Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Uncategorized

Yemoja Unveils New Scalable System To Grow Microalgae for Food

Yemoja, an Israel-based startup making marine ingredients for B2B use, unveiled its new algae production platform today. The company uses something called “fast-track photobioreactor technology” to create specific algaes meant to be used as ingredients as a food supplement or in cosmetic products.

Founded in 2017, Yemoja grows large amounts of microalgae tailored to fit each startup partners’ needs. To do so they’ve developed a closed cultivation system that can maintain a specific temperature, pH balance, and light distribution. It’s also designed to be able to cultivate several species of algae at the same time. Thus far Yemoja has raised $4 million in seed funding and investments from the Israel Innovation Authority.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Yemoja distinguishes itself with its emphasis on scalability and versatility. With its modular grow system, which looks like racks filled with tall, cylindrical containers filled with lights, Yemoja can at least theoretically add almost countless units to fulfill customer needs. Since each system is self-contained, they can also cultivate multiple species of algae simultaneously — one for a plant-based meat company, another for face masks, for example.

Photo: Yemoja’s grow units

This seems like a pretty obvious way to grow microalgae, so it’s possible that other companies out there are also growing organisms in a similar manner — or will soon start to. Especially since algae is becoming a popular health add-in to a range of food products, including plant-based proteins. That’s especially the case with seafood, as microalgae imparts a marine flavor to alternatives like shrimp and canned tuna.

However, Yemoja seems to be focusing not purely on quanitity of algae, but also bespoke, specialty products. Eyal Shalmon, the CEO of Yemoja, said in the aforementioned press release that only a dozen or so species of microalgae are commercially available right now. If they concentrate on building out a larger range of algae strains, Yemoja could help stand out in a sea of producers.

Newsletter: And Now for Some Cool Food Tech News

This is the web version of our newsletter. Sign up today to get updates on the rapidly changing nature of the food tech industry.

Usually in these newsletters, I try to tie together a bunch of disparate threads into a unifying story that makes me sound soooper smart. What I don’t like to do is just recap stories we’ve published on the site.

But I’m breaking that rule today, kinda. Yes, I’m recapping a bunch of stories that we have published recently on The Spoon, but they are all unified by a theme of startups getting things done. These companies are pivoting and even launching in the blurst of times.

Check out these cool examples of food tech companies making the most of our bad situation.

  • The Great American Takeout (part 2) encourages you to help put some money in the pockets of your local restaurants.
  • Pepper is a NY-based startup that pivoted from restaurant supply management to connected restaurant food suppliers directly to consumers.
  • Anycart launched a shoppable recipe platform to help all of cook different kinds of meals while sheltering in place.
  • Kitchen United is holding an online seminar to help restaurants understand how the just-passed stimulus bill can help them.
  • GoSun is expanding from solar cooking to portable water filtration
  • Our very own Jenn Marston put together an awesome list of restaurant tech deals (while you’re at it, sign up for her new restaurant tech newsletter!).

What cool thing is your food tech company doing? We’d love to know! Drop us a line and tell us.

Join us for our online COVID Strategy Summit

Perhaps you’re inspired by the above list of companies making COVID-driven moves, but aren’t sure what your company’s next steps should be. If so, you should join us on April 6 for our COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit for Food and Restaurants.

No travel required to get there and 100 percent socially distant, this online summit will features talks and fireside chats from leading experts including:

  • Chef Mark Brand – Founder of Save-On Meats and creator of the Token Program to feed those in food insecure situations
  • Sara Roversi– Founder of the Future Food Institute
  • Dana Gunders – Executive Director of ReFED
  • Paul Freedman – Professor of History at Yale University and author of American Cuisine: And How It Got That Way
  • Ryan Palmer – Partner at Lathrop GPM and chair of firm’s Restaurant, Food, and Hospitality group

Save your spot today!

Tip your delivery driver!

Instacart’s gig workers, known as Shoppers, called for a nationwide strike earlier this week. They were calling attention to and looking to force changes to their working conditions during this time of global pandemic.

Instacart responded with some concessions and new safety protocols, but it wasn’t enough to stop workers from striking — a move that was followed by work stoppages at Whole Foods and Amazon warehouses.

