to create the best experience for someone using this product. That turns out to be something I didn’t know I was missing so much. 

There have been some struggles in kitchen hardware. Why are you optimistic?

Part of the reason I’m optimistic is circular logic. I am optimistic because I have to be. I wouldn’t decide to take the plunge into the space again if I weren’t optimistic.  I am making a bunch of assumptions and have to hope they work out.

The most substantive answer to your question is the smart kitchen industry has gone through a phase where being smart meant adding Wi-Fi and a mobile app. In some cases, that was really useful and delivered value to the customer. In other cases, it wasn’t. It was for the sake of doing it, or it was maybe to satisfy an investor.  That makes me sad.

We haven’t conquered improving the kitchen. It is not a solved problem. There are a thousand things that can be done better that could lead to a better experience cooking.

I also think there is a lot of opportunity to make things smart that is not just adding Wi-Fi or an app to it.  There is an opportunity to improve all sorts of things we are doing in the kitchen.

My favorite type of technology in the whole world is technology that is invisible. I have a Samsung Frame TV and when you turn it off, it doesn’t become a big black rectangle, but instead it shows art. It disappears and becomes art. I love that.

What are some things you think are exciting in terms of how cooking can change over the next couple of years in cooking innovation?

It seems like there is sustained excitement and enthusiasm about cooking. For the segment of the population that does cook at home, that seems like it is a lasting part of their identity and it makes me excited that someone wants to do something because they love the craft of it.

Is there any space in cooking that is particularly ripe for innovation?

Think some of my favorite surprises comes out of material science. Cooking is intrinsically linked to the materials we use. Look at how silicone has transformed what we are doing. At the International Housewares Association (IHA) there is this little corner of companies experimenting in materials and it makes me excited because it’s science fiction. 

Thanks for taking time today to talk about what’s next.

You’re welcome.

June Adds Multi-Item Combo Cook Programs

June released new cook programs for its smart oven over the weekend that include cooking two different items at the same time.

The new “combo” programs arrived on the June on February 1 and include automated cooking of salmon and asparagus, sausage and broccoli, broccoli and cauliflower, nuggets and french fries, and tenders and french fries.

Previously, automated cook programs were just for single items, so you could cook tenders or french fries, but not both at the same time. According to a promotional email from June, the salmon and asparagus program be done with both in 15 minutes.

I have a June, but haven’t had the chance to try out the new combo cook programs yet. I’m curious to see how it works given that June only has the six heating elements, and doesn’t have something like Markov’s directional microwaving tech to steer heat in a particular direction. Additionally, the on-screen instructions for salmon and asparagus doesn’t provide any specific guidelines like putting the fish in one part of the pan and the asparagus in another.

The move seems to be a play by June to be more like the Brava (recently acquired by Middleby), or even the Suvie, both of which feature the ability to cook more than one thing at the same time. The looping movie on the June homepage now features someone cooking salmon and asparagus at the same time, so the new functionality is definitely something the company is pushing. At $499, the June isn’t cheap, but it’s way less expensive than the Brava and the Suvie, each of which are around $1,000.

Now we’ll have to see if June’s combo cooking provides the right combination of features to help separate it from the rest of the smart oven pack.

Miele Shipping the Dialog, Their Oven With Solid State Cooking Tech, to 20 Countries

In 2017, Miele had attendees at Germany’s big appliance fair, IFA, raving with a demo of a new appliance called the Dialog.

The appliance, which uses solid state cooking technology instead of the more antiquated technology featured in microwave ovens, was an exciting development because it was the first time a high end consumer appliance brand had introduced a product with the cutting edge technology.

However, after 2017 we heard little about the Dialog. Sure, at IFA 2018 the German company talked up a meal delivery service through a partnership with another German company MChef, but, other than that, details of when the Dialog would be available were few and far between.

So imagine my surprise when Miele told me this month that the Dialog is now shipping in 20 countries. According to Miele spokeswoman Julie Cink, the Dialog is currently available in European countries such as “Germany (of course), Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy or Great Britain.”

Cink said that in the second quarter of this year, the Dialog will be available in additional European countries such as France, Norway and Greece.

Still no word on when the Dialog will be available in the US. Miele’s executive director and namesake Markus Miele told me via email the holdup is because the required regulatory approval for the Dialog’s RF technology would require significant adaptations to the product.

“The regulations concerning the use of the frequencies are very different and so we have to modify the appliance (a lot),” wrote Miele.

