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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Sam Calisch Thinks Your Next Stove Should Have a Battery

Next-Gen Cooking

After earning a PhD from MIT, Sam Calisch spent much of the past decade advocating for electrification and shaping climate policy as a lobbyist. His efforts included helping start Rewiring America, an organization focused on electrifying homes, businesses, and communities, as well as co-writing Electrify, a book about electrification, and a series called Circuit Breakers on the same topic.

But his work as a lobbyist revealed gaps in the market. “We were at a point where we no longer need huge, science project-type ideas,” Sam said. “What we need now are products that help deploy the amazing technologies we already have—solar, wind, batteries—faster and cheaper.”

This realization led him to explore creating a company to address those gaps. In 2020, he co-founded Copper, a company with a mission to transform how we cook and power our homes, starting with its flagship product: an induction stove with a built-in battery.

According to Sam, Copper was born to address a key adoption barrier: the high cost of electrical upgrades required for induction stoves. “People were spending more on rewiring their homes than on the stove itself,” Sam explained in an interview with The Spoon. His solution—a battery-integrated induction stove—allows users to plug into existing outlets, eliminating the need for costly electrical work.

But the battery wasn’t just a workaround—Sam believes it makes for a superior stove. “When you put a battery in a stove, it makes it a much better stove,” he said. “It’s silent, thanks to DC induction, and has enough power to preheat the oven in just four or five minutes. You can cook faster and more precisely than ever before.”

After securing a Department of Energy grant and venture funding, Sam and his co-founders began developing an early prototype. The first versions, however, weren’t exactly polished. “The first one I built, I lovingly call the shopping cart,” Sam said. “It was a set of rolling wire shelves with the components strapped on. I was so proud of it, but when I sent pictures to some folks in the industry, they couldn’t quite see the vision.”

Since then, Copper has come a long way. The company now assembles its stoves in California and primarily sells them in New York and California, with plans to expand. “We’re scaling manufacturing and doing deliveries every day,” Sam said. “It’s inspiring to see people switch to our product and love cooking on it.”

Beyond cooking, Copper’s stoves could play a larger role in energy management. The built-in battery allows users to store renewable energy and use it during peak times, reducing reliance on the grid. “It’s a powerful tool,” Sam explained. “You can charge the battery with solar power during the day and cook with it at night. It’s about giving people agency over how and when they use energy.”

Looking ahead, Copper plans to launch more appliances that bridge the gap between sustainability and performance. “Look around your house—especially at the appliances that use gas today,” Sam said. “We’ve got exciting projects in the works.”

For Sam Calisch, Copper isn’t just about selling stoves—it’s about transforming how people think about electrification. “We want to make switching easy and show the best versions of what’s possible,” he said.

You can listen to my full conversation with Sam by clicking the podcast player below, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With Second Gen Lineup, Combustion Adds Wi-Fi to Product Mix and Ups Thermometer Temp to 900°F

Connected Kitchen

Earlier this month, kitchen startup Combustion announced several upgrades to its product lineup, including a second-generation precision thermometer that can withstand temperatures up to 900°F and a new connected display that, for the first time, incorporates Wi-Fi into the Combustion product mix.

In addition to the thermometer and display updates, the company introduced a new wireless fan called the Combustion Engine. This device pairs with Combustion’s thermometer or the recently announced Grill Gauge to help control temperatures on outdoor grills.

I caught up with Combustion CEO Chris Young last week to discuss the new updates. He told me that the number one feature request from customers has been Wi-Fi connectivity.

“The thing about Wi-Fi is that consumers want it because, once you’re connected, you can keep an eye on things while you’re away,” Young told The Spoon.

Young, who previously worked on integrating Wi-Fi into the ChefSteps (now Breville) Joule, understands the significant complexity that Wi-Fi adds from a product management standpoint. This complexity is why Combustion took its time incorporating Wi-Fi into a product lineup that, until now, had relied solely on Bluetooth.

“Everybody inside the company who’s worked on this has experience doing it at scale and carries some scars from those efforts,” said Young. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it, so we took our time.”

That deliberate approach involved deciding where to include Wi-Fi—ultimately in the charging sleeve and display—and where not to include it, such as in the thermometer itself. The company also worked on managing battery life and ensuring efficient data transmission from the Wi-Fi chip.