The reason I bring this all up is to reinforce that these workers are showing up and doing their job in dangerous times. Be kind to them, especially if you have the ability to keep your job and work from home. Be kind, and tip them as generously as you are able.

UPDATED: Instacart Launches New Benefits as its Gig Workers Planned to Strike

Update: This post has been updated with a statement sent to the Spoon by Vanessa Bain.

Grocery delivery startup Instacart today announced a number of new benefits for its Shoppers (the gig workers who actually go into the stores and deliver food). The new benefits come as Instacart shoppers were planning a nationwide strike this coming Monday, March 30, as first reported by Vice’s Motherboard.

The proposed strike was called in response to what was being called Instacart’s insufficient response to the dangers its Shoppers face during this COVID-19 epidemic. Vanessa Bain, an Instacart Shopper who has spearheaded previous gig worker stoppages at Instacart over its pay structure, laid out demands in a post on Medium:

On Monday, March 30, Shoppers will walk off of our jobs, and will not return to work until our demands are met. We demand that Instacart meet the following conditions:

  1. Safety precautions at no cost to workers — PPE (at minimum hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes/sprays and soap).
  2. Hazard pay — an extra $5 per order and defaulting the in-app tip amount to at least 10% of the order total.
  3. An extension and expansion of pay for workers impacted by COVID-19 — anyone who has a doctor’s note for either a preexisting condition that’s a known risk factor or requiring a self-quarantine.
  4. The deadline to qualify for these benefits must be extended beyond April 8th.

As Bain rightly points out, gig workers are on the front lines of this pandemic, venturing into public grocery stores on behalf of others, and making deliveries to strangers’ front doors. They are putting themselves at risk so people like you and me don’t have to venture out.

In a corporate blog post today, Instacart launched a number of new measures and benefits it was adding to help its Shoppers, including:

  • Extending pay for those unable to work because they are stuck with COVID-19 or placed in isolation or quarantine because of the disease
  • Additional bonuses for Shoppers ranging from $25 to $200
  • Additional pay boosts through batch promotions
  • Contactless alcohol delivery

Instacart also provided this statement via email to The Spoon:

“The health and safety of our entire community — shoppers, customers, and employees — is our first priority. Our goal is to offer a safe and flexible earnings opportunity to shoppers, while also proactively taking the appropriate precautionary measures to operate safely. We want to underscore that we absolutely respect the rights of shoppers to provide us feedback and voice their concerns. It’s a valuable way for us to continuously make improvements to the shopper experience and we’re committed to supporting this important community during this critical time.”

Will Instacart’s new moves be enough to ward off the strike? We reached out to Bain on Twitter, and will update this post as soon as we hear back. UPDATE: Bain sent us the following response:

Instacart’s response lacks any real substance. While I am glad they agreed to our fourth demand to extend the eligibility period for COVID-19 pay, they’ve provided no meaningful concessions to our demands in full. It’s far too little too late. We are still calling for an emergency walk off/work stoppage until our demands are met in full.

Instacart is busier than ever, thanks to people sheltering in place and social distancing, and to better accommodate its surge in demand, the company is looking to bring on an additional 300,000 shoppers in the coming months.

With unemployment spiking amid business closures, a lot of people will be looking to Instacart for some kind of steady paycheck. Ensuring that its growing workforce is fully prepared to face the challenges of this outbreak seems not only reasonable, but the morally correct thing to do. On a more personal note, I literally just got my parents to start using Instacart, and I’m sure they aren’t the only elderly (read: more at risk) people who are doing so. So here’s hoping Instacart and its Shoppers can iron all this out and truly be a force for good in these trying times.

Zippin Waives Setup Fees for Stores that Want Cashierless Checkout Pop-Ups to Sell Essential and Safety Products

Next time I go to that grocery store, my cashier will be scanning my groceries from behind a plexiglass shield, yet another measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus to grocery workers on the front line of this pandemic.

The enormity of the COVID-19 crisis makes me think that cashierless checkout would be really nice to have at a time like this. Shoppers could walk in, grab what they want and go, getting charged automatically upon exit. No interaction with cashiers or baggers, or standing in line with other people.