The price tag on the Dialog is high, but in line with what you’d expect for a premium brand like Miele’s biggest product launch in years: 7,990 Euros.

MChef Meal Service Available Across Germany

I was also interested to find out that the meal delivery service we wrote about in 2018 is also available across Germany.

From Miele’s website:

“Customers can order individual dishes or three-course menus for the discerning from MChef, which are then shipped on elegant porcelain plates together with a matching wine to addresses throughout Germany.”

The meal service offers up to 20 different dishes which, according to Miele, are delivered via a “patented transport crate which guarantees freshness; used crockery is returned to the empty crate which is picked up and returned.”

Bottom line, the availability of the Dialog is a big deal and an overall win for solid state cooking. Most appliance companies I’ve talked to are working on developing their own RF cooking appliances, but have yet to push them to market because of the high price tag of the technology. With the Dialog now available, I expect that will put some pressure on other premium brands to look to accelerate their own pushes towards solid state cooking.

Dye Another Day: Michroma Makes Sustainable Food Coloring through Fungi Fermentation

Be it Red 40 or Yellow 6, food dyes are hiding in a surprising number of food and bev products on your local grocery shelf. Sometimes these dyes are made from natural ingredients like beet juice, turmeric, or even bugs (which means they’re not vegan, and also kinda gross). But natural dyes aren’t as vibrant or heat-resistant as their artificial counterparts, which are typically made from petroleum (also gross).

Michroma, a new company currently participating in science accelerator IndieBio, is out to recast the food dye industry. The startup is developing a platform to create dyes through fermentation, specifically mushroom root fermentation. Michroma scientists use CRISPR to edit the genes in particular strains of fungi so that when they’re placed in a bioreactor they secrete vibrant, colorful dyes.

Ricky Cassini and Mauricio Braia founded the company a year ago in Argentina before moving to San Francisco for IndieBio. Cassini, who is the CEO, told me over the phone this week that Michroma has raised $250,000 from IndieBio and previously raised $200,000 in Argentina.

According to Cassini, Michroma’s fermentation process could usher in a more sustainable production method for food dyes. In addition to being free from stuff like petroleum and crushed-up bugs, Michroma’s dyes are incredibly scalable to produce since the funghi require very little light, space and energy. Cassini also told me that their fermented dyes are significantly more heat-resistant than plant-derived natural dyes.

Michroma is currently focused on developing red dye. The company can already make orange and yellow. Next up it’ll tackle blue, green and black food colorings.

For now, the startup is creating dyes at a lab scale and, according to Cassini, their products are already cost-competitive with plant- and insect-based dyes. Michroma will sell its dyes B2B to large food corporations (as well as cosmetic and pharma companies), but that won’t happen for a while yet. Cassini said that since their technology is new for food dye, they need to go through something called a “color additive petition” to have it recognized as safe to eat. That could take up to two years. By that time, Cassini said that the fermented dyes will cost around the same as those made with petroleum.

However, he’s hoping that it won’t take a full two years before they can start selling. If he’s right, maybe soon you’ll be able to scan the back of a bag of Dorito’s and see “fermented dye” listed instead of, you know, petroleum and bugs.

Video: Millo’s Wireless Power and Induction Heating Table Looks Pretty Hot

Millo, which is best known for its wireless upside down blender (and winner of the Startup Innovation Award at our Smart Kitchen Summit last year), showed off a new product category for the company at CES last week. It’s a kitchen table that sports wireless power for appliances as well as an induction heating surface.

The company posted a video on LinkedIn demoing how the table works:

Granted, this is a controlled demo, but it looks really cool. At first, it’s just a regular table, albeit a very sleek and modern one. Wave your hand over it and areas of the table light up to act as either a cooking surface or a wireless power generator. Run your finger over another set of controls to increase the heat or amount of power. In the demo they blend up and cook a crepe all on the same surface, no wires or plugs (though we wonder how many crepes the Millo person had to eat over the course of the week).

That Millo introduced this smart table at CES isn’t a surprise. The company had teased it in advance of the show. Millo didn’t offer up many details other than that it’s powered by Millo’s Magnetic Air Drive (MAD) technology.

While the Millo demo certainly looks cool, we’ll have to see how many appliance makers choose to adopt the technology. The Wireless Power Consortium has been working on wireless power in the kitchen for years. It’s behind the already adopted Qi mobile wireless power standard, has a ton of industry partners, and in 2019 announced its Ki wireless power standard for the kitchen.

Still. It’s nice to see a scrappy blender startup aim big and try to, uhh, mix things up.