Another major upgrade is the thermometer’s ability to withstand and measure temperatures up to 900°F, higher than most conventional consumer ovens can reach. Young explained the significant technical challenges involved in designing a device capable of performing at such high temperatures.

“You’re getting into exotic circuit board materials. Oxygen does crazy things at 900 degrees and starts to attack copper. So behind the scenes, it was a massive production process improvement that should result in higher reliability, better high-temperature performance, and what is essentially the most extreme submersible thermometer you could imagine.”

Early responses to the upgrades have been positive on the Combustion Reddit forum, where Young is active in answering user questions. The company expects to ship the new thermometer next month and the Combustion Engine in the spring of 2025. For those looking for a deal, the company is clearing out its Gen-1 thermometers (I have one, and it works well) ahead of Thanksgiving.

New Lawsuit Accuses Private Equity Company of Plundering Assets of Instant Brands

Connected Kitchen

The long, convoluted, and increasingly dark tale of the acquisition of Instant Brands (the maker of the Instant Pot) by Cornell Capital took another turn last week with the filing of a complaint on behalf of the company’s creditors to recoup up to $400 million in losses. The filing alleges that Cornell Capital LLC and its leadership orchestrated a series of fraudulent maneuvers that ultimately led to the downfall of the once-popular Instant Pot maker.

The story begins in May 2017, when Cornell Capital, a private equity firm founded by Henry Cornell, acquired World Kitchen, later renamed Corelle Brands. Seeking further growth through acquisition, Cornell Capital used Corelle Brands to acquire Instant Brands in March 2019 for $615 million.

However, the complaint states that shortly after the acquisition, Cornell Capital discovered that Instant Brands’ financial records had been misstated, particularly the 2018 EBITDA—a crucial metric for business valuation. A “shit show” is how Ken Wilkes, then CEO of Corelle Brands, described Instant Brands’ financials. This discovery meant Cornell Capital had significantly overpaid for Instant Brands.

In the wake of this revelation, Cornell Capital threatened legal action against Instant Brands’ sellers (Robert Wang, the inventor of the Instant Pot, and his co-founders Yi Qin and Dongjun Wang) for fraud. Wang, Qin, and Wang negotiated a restructuring agreement in February 2020, which significantly reduced the purchase price in exchange for releasing them from liability.

In a move that would later become central to the lawsuit, Cornell Capital secured for itself the sole entitlement to a future $200 million dividend from Instant Brands. Additionally, Corelle Brands filed a $268 million claim with its representations and warranties insurer in May 2020, alleging that the misstated financials had inflated the acquisition price.

According to the complaint, Cornell Capital pushed forward with its plan to extract a dividend from the company despite knowing about Instant Brands’ overstated valuation and declining financial performance. In March 2021, Instant Brands approached lenders to secure financing for a dividend recapitalization, all the while concealing the truth about its financial woes. The complaint states that Cornell Capital and Instant Brands withheld information about the misstated financials, the purchase price reduction, and the ongoing insurance claim. Adding another layer of concern, they also failed to disclose an investigation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission into potential safety hazards with the Instant Pot—a revelation that could have deterred potential lenders.

Through this withholding of information, the complaint alleges that Cornell Capital successfully secured a $450 million term loan in April 2021. This loan, along with $100 million of Instant Brands’ cash reserves, was allegedly used to fund a $345 million dividend, the vast majority of which went to Cornell Capital, its co-investors, and Instant Brands’ sellers, leaving the company insolvent.

As Instant Brands’ financial situation deteriorated, Cornell Capital engaged in what the lawsuit describes as a desperate attempt to salvage its investment. In January 2023, less than two years after the dividend payout, Cornell Capital orchestrated the transfer of almost all of Instant Brands’ tangible assets—estimated to be worth $200 million—to newly formed unrestricted subsidiaries. These assets were then used as collateral for a $55 million loan from Cornell Capital Partners LP. This maneuver, termed the “UnSub Transaction,” was allegedly designed to strip Instant Brands of its remaining valuable assets and shield the earlier dividend payout from scrutiny under bankruptcy laws. However, the UnSub Transaction only served to worsen Instant Brands’ financial standing and ultimately failed to prevent its bankruptcy filing in June 2023.