So I reached out to Krishna Motukuri, Co-Founder of Zippin, to see if there’s been increased interest in his company’s cashierless checkout technology. He said that there has been, particularly in the company’s Zippin Cube, which is a modular pop-up that allows the creation of a cashierless pop-up retail store-within-a-store. In an email to me, Motokuri wrote:

With a Zippin Cube (popup) at the front of the store (or a dedicated aisle converted into a Zippin section) stocking the top-selling products, stores can ease some pressure on their cashiers. Shoppers who need just some cleaning supplies or a cough syrup can walk into the Zippin section, grab those items and leave, without adding to the congestion in the main store.

I mean, it’s his company, so of course he thinks Zippin is a great solution for retailers right now. But the scenario that he describes actually makes a lot of sense. Sick people still have to shop (even in non-COVID-19 times), so they bundle up and head out to the grocery store, wandering the aisles, looking for things like medicine and Gatorade. Then they get in the same checkout lines as the healthy people.

Instead, as Motukuri suggests, grocery or drug stores could build a pop-up near their entrances filled with the items sick people buy. That way, these people, along with those caring for (and thereby in contact with) sick people, can quickly shop in a separate area, limiting contact with store workers and other customers.

This of course, can feel a bit ethically sticky. Prior to the pandemic, the big discussion around cashierless checkout was the removal of another human job. Now that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. But this vision of a store-within-a-store for sick people does admittedly conjure images of a second-class area for sick people to be shoved into. That’s to say nothing of the unbanked and underbanked not even being able to use cashierless checkout options.

I don’t have a clean answer to that problem. Life was complicated enough even before we implemented a six-foot personal space bubble around us. But these are the questions any retailer setting up cashierless checkout will have to grapple with.

But for those retailers interested in setting up their own cashierless Zippin Cube, Motukuri says his company is waiving all setup fees to stores selling household essentials or health and safety products.

Magic Spoon, the Low-Carb, Gluten-Free Keto-Friendly Cereal, Now Available in Mini Boxes

When I was growing up in the ’70s, there were fewer victories greater than my mom agreeing to buy the variety pack of mini cereal boxes. Apple Jacks, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, some healthy option I ignored, all shrink wrapped together for glorious consumption while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Being a modern, health-conscious parent, those sugar-packed treats of yesteryear are verboten in the Albrecht household. Which is why I’m excited that Magic Spoon announced today that it is now offering its low-carb, protein-packed kids-cereal-for-adults in mini-boxes.

Spoon devotees might remember that we went a little ga ga over Magic Spoon cereal last year. (We even did a whole podcast about it.) Instead of sugar, the company uses Allulose, a sweetener found in sources like figs and raisins, and as I wrote at the time:

I dug into a bowl of the Fruity cereal this morning and it tastes just like the sugary cereal of my youth, but has only 8g of carbohydrates 0g of sugar and 3 net carbs for keto counters (Froot Loops has 26g of carbs, 12 grams of sugar and 23 net carbs). It doesn’t really taste like any actual fruit, it tastes “pink” to my tastebuds (which is probably influenced by its shocking pink color), but Spoon Founder, Mike Wolf thinks it tastes exactly like Froot Loops. Regardless of any synesthesia, I ate a whole bowl and was ready to eat more.

The only catch to this enchanted cereal was the fact that it cost $40 for a four pack of 7 oz. boxes. And up until today, you had to buy it in a four pack.

Magic Spoon’s new mini boxes aren’t exactly cheap. A twelve-pack including a variety of fruity, frosted, cocoa and blueberry flavors will set you back $29. Each 1 oz. mini box of Magic Spoon contains 12g of protein, 3g of net carbs and 110 calories.

The company raised $5.5 million in September last year and said at the time it planned to use its new funds to expand its business. These mini-boxes actually seem like a pretty smart way to do that.

With its low-carb, high-protein formulation, the mini boxes could open up Magic Spoon into the snack category. Additionally, in the time of coronavirus and social distancing, having individual, single-serve boxes could make it easier for Magic Spoon to get into offices or cafeterias. Though, single-serving boxes also creates more packaging waste.

Magic Spoon’s mini-move also steps on rival The Cereal School, which offers its healthier cereal in single serve bags.

Regardless of the reasons, the arrival of Magic Spoon minis may just mean that have to clear my Saturday morning, fire up some classic cartoons and enjoy a few bowls of cereal.

