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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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SJW Robotics Raises $2M as It Eyes Launch of Autonomous Robotic Restaurants This Spring

Robotics, AI & Data

SJW Robotics, a maker of autonomous robotic restaurants, has raised a $2 million seed funding round, according to an announcement sent to The Spoon. The Canadian startup’s newest round includes investments from Alley Robotic Ventures and celebrity chef Tom Colicchio.

Company CEO and cofounder Nipun Sharma told The Spoon the new investment would be used to fund the rollout of the company’s robotic kitchen system with partner Compass Canada. The two announced their partnership last summer, with Compass disclosing that they had plans to pilot three RJW robotic restaurant kitchens in select markets. According to Sharma, the first Compass autonomous kitchen pilot will launch at a hospital in the Toronto market under Compass’s Bok Choy brand this spring.

Sharma told The Spoon that the Compass deal is indicative of the company’s business model: SJW provides the robotics and AI technology via a robotics-as-a-service mode, and brand partners focus on culinary, menu development, and marketing.

During a walkthrough of the RoWok system last year, we watched as the system dropped pre-cut ingredients such as chicken cubes, green onions, and julienne carrots from segmented storage siloes in customized proportions onto a perforated steel tray. From there, the tray shuttled through a steam tunnel via a conveyor belt (“like a car in a carwash”), and the warmed food was dropped into an oiled wok for cooking. Finally, the cooked food was dropped into a bowl where sauces were added, and the meal was prepped for serving.

The new self-contained includes refrigerated storage for up to 350 meals, including all proteins, vegetables, sauces, and starches, and can make up to 60 meals per hour. According to Sharma, the units are ‘real estate agnostic’ and can be set up anywhere with proper space and utility connections.

You can watch Sharma give a tour of SJW’s RoWok system below.

A Look at the RoWok Robotic Restaurant From SJW Robotics

Watch LG’s Server Robot Bring Dishes to Customers at Popular Korean Restaurant in Georgia

Robotics, AI & Data

One year ago, LG announced the debut of its new hospitality server robot, and now the Korean tech giant’s CLOi Servebot is showing up at restaurants like the Airang K in Johns Creek, Georgia. Since June 2022, four “LG CLOi ServeBot” robotic assistants from LG have been assisting wait staff by accompanying them to guests’ tables while carrying multiple dishes at once.

Initially, Arirang K had deployed two of the Servebots to help their employees but soon upgraded to four. “Everybody liked the first two so much that we upgraded to four LG ServeBots to maximize service levels and guarantee that every customer gets to see the robots in action,” said Miok Kim, general manager of Arirang K.

The LG Servebot has 11 hours of operating time and three shelves that hold up to 22 pounds. They also feature sensors and cameras that enable autonomous driving, obstacle avoidance, and recognition.

“As the CLOi Servebot is cruising down the path to deliver food to a table, if a chair is pulled out a little bit too far, It will notice the surroundings in the settings and direct to a different route,” said Brittany Marubio of LG.

If you haven’t seen a server bot in one of your favorite restaurants, chances are you will soon as the server-bot market pioneered by Bear Robotics is becoming more crowded. In addition to LG and Bear, solutions from Pudu Robotics and Keenon Robotics are also beginning to be deployed. Restaurants are using these robots to not only deal with understaffing but to take the burden off of employees and make their jobs safer.

“The main dishes that come on in our restaurant are mostly hot, and it can be dangerous,” said Taylor Robinson, a server at Arirang K. “So the LG Servebots are able to help us by bringing those dishes up for us and all we have to do is hand it right off at the table.”

You can see the LG Servebot in action in the video below:

LG ServeBot at Arirang K Restaurant

Wonder Pulls a Zume, Drops Futuristic Food Trucks as it Pivots to Lower Cost Operating Model

Delivery & Commerce

According to a report this week in the Wall Street Journal, food delivery startup Wonder is laying off employees and will begin to phase out its signature food delivery trucks in the hopes of creating a lower-cost operating model.

This is a massive shift for a company that became the talk of the food delivery business for a high-touch approach built around its delivery vehicles. Wonder not only brought the food to a customer’s home, but it cooked it curbside in vans that had become ubiquitous over the past year and a half in the North Jersey market in which it operates.

According to the Journal, the company will pivot to a more conventional ghost kitchen model, operating ten kitchens around New Jersey and New York. In addition to delivery, Wonder will offer in-location dining and pickup at locations.