Needless to say, the complaint paints a damning picture of Cornell Capital’s actions, accusing the firm and its leadership of orchestrating a scheme to enrich themselves at the expense of Instant Brands’ creditors. The complaint seeks a comprehensive accounting of the financial maneuvers undertaken by Cornell Capital, requesting that the court void the $345 million dividend and other payments made to the defendants. Additionally, the trustee is asking for the recovery of the value of those transfers and is seeking an award of no less than $400 million to compensate for the losses incurred by Instant Brands’ creditors.

Luckily for everyday consumers, most of this news will never reach them, and Instant Pots still appear to be making their way to store shelves. However, the heyday of Instant Pot as the hottest kitchen device is long gone, and Instant Brands no longer churns out new product variations every six to nine months. While we may never know why Instant Brands’ founders misstated the financials to facilitate the sale, it’s possible they were trying to strike while the iron—or Instant Pot—was hot, given the influx of Instant Pot clones flooding the market at the time.

Anova Serves Up a Generous Helping of AI With Launch of Anova Precision Oven 2.0

Connected Kitchen, Robotics, AI & Data

Last week, Anova announced the second generation of its Precision Oven, just over four years after it began to ship the first generation Precision Oven. The Anova Precision Oven 2.0 is packed with a number of new features, including an in-oven camera and Anova Intelligence, a suite of new AI features designed to power new ways for users to assist in the cooking process.

In fact, the company listed a bunch of features currently offered by their AI-powered cooking and a number of features that they are working on. The features the Anova Precision Oven 2.0 currently has include:

  • Ingredient Recognition: The AI system automatically identifies what’s inside the oven with the internal camera.
  • Suggested Cooking Methods: The oven’s AI will suggest cooking methods tailored to the ingredients, ranging from basic roasting to more complex sous vide style.
  • Packaged Food Conversion: The oven will scan the packaging, and the AI will choose the right settings.
  • Recipe Conversion: The company says the Anova Precision Oven 2.0’s AI can convert nearly any recipe to make it work with its settings, with the caveat that this feature will improve over time as it gains more data.

According to Anova, upcoming features for Anova Intelligence include:

  • Assistant Mode: Anova’s AI-powered co-pilot will simplify complex cooking techniques and offer personalized cooking guidance.
  • Complex Meal Creation: When preparing multi-component dishes, the oven will suggest optimal settings for each ingredient, “streamlining” the cooking process for recipes that typically require juggling multiple cooking techniques.
  • Cook Recall: The oven will recognize repeat recipes for dishes you prepare frequently and return to your last-used settings.
  • Doneness Detection: Powered by the internal camera, the oven monitors the cook’s desired crispness level and alerts them when it reaches the preferred doneness level.
  • Auto Shutdown: The oven will detect when a cook cycle has finished and whether food has been removed, then notify you before automatically shutting off.
  • “Clean Me” Reminders: Equipped with an internal camera that monitors for dirt buildup, the oven will remind you when it’s time for a cleaning.

With the addition of the camera and new AI features, it looks like Anova hopes to fill the void left after Weber sunsetted the June oven about a year ago. While some features (like auto-shutdown) don’t seem all that interesting, I am intrigued by features like the coming co-pilot mode.

In addition to the new AI features, the second-gen oven includes even tighter temperature management (powered by three internal temperature sensors and a more powerful on-board processor) and better steam management. The new oven also includes a new app and an additional recipe subscription service for $1.99 a month or $9.99 annually.

All of these new features come with a hefty price tag increase at $1199, double that of the launch price of the first-gen oven. While some may pass on the 2.0 due to the price increase, given the void left by June and the cult following Anova has, I expect the new Anova oven to sell fairly well when it ships.

Brava’s Latest Update Enables Blind and Low-Vision Users to Cook Independently With The Light-Powered Oven

Next-Gen Cooking

This week, Brava, a company that makes countertop consumer appliances that cook with light, has announced the launch of the first major update to the software since 2021.

The biggest change announced is the ability to fully access and control the Brava through the app. Unlike previous versions, which required some interaction with the Brava’s touchscreen, users can now manage ingredient selection, doneness, and recipe instructions entirely through the Brava app, reducing reliance on the oven’s interface. This update is particularly impactful for those with physical limitations, allowing them to enjoy the Brava’s convenience and precision with ease.

While full app control of an appliance is something some folks make like (and others may hate), what’s neat about this update is that Brava chose to also enable new features that make the Brava more accessible to individuals who are blind or have low-vision.