Technomic Survey: Three in Ten Consumers to Eat Out Less Amid COVID-19 Fears

Even as the outbreak of coronavirus/COVID-19 continues to evolve and grow, we still don’t have a clear idea of exactly how much it will fundamentally change our entrenched, traditional behaviors. Are handshakes a thing of the past? Is working from home the new normal? Will we travel less for both work and fun?

While we can only wait to discover the answers to those bigger questions, a whitepaper from Technomic this week outlines some of the more immediate ways COVID-19 is impacting consumer behavior as it relates to how we get our food.

Technomic surveyed 1,000 consumers between Feb. 28 and March 2 and found “more than three in 10 consumers say they plan on leaving the house less often, not go to restaurants as often or not order food or beverages at away-from-home venues as often.” Additionally, of those refraining to eat out, “31 percent say that decreased frequency will last for between one and three months.”

Image via Technomic.

This isn’t great news for full-service restaurants, which are already having to work harder to attract foot traffic as off-premises grows more and more popular.

You might think this decrease in on-premise eating would translate into a wave of delivery orders from restaurants, but Technomic found that of people eating out less, only 13 percent think they will order more restaurant delivery because of the outbreak.

Technomic is quick to point out that there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to the virus’ spread, so it’s too soon to tell exactly what its full impact will be. However, the survey does point out a couple of areas where the food industry could face the biggest impacts.

On the negative side, as alluded to earlier, Technomic says on-premise dining at restaurants could face the biggest downturn as people hole up at home and avoid crowds.

And while it’s weird to think of an “upside” to a global pandemic, Technomic rightly points that that if people do refrain from sitting in a restaurant to eat, drive-thrus and delivery restaurants (think: pizza) could become more popular.

Additionally, supermarkets, which have already seen a surge in panic shopping, could also see their foodservice items benefit as people grab meals while grocery shopping.

And while they don’t mention it specifically, an increase in food delivery could bring with it a boom in ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants as restaurant brands look to pare down their physical footprint and infrastructure costs.

We’ve been chronicling how COVID-19’s spread is already altering how the food industry does business — whether it’s food conferences being canceled, reducing human-to-human contact with delivery, using robots to deliver food, or Kickstarter projects being delayed.

But when it comes to this outbreak, there’s not a whole lot we can do but wait (and wash our hands!). Technomic’s survey certainly won’t be the last word as this crisis evolves, but at least it provides some numbers to help businesses prepare.

Creator, the Robot Burger Restaurant, Adding Dinner Hours

Creator, the robot-powered hamburger restaurant in San Francisco, is expanding into dinner service. Starting March 9, Creator will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., the company posted on Instagram yesterday.

Creator is kind of a bellwether for the food robot industry. It’s a concept built around the idea of having a robot take over the manual repetition of grilling and assembling hamburgers, so human employees can focus on providing better customer service and learn new skills.

But up until this year, the Creator restaurant has had limited hours, operating only Wednesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Then this past January, the restaurant expanded service to five days a week (and added a plant-based burger option) but was still only open for lunch.

View this post on Instagram

Next Monday, March 9. Hours expand again … to 8pm. We'll be open after school and after work! Yes, we'll have HAPPY HOUR specials. The bigger the group you bring, the better the beer, wine & burger deals. 🍻🥂🍔🍔🍔⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ We can't wait for curious kids and families to stop by after school and for dinner! Many of you work far from SoMa during our lunch hours but live or play in SF at night. Now is your time.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Reservations allow large parties to beat the line, but we welcome walkups too. For group reservations and robot tours email events@creator.rest. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ —————————–⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ HAPPY HOUR⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ $30 pitcher + 3 burgers⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ $10 burger + beer, add fries for $2

A post shared by Creator (@eatatcreator) on

Those limited hours meant that really the only people who could enjoy Creator were office workers in downtown San Francisco. More specifically, those office workers in San Francisco within walking distance of the restaurant’s location at 3rd and Folsom. By opening up dinner hours, Creator should be able to attract a different clientele and really put its robot through its paces in terms of volume and uptime.