Tightening venture capital markets have cast a pall over the startup world over the past 12 months, and today’s news suggests that even superstar fundraisers like Wonder founder Marc Lore aren’t immune to investors’ darkening moods. It had always been an open question whether Lore could continue to raise enough money for an operating model that looked incredibly expensive from the outside, and now it looks like we have our answer.

Lore told the Journal he believed the current model would require another $1 billion in investment over the next two years to expand its mobile truck fleet. Lore now hopes to raise $350 million over the same time period.

In some ways, Wonder’s pivot is reminiscent of Zume, another high-flying startup that used custom-made delivery trucks and raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Zume, which made pizzas using robotic technology in central locations, used its customized delivery trucks with built-in pizza ovens to cook food on the way to customers. By early 2020, the company had run into financial problems and started pivoting away from its food trucks. It wasn’t long before Zume gave up on pizzas altogether, and today the company is a compostable food packaging company.

Now, the question for Wonder going forward is whether it will be able to maintain its momentum with customers in its current markets without the part of its business that most sets it apart from traditional delivery. Wonder has been extremely popular in the market it operates in, in large part due to the high quality and white-glove service enabled by its trucks.

Without that, will Wonder become just another – albeit very expensive – ghost kitchen startup? Only time will tell.

Haura Unveils a Modular Food Factory for the Kitchen at CES 2023

Next-Gen Cooking

Nestled in the basement of the Venetian Expo center last week at CES, a startup from Italy showed off a machine that its inventor hopes will empower home cooks to do pretty much anything their heart desires: making home-made pasta noodles, roasting coffee beans, making cheese, brewing beer and lots more. In short, the machine, called the Haura, is intended to be a modular food factory in a box.

The Haura comes with three major features that unlock all of that flexibility: a motor to power different add-on modules (lasagna-maker, blender, cocktail shaker, sauce and frosting shippers, etc.), an induction heating surface for cooking, and a built-in extruder to enable home cooks to make food that usually requires pro-style equipment.

“The extruder means that you can automate a lot of processes that you only industrial food-making machines,” Haura spokesperson Matteo Pressacco told the Spoon. “For example, if you need to make pasta, candies, snack bars, are confectionery packed, baby’s food, everything can be automated.”

A Look at the Haura Food Factory at CES 2023

The company is working on a number of different modules, ranging from a lasagna maker to a beer brewer, that can be plugged into the appliance’s motor or extruder. This modularity gives the box its flexibility and sets it apart from other all-in-one cooking appliances.

The machine will have its own 10″ touch screen that shows the progress of any food-making project, including information such as temperature and humidity. The Haura will have what the company calls the F-OS, short for Food Operating System, that will enable the operation of the appliance. Different cooking instruction sets, called F-Apps, will come with pre-set processes for operating the machine and allow the user to cook a variety of foods through repeatable, step-by-step processes.

The inventor of the Haura is Angelo Pressacco, a mechanical and electrical engineer, who worked with chef Dario Zuliani on the conceptualization of the Haura.

The patented machine is still in the design phase, and it’s not clear at this point when it will be shipped to consumers. Let’s hope they can pull it off, because if Pressacco and his team can bring their idea to market, they may just create an entirely new category of home food-making appliance.

Brava Debuts the Brava Glass at CES 2023

Connected Kitchen

Brava, a maker of smart oven technology, unveiled the Brava Glass smart oven this week at CES. The new model is the first update since the company debuted its eponymous in 2018.

The Brava Glass fixes what, for many, is the biggest shortcoming of the original Brava: not being able to see inside the cooking cavity. Ok, technically you could peek inside, but only by using the camera that resides inside the cooking chamber of the original Brava. But with the new Brava Glass, no cameras are needed (thought it does have one) as you look inside the Brava through a pane on the front door.

According to Brava spokesperson Steven Barush, the company had always intended to put a see-through glass on the door of the Brava, but didn’t want to rush it. That makes sense, especially considering that Brava’s cooking technology uses high-intensity light. To make looking inside the Brava with the naked eye without getting sun-blinded possible, the Brava Glass has a 97% tint says Barush.

As you can see below, even with a significant tint, the internal cooking light brights things up enough to get a good view of the inside of the oven.

A Look at the Brava Glass at CES 2023

The new Brava Glass with retail for $1,995 (compared with $1,295 for the original Brava) and comes with accessories like a cast iron dish, a muffin tin, a bread pan and more. The company expects the Brava Glass to shipping in early April.

Fridge Cam Maker Smarter Launches New Models at CES, Announces Acquisition of Chefling

Connected Kitchen

Smarter is off to a busy 2023. At CES in Las Vegas today, the fridge cam and kitchen tech startup announced a new lineup of fridge cams. And, if that wasn’t enough, the company also announced they have acquired smart kitchen software maker Chefling.