As can be seen in the video below, the key advancement hear is the Brava app works with screen readers, which are digital assistants that work with apps that allow those that are blind or have low vision to navigate.

“Screen readers so it changes the behavior of your touchscreen device, “said Fernando Macias, Access Technology Specialist at San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. “So that everything you touch on the screen, (the screen reader) will read out loud, and that is what enables us to navigate, especially if you’re a blind or have have low vision.” Brava worked with San Francisco Lighthouse to enable the screen reader features.

In addition to greater accessibility features for low-vision users and full control of the appliance via the app, the updated software provides users with more granular info on light intensity and duration parameters that drive each recipe, empowering them to modify or create recipes with greater insight.

Long-time Spoon readers may recall that The Spoon was the first press org to get a look at the Brava back in 2018. Just over a year after the Brava was introduced to the work, Middleby acquired the company. Interestingly, Brava’s founding team (Thomas Cheng, Daniel Yue, and John Pleasants) are all still with the company five years after the acquisition, a sign that Middleby continues to invest and show interest in the platform.

A First Look at Roku Shoku, Sony’s Culinary Recording System to Capture and Replicate Chefs’ Recipes

Connected Kitchen, Next-Gen Cooking

This past week in Japan, Sony unveiled a project they’ve been developing in secret called Roku Shoku, a culinary recording system designed to capture exactly how a chef prepares a meal. The system also serves as a guidance tool, helping casual or inexperienced cooks create dishes with the precision of an expert with years of training.

Sony has been working on this project, which stands for “Record” (Roku) and “Cooking” (Shoku), for the past five years. Last week, the entertainment and consumer electronics giant held the first-ever press demonstration of the recording studio for The Spoon team.

“We have a recording studio here in Tokyo,” said Tomoko Nomoto, Project Leader for Roku Shoku. “We invite Michelin-starred chefs, or even grandmothers, to the studio and ask them to cook with our system. We then record their culinary data, including temperature, steam levels, and the entire cooking process.”

The project is led by a Sony R&D team out of Tokyo and is separate from research in the area of gastronomy that has taken place at Sony’s AI Research division Sony AI (the formal Gastronomy program announced in 2020 has been sunsetted, but Sony continues to work on gastronomy-related projects). Since launching the Tokyo recording studio in 2021, the team has captured thousands of recipes across a range of cuisines, including Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, and Thai.

The Roku Shoku system features induction cooktops with temperature sensors, scales to monitor and weigh ingredients, cameras to capture a chef’s movements, and an off-the-shelf game controller made by Steam to control the setup.

Nomoto shared that users can replicate meals precisely as chefs cook them, a claim I tested myself. You can watch me trying it in the video below.

First Ever Look at Sony's Roku Shoku Culinary Recording System

According to Nomoto, the goal is to use Roku Shoku both to document recipes for restaurants and food service locations and to preserve culinary creations for future use.

“The first step will be to work with restaurants that want to share a consistent experience worldwide or recreate dishes that are no longer available, like when a chef passes away or retires,” said Nomoto.

Spoon readers might recall Cloudchef, another system that records chef creations. Nomoto explained a key difference: Sony plans for Roku Shoku to enable only human chefs to recreate these meals, while Cloudchef eventually aims to use robots for meal replication. Currently, both systems are focused solely on human use (see Spoon’s Tiffany McClurg using the Cloudchef system here).

The company has launched a website where you can find out more and request a demo.

Meet The Reimagining Restaurants Podcast, and Check Out The First Episode With Wow Bao’s Geoff Alexander

Business of Food

Here at The Spoon, we’ve covered hundreds of restaurant operators over the past half-decade, in part because we love restaurants and restaurant tech, but mostly because restaurant operators are some of the most creative and hard-working entrepreneurs in the food business.

The truth is they have to be. There’s no business changing faster than the world of food service, with the advent of ghost kitchens, digital ordering, automation, and AI, all against a backdrop of high food costs, changing consumer tastes, employee turnover, and more.

All of which is why we’ve decided to start a new podcast focused on entrepreneurs who are finding new ways to run a restaurant in today’s modern world. We wanted to hear their journey into restaurants, hear how they are rethinking how to do business in today’s world, and where they see the restaurant business going in the future.

For our first episode, we knew no one better to discuss approaching the restaurant business in new and innovative ways than Geoff Alexander. The CEO of Wow Bao got his start in hospitality with a college job as a bartender, where he discovered his talent for connecting with people, and he hasn’t looked back.