The Complete CES 2020 Kitchen Tech Report

At this year’s big tech show in Vegas, there was no shortage of food tech. Everything from Impossible Pork to robot cooking assistants were on display, and so after spending five days in the desert checking out the latest and greatest, here’s my wrap-up of everything I saw in kitchen tech at the show:

Lots of Smart Fridges

It may be hard to believe in 2020, but Internet connected fridges have been showing up at CES for two decades. Of course, with powerful machine vision and food inventory tracking systems, today’s smart fridges are a lot more useful than these attempts from yesteryear even if they’ve yet to be widely adopted.

Some of the companies showing off smart fridge tech at this year’s CES included LG, Samsung, Bosch and GE. Bosch showed off a two-camera smart fridge powered by Chefling, a partnership that shouldn’t be all that surprising given BSH Appliances’ investment in the smart kitchen software startup.

LG’s latest smart fridge, which includes the popular Instaview transparent front door feature, now reorders food when inventory gets low. Samsung’s latest smart fridges use Whisk technology (a company they acquired last year) to suggest recipes based off of your in-fridge inventory. Smarter was also in Vegas at FoodTech Live showing off their retrofit fridge cam.

Home Grow Systems Get a Look

For the first time at CES, big appliance brands showed interest in allowing home grow systems to take root in the kitchen. Both Samsung’s BeSpoke grow system and the LG’s system were evolved proof of concepts that utilized sensors and allowed the home gardener to monitor the status of their plants within the form factor of a standup fridge.

GE’s Home Grown took the home farm out of the fridge and made the entire kitchen a multilayered food grow system. You can watch a video of a booth demo of the concept below:

CES 2020: A Tour of 'Home Grown', the GE Appliances Garden Kitchen Concept

All of the grow systems on display by big appliance brands were more proof of concepts than shipping products. I’ll be interested to see if any of them roll out these products in the next year. Of all the systems, the Samsung Bespoke home grow systems seemed to be the closest to a market-ready product.

Intelligent And Adaptive Surfaces

One of the big trends sweeping food tech is personalization, so why not apply the principle of personalization to our physical space as well? GE did just that with a concept called Shift, an adaptable kitchen that, well, shifts to adapt to each person’s specific requirements. The idea isn’t new. The first winner of the Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase, a German startup called Tielsa (now KimoCon), makes an app-controlled, adjustable kitchen platform that adjusts the height of the surface space to the specific user.

The Wireless Power Consortium had a full kitchen built out at CES 2020, showing off how their Ki kitchen standard using induction heating and wireless charging worked. Speaking of induction, one of the most innovative entries in intelligent surfaces at CES 2020 was from design firm GHSP, who showed off technology for a video-enabled induction cooktop. I know Americans are in love with their fire cooking, but hopefully new ideas like this will generate interest in what is clearly a superior (and flexible) technology in induction. You can check out a quick video of GHSP’s concept below:

Drink Tech Was EVERYWHERE

Drinks have always been a little easier to serve up in the future kitchen than cooking technology, and this year was no different as we saw well over a dozen next-gen beer, booze, coffee and tea machines sprinkled around the show floor.

On the booze front, CES 2020 had offerings from Drinkworks and Bartesian, while on the beerbot side, we saw offerings from PicoBrew, BEERMKR, MiniBrew and INTHEKEG to name a few. Noticeably absent was LG’s HomeBrew, the automated beer making appliance concept they debuted a year ago at CES 2019.

When it comes to coffee tech, longtime Spoon readers shouldn’t be surprised at my excitement over seeing a working production model of the Spinn coffee maker, a product I’ve been covering since I pre-ordered one way back in 2016 (we’ll have a video of the Spinn later this week). Terra Kaffe had a TK-01 on hand at FoodTech Live to demo the machine’s grind and brew (and milk frothing) capabilities, while MoJoe Brewing was showing off its portable coffee making system.

You can watch Chris’s interview with Spinn CEO Roderick de Rode and take a look inside the Spinn in the video below:

CES 2020: A Look at the Spinn Grind and Brew Coffee Maker

DNA & Microbiome Driven Diets

With DNA testing now fast and affordable, it’s not all that surprising to see offshoot concepts that capitalize on the information provided by a person’s profile. One of CES’s most buzzy startups in this space was DNANudge, a French company that is offering a wearable that tells a person whether that CPG product they picked up in the grocery store is a good fit for them. On the microbiome front, Sun Genomics was at FoodTech Live to show off its personalized microbiome kit.