The new lineup of fridge cams includes an update to the company’s original model. The FridgeCam2 has an extended 3-month battery life, an upgraded processor, and easier one-click set-up via the device’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. In addition to new FridgeCam, the company also introduced the FoodCam Mini, a small form-factor model that can be placed in the fridge or the pantry.

Smarter is also debuting the FridgeCam Pro this week, a model targeted at appliance manufacturers who want to retrofit a fridge cam into their refrigerator models without significant redesign. According to Smarter, the Pro model, which is powered by a USB-C connection, can be added to a fridge without having to make expensive modifications to an OEM’s pre-existing hardware.

Above: Smarter Image Recognition Technology

In addition to new hardware, the company announced it had acquired Chefling, a startup whose software helps home cooks manage food inventory, create shopping lists and plan meals. Smarter plans to pair Chefling’s food inventory database with its food image recognition capabilities to create what it says is the most advanced food inventory management system available.

Chefling, which got early traction through a partnership and investment from Bosch, has been pretty quiet for the last year and a half. By putting its software into the hands of Smarter, it gives its technology new life through the newly combined companies’ fuller suite of software targeted at the difficult task of consumer inventory management.

“The software offered by Chefling is the missing piece of the puzzle in terms of providing a full end to end service,” Chrisian Lane, CEO of Smarter, said in a release sent to The Spoon. “Taking the hard work out of stock keeping, meal planning and deciding what you need to buy next. We have automated the entire planning and cooking experience, making it the ideal assistant for the kitchen”.

Smarter also announced a new inventory management software tool it calls KitchenSync. The tool, paired with Smarter’s computer vision, can determine whether food is in stock or not. The software can factor in other sensor data (such as a weight sensor) and determine whether an item needs to be replenished. The software can also integrate with a customer’s online grocery service and can match food inventory to purchases.

If you want to check out Smarter’s new FridgeCam lineup, they’ll be at Showstoppers at CES.

Smarter Managing Director Isabella Lane will be on stage tomorrow at the CES Food Tech Conference on the future of cooking session.

Yo-Kai To Debut Desktop Ramen Robot For Space-Constrained Retail Formats at CES 2023

Robotics, AI & Data

Yo-Kai Express, a startup that makes autonomous ramen robots, will debut its latest model at CES, a desktop ramen-making machine targeted at small-format retailers such as gas stations and co-working spaces.

The new machine, called the YKE Desktop, is a semi-automatic cooking machine that makes a bowl of ramen in 90 seconds. The machine is paired with an RFID-enabled freezer that holds up to 24 bowls of ramen.

“We are pleased to debut our new product : Yo-Kai Desktop, the new terminal with a smaller form factor, which can be installed anywhere – remote office, gas station, convenience stores, co-working space,” said Andy Lin, founder and CEO of Yo-Kai Express. “It’s a semi-automated machine that provides our customers more flexibility.”

In addition to showing off its newest model at CES, the company will demo a new app that enables customers to order ramen remotely. The app, which will be released to the public in the spring, allows customers to earn loyalty points, discounts, and rewards.

The news follows a busy fall for Yo-Kai, in which they expanded throughout Japan, raised additional funding, and partnered with the Japanese robotics giant Softbank to enable an integration with server robot Pepper.

For those interested in checking out the new Yo-Kai machine, they will be in the Food Tech Pavilion at CES at booth 53114.

Will AI Make For Better CPG Products? These Startups Think So

Robotics, AI & Data

While the overall food tech market has seen a contraction in funding in 2022 as venture investors become more cautious, one area of companies that seems to continue to raise interest is those that leverage ML and other forms of AI to power CPG decision-making, product development, and core ingredient development.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen a bevy of startups raise funding, announce new products and tout their platforms for AI-powered CPG. Here are just a few examples:

NotCo

This week, NotCo, a Jeff Bezos backed startup with roots in Chile, announced a $70M Series D on a $1.5 Billion valuation. The funding will be used to launch the startup’s B2B business where it will open access to its AI platform to other CPG brands to accelerate plant-based CPG product development. The B2B platform launch comes after the company announced a new joint venture with Kraft Heinz earlier this year under which they have already launched plant-based versions of Kraft’s cheese slices.

StarDay Foods

StarDay, a startup which bills itself as a ‘next-generation food conglomerate’, just launched its third CPG product, a gut-friendly seasoned rice product. The company’s ‘Starday Insights Machine’ uses  natural language processing, machine learning models, testing capabilities, and analytical insight tools to “identify and predict trends, derisk our investments, and speed up the product development process”. The company has raised $4 million in seed funding.