He joined Lettuce Entertain You shortly after graduation and rose through the ranks over the next three decades, gaining operational expertise and eventually overseeing his own division. In 2009, he took the reins at Wow Bao, where he embraced technology as a way to turn the business around and innovate on new business models. He introduced self-ordering kiosks, mobile ordering, and partnered with third-party delivery platforms early on, which laid the foundation for Wow Bao’s unique model that spans over 500 locations with a mix of virtual kitchens and centralized food production.

Alexander shares insights on Wow Bao’s approach and how a lack of capital fostered a culture of creativity and efficiency. This approach led to successful innovations like centralized production and distribution, which he says has kept cost low while ensuring quality. Alexander also discusses scaling with hot-food vending machines and dipping the company’s toe into the metaverse.

It was a fun episode, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts!

Robot Delivery Startup Starship Teams Up With European Food Delivery Company Bolt

Delivery & Commerce, Robotics, AI & Data

Sidewalk robotic delivery Starship Technologies announced this week they are teaming up with Bolt, a European multiplatform delivery company, to launch a new food delivery service using Starship’s autonomous robots in Tallinn, Estonia.

The launch, centered in Tallinn, has the potential to reach up to 180,000 residents according to Bolt. Starship’s robots will operate from three Bolt Market locations—Tulika, Pallasti, and Mustika—via the Bolt Food app. During the launch period, customers will get to use the service for free (the companies did not disclose how much the service will cost post-launch).

Starship robots can carry up to three bags of groceries within a 3-kilometer radius. Bolt customers can opt for “robot delivery” through the app, meet the robot outside their location, and unlock it using the app to retrieve their items.

“This collaboration is not just about convenience and choice,” said Ahti Heinla, who cofounded Starship Technologies with fellow Skype cofounder Janus Friis. “Integrating our robots into Bolt’s service offers a scalable, sustainable delivery solution that reduces traffic and emissions. This is an exciting step forward toward greener cities across Europe.”

Starship, which was the first company to launch the first sidewalk delivery robot a decade ago, has completed over 7 million deliveries globally and traveled more than 14 million kilometers in 100 locations worldwide, according to the announcement. Operating at L4 autonomy since 2018, the company says its robots perform 150,000 crossings daily.

The two companies plan to expand beyond Tallin, but have yet to give a timetable for expansion. The news comes a week after Starship became the first sidewalk delivery platform approved for delivery in Minneapolis, delivering from Panda Express, Starbucks and Erbert & Gerbert’s.

Ome CEO Akshita Iyer Talks Second-Generation Smart Stove Knob

Connected Kitchen

Last month, smart kitchen startup Ome launched its second generation smart knob, a retrofit device that gives gas or electric stoves the ability to be turned off remotely. The new knob comes three years after the company fulfilled the delivery for its first-generation knob (under the company’s then-name, Inirv), which was the culmination of a crowdfunding journey launched by the company’s founders.

I first connected with company CEO Akshita Iyer back in 2016 when the company, then-named Inirv, was a finalist in the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase.

“We were just at the idea stage with a 0.5 version of our smart stove knob, which was literally 3D printed at the time,” Iyer told me this week in an interview. “It was an exciting but challenging moment because the concept of retrofitting appliances with smart technology was still so new.”

It was a nascent market back in 2016, with only Inirv and Meld (which Hestan acquired to help build the Hestan Cue platform before the product ever shipped) creating stove smart knobs. At the time it was a side hustle for Iyer and her cofounder, but soon would become her full time focus as she launched a Kickstarter in 2017.

In our conversation, Iyer talked about how the original idea for building a smart stove knob can from personal experience. When her mother, recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s, accidentally started a kitchen fire after leaving the stove on, Iyer realized there wasn’t any smart home technology focused on helping those aging in place. Devices like Nest and Ring were making homes safer, but the kitchen—a critical area where fires often start—had been left out of the equation. Iyer saw an opportunity to create something that could prevent accidents like the one her mother experienced and got to work on building her first MVP.

Like many first-time entrepreneurs, Iyer was soon faced with challenges that can often be insurmountable for those trying to bring a hardware product to market.