Food robotics is at an interesting point in its evolution. Robots that make food and drinks are still relatively new and remain more of a novelty than a common feature of restaurants. Even then, how those robots are being implemented is undergoing big changes.

In January, Miso Robotics unveiled the next iteration of its Flippy robot, which is no longer stationary and will be suspended on a rail to move back and forth as it grills burgers and fries tater tots. That new version of Flippy won’t be available until the end of this year, and in the meantime, Miso is turning to equity crowdfunding, not traditional VCs, to raise its next round of financing.

Other food robots have fallen on harder times. Cafe X shuttered its three downtown robot barista locations in order to focus on airports, and Zume closed its robot-assisted pizza delivery operations.

It looks like Creator’s slow, methodical approach is paying off, at least for its first location. Instead of trying to scale too quickly, Creator has seemingly been intentional in its addition of service hours. As it expands into dinner, the next challenge for Creator will be growing beyond one location.

Online Grocery Shopping Surges Amidst Coronavirus (So Tip Your Delivery Drivers!)

The Spoon is headquartered just outside of Seattle, and with a rise in coronavirus cases here over the weekend, things are understandably a little… tense. This tension was on full display at my local Safeway last night, where the cleaning supply and dry goods sections of the store were picked over and barren.

The rapidly spreading virus has sparked a rash of panic buying here and across the U.S. as concerned citizens stock up in the event of a societal collapse. The Washington Post writes:

Shelf-stable and frozen foods were in high demand. At a Trader Joe’s market in Mountain View, Calif., the freezer section was cleared out of pizza and most ready-made meals by Sunday evening. There was no pasta or rice left. One woman’s cart was piled to the brim with frozen mushroom ravioli. Another cart was filled with six gallons of milk.

Facing empty real world stores and an increasing fear of being in public places, there’s a surge in online shopping. According to MarketWatch:

In the past 30 days, 21% of U.S. consumers ordered perishable, edible groceries online, [NPD Groupd analyst David] Portalatin said. That’s up from 18% at the same point last year.

All this online shopping has taxed even the biggest of delivery players. Bloomberg reports that Amazon’s Fresh and Prime Now delivery services have been overwhelmed, and yesterday Amazon said delivery from both of those services would be impacted as it strains to meet up with demand.

As people find comfort in shopping from home, however, it’s important to remember that human beings are still making those deliveries. The Seattle Times notes that the boon in shopping means drivers can make more money, but they are definitely putting themselves at risk:

Some drivers have begun using hand sanitizer before and after ID checks, while some customers are applying disinfectant to grocery bags, said the gig-economy driver, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from the companies.

Faced with an amorphous, invisible threat that does not discriminate, could literally be anywhere, and will only get worse, our current delivery and logistical systems are going to be pushed to their limits. But as we’ve noted before, this outbreak could also help push forward technological solutions that require less human-to-human contact.

Robots like those from Starship could be an easy humanless way to deliver meals and medicines around the clock in densely populated areas (they’d still need to be sterilized). And self-driving delivery vans like those from Udelv could bring people bulkier items like groceries.

That’s still a ways off, especially since we haven’t had to lockdown any U.S. metropolitan areas (thankfully) yet, and the safety tradeoffs of autonomous vehicles must still be considered. So for now we’re still reliant on humans to make our deliveries. Those delivery drivers aren’t just bringing packages, they are serving as a lifeline to the food we need to eat. If you need to panic grocery shop to feel better, we can’t stop you. Just be sure you tip your delivery driver generously.

Report: Walmart+ to Take on Amazon Prime

Walmart is working on a new membership offering to take on Amazon Prime. Recode was first to report on the forthcoming Walmart+, which will broaden Walmart’s grocery Delivery Unlimited service and include perks like discounts on gas and prescription medication, as well as a Scan & Go service so members wouldn’t have to wait in line.

Recode writes that Walmart has been looking at this for the past 18 months, and the first public tests of Walmart+ could happen as soon as next month. It’s easy to see why Walmart is looking to launch this type of program soon, especially in light its fierce ongoing grocery battle with Amazon.

For its part, Amazon has been making very aggressive moves recently to expand its shopping dominance into the grocery aisle, including:

As you, and Walmart, can see, Amazon has an army of Prime members, and is quickly putting in place the real world means to grab more of their grocery dollars.