Verusen

Verusen’s approach to leveraging AI is to use it to help other CPGs create more resilient supply chains. The company claims it has created $30 million in “working capital optimization” for a global CPG brand (which it doesn’t name). Verusen says its platform “leverages artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, data harmonization, and decision support to help global brands control risk, attain supply chain resiliency, and improve economies for their operations.”

Fractal AI

Fractal has created a CPG and retail-focused AI platform called Asper AI, which the company claims “unifies demand planning, sales and distribution, inventory planning, and pricing and promotion.” Fractal says its ‘autonomous decisioning platform’ can help CPG and retail companies achieve “10%+ potential growth opportunities in financial performance and more than 50% in the automation of decision-making.”

SymphonyAI

SymphonyAI has what it calls a “end-to-end, integrated AI-powered merchandising, marketing, and supply chain solutions for retailers and CPG manufacturers” which it recently used to help German retail giant Metro GMBH to optimize its SKU mix and find retail shelf space efficiencies for its Romanian storefronts.

Shiru

Shiru is building a B2B business for CPG brands who want to create plant-based meat and dairy alternatives. The company’s Flourish platform utilizes machine learning to mine a proprietary database with the goal of developing plant-based functional ingredients.

The interest in utilizing new approaches for CPG product development, supply chain optimization and ingredient discovery comes at a time of upheaval for the broader industry. Supply chain worries, persistent inflation, global geopolitical instability, and rapidly changing consumer tastes have all made modeling the future a much more difficult task, adding pressure on CPG brands and their retailers to shorten product development and planning cycles.

While it’s worth asking how many of these startups are utilizing true “artificial intelligence” or simply capitalizing on the desire among brands to re-configure their development process, there’s no doubt that leveraging the rapidly maturing and powerful AI technology that has reached the commercialization stage will be a trend that only intensifies in 2023.

How ChatGPT Is Going to Make You a Better Cook

Robotics, AI & Data

You’ve probably heard of ChatGPT by now, the AI-powered chatbot wowing technologists, journalists, and a whole bunch of Twitter users with its ability to understand human language and give realistic human-like responses.

The New York Times called ChatGPT the “best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public” while others have speculated how the technology could change industries ranging from banking to healthcare.

Since ChatGPT has been used for everything from sending clients emails to writing poetry, I figured I’d play around with it to see how it could help me make a better cook.

The first thing I thought I’d do is see if the chatbot could help create a recipe with some interesting flavors. I asked it to make a bread recipe “using beer, chocolate and Rice Krispies” and, after a few seconds, a recipe complete with cooking instructions appeared on my screen:

Sounds good to me. I mean, who wouldn’t want a beer and chocolate bread recipe featuring Rice Krispies?

When I asked Google the same question, no recipes that featured beer, chocolate, and Rice Krispies in the ingredient list showed up. In fact, every time I asked ChatGPT for a recipe suggestion, the results were as good or better than the results from Google.

But where ChatGPT really shined is its ability to remember my previous questions and build upon those for very context-specific responses. Take, for instance, my query for a pasta recipe that featured red sauce and garlic. ChatGPT’s initial response was a recipe that looked good, but it was a recipe that could have easily been found with a Google search.

When I asked for a Keto-friendly version of the pasta recipe, ChatGPT considered the specific recipe and gave a pretty good answer about how to fit the specific dietary profile I wanted:

As you can see, ChatGPT makes the process of figuring out a meal something closer to a conversation with a chef or a culinary planner rather than the traditional process of piecing together search engine queries. In fact, I found I could build an entire meal plan using the chatbot, including things like wine pairings…

To side dishes…

And it’s not just flavor pairing and meal planning where ChatGPT shines. Because the chatbot has a wide breadth of understanding of pretty much everything, you can ask it for advice about how to use food in a variety of different situations, such as life events:

Or when someone you know may need a little pick-me-up:

Not every response is perfect, and some have noted (including ChatGPT’s creators) how the chatbot often gives answers that make no sense or appear wrong. But the hits seem much more frequent than the misses, and overall the technology looks like it can already give better responses than the traditional tools we use when looking for our next meal.

I’ll have more to say on this later, but my initial test has convinced me that an AI like ChatGPT could significantly change the way home cooks and the food companies that serve us approach meal-making. While ChatGPT doesn’t have an official API yet, it probably won’t be long before it does. Imagine a world where a foodie-focused chatbot incorporates meal planning with a shopping engine and delivery to help you instantly build a meal plan and have it deliver everything you need to your door. I’m sure Google and Amazon are thinking about it, as are creators of dedicated recipe or meal-planning apps.