“When I started, I thought, ‘How hard could this be?’ It seemed like a straightforward idea—just retrofit a knob to make stoves smarter. But we quickly realized the complexity. It wasn’t just about controlling the burner; we had to create an entire ecosystem with hardware, software, and a seamless customer experience. We had to integrate a motor, sensors, and Wi-Fi, all while ensuring the product was intuitive and safe. Those early days were tough, especially since we bootstrapped the business. It was a side hustle for a long time, and we didn’t fully appreciate how challenging it would be to bring a product like this to market.”

A pivotal moment for the company came in 2018 when Iyer appeared on Shark Tank. She told me that though they received an offer, they ultimately chose not to take the deal, a decision she now views as a blessing in disguise.

“We did get an offer from Robert Herjavec, and to be honest, it wasn’t a bad offer for where we were at the time, having just started with barely a functioning prototype. But we didn’t end up taking it. And I’m glad we didn’t, because at that point, it was still a side hustle. We hadn’t raised any money, didn’t have a team of engineers, and hadn’t figured out how to really build a company.”

It took the company almost four years to finally make good on its award commitments for its Kickstarter, and in 2021, it delivered its first-generation product to backers. Iyer said that first gen product had certain constraints—particularly with compatibility on stoves where the knobs were closer together, which led to some backers not being able to use the product. But the company kept engaged with its backers (as seen on the product’s Kickstarter page), promising to fulfill their needs with the next generation of the product.

And now, with the Ome Smart Knob, the company is both shipping to those backers who couldn’t make the first-gen product work while also selling the product on their website to new customers. Priced at $129, the company is emphasizing its messaging around fire-safety for senior citizens. Iyer sees potential for partnerships with senior living communities and hopes, in the long run, insurance companies could subsidize the purchase of her smart knob through discounts for homeowners who install the device, much like discounts offered for home security systems.

The Ome Smart Knob In Action

It will be interesting to see how much traction Ome gets now that they’ve been able to deliver on the vision Iyer first had back almost a decade ago. One of the key potential hurdles in broader acceptance by insurance companies and smart home ecosystem players to integrate products like the Ome is safety standards, something Iyer is working on as a Technical Committee member for UL Standard 858. UL 858 is a set of safety standards for electric ranges, and the group is working to update and modernize to factor in smart home technologies like those built into the Ome.

“We’re working to update UL 858 to allow for automation in a safe way. The critical thing is maintaining user consent—meaning the user still has to push and turn to activate the stove, and then our technology takes over. We’re in the process of getting certification to show the industry that we can build this technology without putting anyone at risk. The big concern with UL is ensuring no one can remotely turn on a stove, and we’ve built safeguards to prevent that.”

We’ll keep an eye on the progress around UL 858 and how Ome does with the rollout of its new smart knob. If you want to watch my full interview, just click play below.

Ome's Akshita Iyer Talks With The Spoon About The New Smart Stove Knob

When it Comes to Using AI To Shape New Culinary Creations, Ali Bouzari Thinks Food is Mostly ‘All Hands’

Robotics, AI & Data

In the most recent episode of the Spoon Podcast, I caught up with food scientist Ali Bouzari to discuss his work and get his thoughts on new technologies that are helping to shape the future of food.

I first met Bouzari when he spoke at the Culinary Institute of America a few years ago about how robotics could impact food service and other sectors. At the time, he talked about Creator—a burger restaurant powered by robots—and suggested that food robots could sometimes do things that most food service employees could not replicate. He specifically referred to how Creator’s burger bot could create more intricate structures in the burger patty than possible to enhance mouthfeel.

When I asked him about this on the podcast, he suggested that while yes, there are things technology can do, he was worried about the recent obsession with AI and using it to craft recipes and new culinary creations. He drew a parallel between AI’s notorious difficulty in rendering realistic-looking human hands in artwork and the challenge of using AI in food production.

“You know that recurring motif where somebody will put a seemingly impressive piece of AI-generated imagery up and be like, ‘My God, look at Darth Vader doing this thing in Saturday Night Fever or something.’ And everybody always says, ‘Look at the hands, look at the fingers.’ And there’s always something wrong with the hands. There’s something that is difficult for AI to crack. What I would say it is most of food is hands. Food is basically all hands.”

Bouzari also shared how multiple clients had approached him after playing with generative AI tools to experiment with developing food products. “We have clients being like, ‘Hey, ChatGPT said we should put arrowroot flour in this cookie.’ I think that somebody is feeding all of the AI brains a lot of great information about arrowroot. Because three different people on three different projects have said that AI said, ‘Have you tried arrowroot?’ which is, in a lot of instances, kind of a useless ingredient.