Food Waste Reduction & Sustainability

One area that has traditionally lacked innovation is in the management of food waste in the home. While we still didn’t see a whole lot around food waste prevention tech outside of ever-more-advanced machine vision making its way into our fridges, there was a scrappy Canadian startup was showing off a cool new concept for home composting. The Sepura, made by British Columbia based Anvytech, automatically routes your solids into a food compost bin and disposes of your liquids.

You can see CNET’s video tour of the Sepura composter below:

Food Inventory Management

In addition to a number of food recognizing fridges, there are also a few other products on display showcasing how we could better manage our food. The Ovie smart food tracking system was on display at FoodTech Live, while a new entrant into the smart food tracking space, PantryOn, showed off a new dry pantry tracking system that will notify you and reorder an item when the product is low. While the PantryOn is a bit pricey with a retail price of $900, I am glad to see some companies think about innovating in the pantry.

Smart Schnozzes

Long-term, more intelligent sensors – and the software and AI that stitches together all the information gathered from these technologies – are going to make the kitchen truly sentient, which is why I always make sure to check out the new digital nose technologies every year while at CES.

While there was no shortage of electronic noses at CES this year, one digital schnoz that stuck out Cyrano de Bergerac-style was that from Stratuscent. The company’s technology, originally developed by NASA, can be used in a variety of verticals, but the company’s initial focus is food applications. Company CEO David Wu told me they are currently talking to appliance manufacturers about the possibility of including Stratuscent tech in their products.

Countertop Cooking

On the counterop cooking front, Anova was at CES showing off its Precision Oven, which is slated to appear sometime this year. The company was demoing the benefits of steam throughout the show, including showing off how steam can help make much better bread. You can watch a walkthrough of the Anova oven from food tech innovator Scott Heimendinger below, who has been helping Anova with the oven.

CES 2020: A Look at the Anova Precision Steam Oven

One product that seemed to get lots of buzz at CES was a multicooker called Julia from CookingPal. The device looks and acts in large part like a Thermomix, with the main difference being a separate touch screen interface in the form of a 8.9″ display. The touch screen has a camera on it that, according CookingPal, will recognize food and suggest recipes. From there, the Julia offers video-powered guided cooking, and afterwards has a self-clean mode.

Cooking Robots

Much like big appliance brands caught home garden fever, many also seemed bitten by the food robotics bug. Chris covered much of what was on display, most of which struck me as futuristic visions of how robotics could be implemented in a consumer or professional kitchen to make our lives easier. Not that futuristic or far off is a bad thing – what seemed crazy ten years ago often seems pedestrian in the present, and I expect at some point some of these products will be commercialized.

One that’s worth a look is the Samsung Bot Chef. While a bit reminiscent of the Moley robot arm kitchen robot, the Samsung bot’s fine motor movements and handling of kitchen utensils was impressive, suggesting that maybe a home robot chef isn’t as far off as I might think.

Samsung Bot Chef first look at CES 2020

Key Takeaways

When I was doing my research on what to expect at this year’s CES for foodtech, I was surprised at some of the big ideas that were debuting at the show.

While CES normally is where gee-whiz technology debuts, this year appliance and home brands seemed to thinking bigger with concepts that could potentially solve real-world problems like reduce food waste or help those with special needs.

There also seemed to be a big focus, generally, on the kitchen as a place to employ cutting edge technologies ranging from AI, robotics, virtual reality and more. Big appliance, it seems, has realized what we’ve long believed: the kitchen is the heart of the home.

Finally, it seems personalization is grabbing hold in a big way. Everything from personalized nutrition to physical cooking spaces to meal plans is on the menu, something that I think aligns well with the broader push towards more personalized worlds in this era of data abundance.

We’ll be continuing the conversation about personalization at Customize, our Food Personalization Summit, in NYC on Feb 27th. Join us!

Watch the ‘Seattle Food Geek’ Explain How the New Anova Steam Oven Works

If you’re a sous vide or precision cooking nerd, chances are you’ve heard of Scott Heimendinger.

Not only did Heimendinger basically invent the consumer sous vide circulator back in 2010 and eventually turn that invention into a company and a successful Kickstarter campaign, but the culinary experimenter known as the ‘Seattle Food Geek’ also spent much of the past decade working at Modernist Cuisine, ground zero for high end culinary experimentation.

So naturally when I heard last year Heimendinger was lending a hand to Anova to help bring their steam oven to market, I became excited to see whether the pairing of these two sous vide pioneers would finally create a steam oven that might break through in the consumer market.