So will ChatGPT replace humans or other experts who help us make great food? Probably not, at least right away.

As for what ChatGPT thinks about that question, I’ll let you read its answer:

Food Tech Weekend Podcast: Talking Food Robots With Clayton Wood

Robotics, AI & Data

Our guest this week on our weekly food tech news wrapup is Clayton Wood, the CEO of pizza robot startup Picnic. We talk about the latest food tech news and hear Clayton’s view on where things are going in the world of food robots.

Here are the stories we discuss on this week’s show:

We also put Clayton on the food robot hot seat, asking him:

  • How would you assess the food robot marketplace in 2022?
  • Will we see some consolidation in certain areas of food robotics in 2023?
  • Predictions for the 2023 food robot market.

You can listen to this week’s pod by clicking the player below, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy!

GE Appliances Debuts Voice-Controlled Smart Mixer That Detects Texture and Viscosity

Connected Kitchen

GE Appliances just dropped an interesting new appliance: a smart stand mixer with built-in scale, app control for guided recipes, and voice control through Alexa and Google Home.

The Profile Smart Mixer is, as far as I can tell, the first Wi-Fi controlled smart mixer on the market, which is quite a feat in itself, given the sheer number of connected appliances that have debuted over the past decade.

The mixer has many interesting features, including a scale and voice control, but its the device’s ‘auto-sense’ technology that intrigues me the most. The auto-sense feature monitors changes in texture and viscosity through motor torque feedback optimizes performance, and will automatically shut off the mixer when it determines the mixing is complete.

GE Profile Smart Mixer with Auto Sense

The mixer has an app and utilizes guided recipes, enabling users to follow the instructions around ingredients and send mix commands from the app itself. For someone who often cooks using YouTube videos or new recipes discovered online, I’d appreciate the ability to send commands to my mixer from a phone. Unfortunately, I often find a device’s app recipe libraries lacking, so hopefully the new mixer will eventually enable the import of recipes found online (something companies like Fresco, a GE Appliances partner, enable through their platform).

The new appliance has built-in Wi-Fi, using the company’s Profile Connect+ software platform to enable connectivity to the cloud and field-deliverable software updates. GE Appliances has been perhaps the most active in promoting its field upgrades. I expect they’ll do the same with their new smart mixer by delivering new features or seasonal capabilities.

GE Appliances’ new mixer is an interesting addition to the mixer market, one that KitchenAid and Cuisinart currently dominate. However, while GE Appliances has had products in the market, they’ve been priced much lower than the new smart mixer (which retails for thousand bucks), often below $200. It will be interesting to see if Whirlpool/KitchenAid respond to GE Appliance’s new entrant by bringing their own smart mixer to market.

Ottonomy Partners With Norwegian Post Office to Trial Sidewalk Robot Delivery

Delivery & Commerce, Robotics, AI & Data

Ottonomy.IO, a maker of autonomous (and swervy!) sidewalk delivery robots, has partnered with Posten Norge to trial its robot in Oslo. The partnership, which also includes Nordic autonomous vehicle integrator Holo, will test how autonomous robots can improve Norway’s post office intra-logistics in city centers. Posten Norge also plans to trial Ottobots for first-mile pick-ups, receiving and delivering goods for the digital marketplace AMOI from the Aker Brygge area in Oslo.

Posten Norge looks to be all-in on this trial, going so far as creating a special page for its cute little Ottobot. The page, which features a video of Ottonomy’s robot (which you can see below), talks about the goals for the trial:

The purpose of this project is simply to learn as much as possible. We want to learn how people interact with Ottobot, the maturity of the technology, and we want to explore whether Ottobot can help solve challenges in connection with picking up and delivering goods in the city. 

Among other things, the project will give us insight into how the citizens of Oslo experience a robot in the urban environment, how do people feel about interacting with a robot, and whether it creates unforeseen challenges in our city. In addition, we need to understand which obstacles are difficult for the robot to maneuver, whether it can manage driving in Nordic weather conditions and how reliable Ottobot is in operation. 

While there’s no doubt that some of the sidewalk robot startups have struggled over the past year as a darkening economic outlook has led to cutbacks among logistics and delivery companies, Ottonomy looks like it’s faring pretty well. The company recently raised money and is showing up in airports in the US and Europe, and now, with its new partnership with one of the largest post offices, Ottonomy may have cracked open a potentially lucrative (and deep-pocketed) customer category.