But thinking about things like AI have caught his attention, Bouzari told me the biggest challenge that has his attention nowadays is the impact of climate change and how food brands are facing a reality that their products may not have a future if they continue to do things – and create food products – in the same way as they have in the past.

One example he gave is the global cacao shortage. “Chocolate is in trouble,” Bouzari said. He pointed to how disruptions in cacao production are driving up costs and threatening the availability of what is a beloved staple. This isn’t some distant, theoretical issue Bouzari told me. “It’s already happening.”

And it’s not just chocolate.

“Coffee’s next,” said Bouzari. “Coffee might do a thing where, like grapes, it just creeps higher and higher latitudes as things change.”

And because of this urgency food brands are now faced with that Bouzari gets a little annoyed with how food makers are sometimes distracted with shiny new toys while missing the big picture.

“My thinking with food is it’s a little bit extra irksome, the conversation around AI sometimes, where people say, ‘I’ve spent six months trying to get this generative AI to make me a new pasta recipe,’ when I don’t think we need that. And the water and energy cost of all of that computation is directly contributing to, I think, the actual biggest existential problem we have, which is climate change.”

We also talk about Bouzari’s experience on the Netflix Show Snack vs. Chef, his thoughts on alternative proteins and what gets him excited about the future.

You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or by clicking play below.

Serve Robotics Partners With Drone Delivery Specialist Wing To Pair Sidewalk With Aerial Delivery

Delivery & Commerce, Robotics, AI & Data

Serve Robotics Inc. and Wing Aviation announced a pilot program this week that will combine their delivery methods to extend the reach of restaurant deliveries across densely populated urban areas. According to the announcement, Serve’s robots will collect orders from restaurant curbsides and transport them to Wing’s AutoLoader hubs, where Wing’s drones will carry the packages to customers up to six miles away.

Serve Robotics spun out of Uber in 2021 and has since worked with the likes of Uber Eats and 7-Eleven. According to the company, its robots have completed tens of thousands of deliveries in urban markets. For its part, Wing, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, says it has racked up 400,000 commercial deliveries across three continents, working with food delivery partners like DoorDash.

This announcement is interesting because it represents the first integration of sidewalk and aerial delivery. I’ll be watching if this thing ever moves out of pilot since, as drone delivery has moved significantly slower in terms of rollout than many providers had hoped, and combining it with sidewalk delivery adds another potential complication that could trip up cautious delivery operators and restaurants.

However, if Serve can nail handoffs at Drone pick-up areas as suggested in the video (the choppy editing looks a bit suspect to me), I can see this becoming a real peanut butter and jelly combo for quick deployment of food.

Watch as a Serve Sidewalk Robot Hands Off Food Delivery to a Wing Drone

I’ve Seen The Future of Food Logging Apps, And It’s GPT Food Cam

Robotics, AI & Data

If you’ve ever tried to log your food intake with an app, you probably have realized the following:

  1. Manual food logging with an app is a pain.
  2. Food logging apps are often inaccurate because they require users to estimate portion size, ingredients, etc.
  3. Food logging apps have cumbersome onboarding processes, ask for a lot of personal info, and usually try to upsell users into premium subscriptions.

For these reasons, I have not used a food-logging app for more than a few weeks, but that may soon change with GPT Food Cam. What is GPT Food Cam? In a few words, it’s a free food-logging app that lets you snap each meal or snack with your smartphone camera and uses AI to estimate calories. The app, which can be downloaded from the iOS App Store, doesn’t ask you to take a survey or require a subscription, and, from what I can tell within a day of use, it is really pretty darn good.

That’s my description, but what does Raj Singh, the longtime entrepreneur who is the visionary behind the app, have to say about it? According to Singh, who posted recently about the app on LinkedIn, GPT Food Cam is different from other food logging apps in three primary ways:

Instant Camera Access: The app opens straight to the camera, allowing users to quickly capture their meals without navigating menus. “I wanted it to be fast and low friction,” Singh said. “In social settings, it’s less intrusive to quickly snap a photo.”

Calorie Ranges Instead of Exact Figures: Singh said that because AI has its own limitations and portion sizes vary, the app provides a calorie range. “By presenting a range, it’s mostly right,” Singh said. “The goal is to build the habit of food logging and become a more mindful eater.”