With the Anova steam oven shipping this year we should find out soon enough. In the meantime, you can check out this video I filmed this past week at CES of Heimendinger walking us through a demo version of the oven Anova with product designer Harry Lees.

CES 2020: A Look at the Anova Precision Steam Oven

Do We Really Need Robots in Our Kitchens for Convenience?

If there is any universal idea in this world, it’s that we’re all looking to get back a little time. Countless startups are built around this notion and our meal time is one area that is especially ready for, pardon the phrase, “disruption” in the name of convenience.

But what shape should that convenience take? It’s a question that came to mind when looking at the coverage of this year’s CES. In particular, some of the announcements that came out around kitchen robots.

Before we get too far, we should get our terms straight. For the purposes of this post, I’m referring to automated systems that use articulating arms to perform a variety of tasks as robots. So while a dishwasher may be considered by some to be a robot, for this story, I’m considering it an appliance.

Back to the ‘bots.

I was unable to attend CES this year, and as such, I missed a bunch of robot stuff. LG showed off a mock restaurant with a robot cooking food and making pourover coffee. Samsung demoed a concept robot that was billed as an “extra set of hands” in the kitchen that could grab items, pour oil and even wield a knife. IRobot, maker of the Roomba vacuum announced it too was developing robotic arms to load dishes or carry food to the table. And of course, who could forget the robot that makes raclette melted cheese.

There are other companies out there looking to do much the same with robot arms. Sony has showed off its multitasking kitchen robot vision of the future before, and Moley has been touting this type of technology for years now.

Again, I wasn’t at CES, so I did not see these robots in action, but my inital response to robot arms swerving around a kitchen is why? Are these robotic ambitions the best way to gain greater convenience in the kitchen, or do they just make things more complicated?

Let’s acknowledge that there are definite use cases for robotic arms to help those with disabilities or who are otherwise movement impaired. The University of Washington is working on a voice-controlled robot that can feed people who need such assistance. And researching how robots interact with odd-shaped and often fragile objects like food can help the robotics industry overall. That’s one of the reasons Sony teamed up with Carnegie Mellon to develop food robots, and why Nvidia built a full kitchen to train its robots.

But in our homes, and especially smaller apartments with even smaller kitchens, robot arms seem like more of a menace than a help, taking up space and potentially getting in the way. A case of futuristic form over function.

If people really want convenience in the kitchen, why not push those automated systems into existing appliances, move them further up the stack, or refine existing technologies to produce better meal results? Here’s what I mean:

If you can’t, don’t want to, or don’t have time to cook, you don’t necessarily need another set of mechanical hands in the kitchen. There are plenty of countertop appliances that will take over much of the work for you. The June Oven identifies and cooks food (quite well) automatically. Thermomix and the just-announced Julia will weigh, chop, knead, and guide you through cooking a meal for you so all you have to do is throw in the ingredients. Suvie is a cooking device that keeps your food cold until you program it to cook four different things at once so a complete meal is ready for your family when you get home.

If that’s still too much work for you, just have your meal delivered. Mobile ghost kitchens like those from Zume and Ono Food are moving virtual restaurants into your neighborhood, so delivery times will get faster resulting in fresher food. Robots from Starship are feeding hungry students and staff on college campuses, and Refraction’s REV-1 is braving the snow to bring people their lunch in Michigan.

Or perhaps greater “cooking” convenience should come from new presentations of food we already interact with. Frozen food is no longer a limp Salisbury steak on a tin pan with some peas and dried out rice. Zoni Foods makes frozen plant-based dishes and Meal Hero delivers frozen foods that can be mixed and matched to make a meal. Genie freeze dries individual ingredients and assembles them into an all-in-one container to be reconstituted with steam. Development of new food preservation techniques and devices to bring them back to life can make meals quick to “cook” without the need for robots.

I should also note that the robots we see on display at CES are nowhere near what kitchen robots could eventually become. Sony’s vision is a sleek countertop that features cooking and mixing surfaces. With more research and development, who knows that today’s robotic arms will eventually become and whether they would become less intrusive.

This whole discussion also relates to a story I wrote yesterday about ditching the word “robot” altogether when talking about food automation. The term robots is misleading and makes people think of an autonomous bipedal butler ready to execute our every request.

Who knows if that robo-butler will ever arrive, but for the foreseeable future, I’d love to see companies spend less time on robot limbs for the average home, and more time on innovation in the devices and workflows already embedded in our lives.