Free and Unobtrusive: Unlike many apps that require subscriptions or bombard users with ads, GPT Food Cam is entirely free and supported by occasional, non-intrusive advertisements. “Right now, ads are making four times the revenue of the AI costs,” Singh said in a phone interview with The Spoon. “This allows us to keep the app free and potentially expand its features and availability to more countries.”

After working with a food coach who encouraged him to send photos of his meals for feedback, Singh sought a convenient digital solution to continue the practice. However, he found existing apps lacking—either too complex, costly, or both.

“They were designed for the 5% who need precision, but I wanted something simple, free, and for the other 95%,” Singh said.

According to Singh, GPT Food Cam leverages Gemini Flash, a fast and cost-effective AI model, to analyze images and estimate calorie content. Users simply snap a photo of their meal, and the app processes the image to provide an approximate calorie range.

“A lot of this is prompt engineering,” Singh explained. “We use ‘chain-of-thought’ prompting, where we break down the AI’s task into specific steps. The prompt instructs the AI to look at what’s in the picture, consider each ingredient independently, estimate serving sizes based on context—like whether it’s in a bowl or on a plate—and then estimate the calories of each item before adding them up.”

Singh emphasized that while AI isn’t perfect—with about 95% accuracy—it’s sufficient for promoting mindful eating. “AI has consistently been 95% accurate,” he said. “It’s great for recommendations and suggestions, but when it comes to critical workflows, it might get things wrong 5% of the time. For food logging, where precision isn’t as critical, this level of accuracy is acceptable.”

The creation of GPT Food Cam came after a serendipitous conversation with a friend. Singh’s friend, Zvika Ashkenazi, mentioned that his son, Ben Ashkenazi, was seeking an unpaid summer internship and wondered if Singh could mentor him. Singh soon began working with Ben, and six weeks later, GPT FoodCam was born.

“Ben is graduating from ASU in Computer Science in December,” Singh said. “He taught himself React, iOS development, and more this summer with minimal help from my network. He built this end-to-end.”

While GPT Food Cam emerged just in the last couple of months after Singh’s epiphany and Ben Ashkenazi’s coding work, Singh has been toying with the idea of a low-friction app to track food intake for a decade. In 2009, he tried to develop a similar application but soon realized the technology wasn’t mature enough.

“In 2009, I tried to create this exact app,” said Singh, who is currently the head of product for Mozilla’s Solo after the browser company acquired his startup Pulse in 2022. “It wasn’t good enough, and so we pivoted into a recipe company, which became Allthecooks.” Allthecooks would go on to become the number one recipe community on Android in 2010, with 30 million users, and would later be acquired by Cookpad.

Unlike then, “the tech is now here, making GPT Food Cam a reality,” Singh said. “Advancements in AI and image recognition have finally caught up with the vision I had over a decade ago.”

With the technology to make friction-free food logging a reality, Singh told me he wants to disrupt the food logging industry by offering a free, low-friction app, but he thinks it can do so with little involvement from him going forward.

“I build some things for fun. At the onset of a new project, I’m like, ‘This is not gonna make money, but the world needs it,’ or, ‘This is gonna be my next business, and I’m leaving where I’m at.'”

Singh made it clear he is happy at Mozilla and, in fact, used the product he conceived of building for Mozilla (Solo, an AI website builder) to create the website for GPT Food Cam. From here, he will let Ashkenazi run with the product, even if he periodically suggests some ideas to make it successful.

“I think it can be very, very disruptive. People are paying $10 a month for apps they don’t need to. This app can encourage better habits without the cost and complexity.”

Singh said he is also considering expanding the app’s capabilities and reach. With the ad revenue already exceeding the AI costs by a four-to-one margin, there’s potential to increase daily usage limits (currently, users are limited to six snaps a day) and make the app available in more countries.

Selfishly, I hope he and Ashkenazi succeed because, from what I’ve seen so far, I think the app is, in fact, potentially disruptive, and I hope to keep on using it. Who knows, maybe Ashkenazi (with a little help from Singh) can put their app on a similar journey we saw with Marco Arment’s Overcast app, which originally was a passion project that emerged from Arment’s annoyance with the current state of podcast apps to become the most user-friendly podcast app (and most popular, outside of Apple’s podcast app) in the world.