CES 2020: Bosch and Chefling Introduce Inventory Management Tech to Their At-Home Smart Kitchen System

Appliance-maker Bosch, part of the BSH Home Appliances family, and AI-powered kitchen assistant Chefling will show off the latest features of their connected kitchen system at CES this week. At the center of those features is inventory management technology that uses in-refrigerator image recognition to identify items that are added or removed from the fridge and automatically update inventory lists, according to a press release from Chefling.

Chefling’s AI-powered kitchen assistant aids the consumer meal journey in the home kitchen by helping users manage food inventory, create shopping lists, and send digital recipes to their connected kitchen appliances. As part of this package, the Chefling app can recommend recipes based on what’s in a user’s connected fridge or pantry — a feature that could potentially save consumers lots of time and money since it helps them utilize what food is already at home rather than sending them to the store. To do that, however, the system needs the most up-to-date inventory of what’s actually in the fridge when it’s time to cook.

That’s where the new inventory management technology comes in. Previously, users had to scan a barcode or take a picture of their receipt in order for Chefling to keep track of what was in the fridge. With the new technology, users can simply put groceries into a Bosch-connected fridge (or take them out) and their at-home food inventory automatically updates within the Chefling app. The system can be used with any camera-equipped fridge that is equipped with BSH’s Home Connect system. New recipes based on the updated inventory will be available from the Chefling app.

As our awareness of the food waste problem increases and companies work to find solutions to fight the issue, technology that can help manage at-home food inventory is poised to become more commonplace in the average consumer’s kitchen. Connecting the fridge to systems that keep track of food already in the home is one way to do so, and Bosch/Chefling aren’t alone in highlighting new technology for this at CES. Both LG and Samsung are also showing off high-tech refrigerators that can recognize the food inside and suggest recipes based on those items. LG, in particular, uses a computer vision system to keep a real-time inventory of what’s inside the fridge.

BSH invested in Chefling in May of 2019, acquiring one third of the latter’s shares as part of the terms of the deal (other details were not disclosed). Since the deal, Chefling has increased both the number of users on its platform and the system’s ability to self learn, which is vital to keeping track of inventory in real time.

Bosch and Chefling will be showing off the system at the Bosch booth this week at CES.

CES 2020: Julia is an All-in-One, Self-Cleaning Guided Cooking Machine

CookingPal debuted Julia, its connected countertop cooking device, at CES yesterday — though to call it simply a cooking device is a bit of an understatement. Julia is akin to a Thermomix, with 10 culinary functions that include weigh, chop, knead, mix, cook and steam. The device also comes with its own guided cooking system.

The brains of Julia is its Smart Kitchen Hub, which is an accompanying tablet with an 8.9 inch screen that offers step-by-step guided video recipes, recipe adjustment based on the number of people eating or preferences, and a built-in camera and computer vision to recognize food and suggest recipes. If you’re missing something, you can order ingredients for delivery straight from the device.

The Smart Kitchen Hub has a touchscreen as well as a large jog dial to control it. If your hands are too greasy or gummy from food prep, the Hub will respond to voice control as well.

Here are the Julia’s full specs:

Features – Smart Kitchen Appliance

  • Size: 440 x 310 x 370 mm, with a stainless steel 3L bowl
  • Scale: accurate to 5g
  • Motor: 10 speeds up to of 5200 RPM
  • Heating unit: cooks up to 130 degrees Celsius/265 degrees Fahrenheit
  • Modes: Chop, mix, blend, knead, weigh, boil, emulsify, steam, grind, grate, whisk and cook
  • Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.2 and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n (2.4GHz, 5GHz)
  • Cleaning and Care: Julia’s bowl is dishwasher safe or can self-clean by adding dish soap and water to the bowl and setting it to mixing mode

The whole point of the Julia is that the device can do most of the work so novice and time-pressed cooks can make actual meals and not just zap food in a microwave. All a user has to do is add ingredients when Julia says to; the machine does the rest. Julia even cleans itself (well, kinda, see specs above).

As mentioned earlier, Julia is similar to the Thermomix, which is wildly popular outside of the U.S. Thermomix released its latest iteration, the TM6, which also features guided cooking and a forthcoming collaboration with Drop for appliance control and grocery ordering. And while the TM6 is $1,500, the Julia, which CookingPal says will ship in Q3 of this year, will retail for less than $1,000.

CookingPal also said in its press announcement that it will be announcing more hardware in the coming months that work with its Smart Hub Platform, including a smart oven and smart pressure cooker.

This post has been updated to more accurately reflect the relationship between Thermomix and Drop.