I mean, Walmart hasn’t exactly been slacking in the innovation department. It’s experimenting with self-driving delivery vehicles, robot-powered micro-fulfillment, has built out the AI-powered IRL store which uses cameras for real time inventory, and is making a big marketing push for its in-store pickup service.

But Walmart’s Delivery Unlimited, which the company started rolling out in earnest across the US last year, costs $98 for a year. But that’ll only get you free delivery of your groceries. At $119, Amazon Prime is pricier, but you also get music streaming, Prime video, two-day shipping from Amazon and a bunch of other stuff.

So it’s smart for Walmart+ to leveraging what infrastructural advantages it has, pharmacies, gas stations, etc., to fight off Amazon.

One thing is for sure. Walmart+ is just going to be one salvo in a big battle between the grocery retail giants this year.

Firstchop Abandons D2C Sous Vide Proteins for B2B Microwavable Meals

When Firstchop first launched towards the end of 2017, it was at the center of a couple of different trends then sweeping the food tech world. It was a direct to consumer mail order meal kit, kinda, it only provided vacuum-sealed frozen proteins (that were actually quite tasty). Those proteins were meant to be reheated at home with a sous vide machine wand, the hot kitchen device at the time, which Firstchop gave away as part of a customer’s subscription.

My oh my, how a couple of years can change an industry. Meal kits are still around but most of the growth is at retail, not mail order. And the consumer sous vide market has basically collapsed. Chef Steps laid off a bunch of staff before being acquired by Breville, Nomiku shut down, and Anova is expanding beyond sous vide wands and into a new steam oven.

Ajay Narain, Co-Founder of Firstchop told me by phone this week that he saw the the big sous vide collapse coming. “We knew by the end of 2018 that the D2C was dead and the luster of sous vide was gone,” Narain said.

“Sous vide really caught fire and then collapsed,” Narain said. “Unrealistic expecations were built around what sous vide could do. People thought it would be great for all of these different use cases, but it has a lot of limitations.”

So in January of 2019, Firstchop decided to abandon almost everything it started out doing. It was getting out of the direct to consumer business and out of the consumer sous vide game. Firstchop pivoted into refrigerated prepared meals sold through office vending machines. The company added veggies and carbs to its proteins and each meal is re-heated with a microwave.

Narain said that during an initial customer pilot of its new meals at the beginning of 2019, Firstchop sold three times as much product in the first month than it had the entire previous year of selling D2C.

Since that initial test, Firstchop has been developing its products and the company officially launched its menu of meals today, which include Chicken Tikka Masala, Korean Barbecue Beef, Grilled Chicken Breast, and Chicken Chili Verde. The company is in talks to sell its meals through different large foodservice companies that operate vending services for various companies.

Firstchop hasn’t completely abandoned its sous vide roots however. Narain said that the sous vide cooking just moved from the consumer to the back end, and that’s how all of its meals are prepared. “At a manufacturing level, sous vide cooking process on the backend is essential,” Narain said. “It delivers moistnenss and tenderness, and the microwave is like magic.”

What’s almost more impressive is that Firstchop has held on this long just by bootstrapping. While it survived the consumer sous vide implosion, we’ll have to see if this latest pivot will be Firstchop’s last.

Heme Park! Disney Picks Impossible’s Plant-Based Meat for its Menus

Impossible Foods is putting the “heme” in “theme park.” The company announced today that Disney has selected the Impossible Burger as its “preferred plant-based burger,” and will be adding the vegetarian meat to its menus at Disneyland, Disney World and Disney Cruise Line.

Being associated with one of the biggest brands on the planet is definitely a nice Donald Duck-sized feather in the cap for Impossible. It will help drive brand awareness among a whole new group of people, and getting the Disney seal of approval should help Impossible score similar deals as it fights off other plant-based burger rivals for market share.

It’s worth noting that Disney is using Impossible by name on its menu. It could have just gone with some other name nameless plant-based burger option (perhaps from Cargill?), but the Mouse House is naming names, and wants people to know its serving Impossible’s product. Impossible was already one of the fastest growing brands in the U.S. last year, and teaming with Disney certainly won’t hurt.

But while Disney is a huge brand name, we should also keep the actual numbers in proper context. Disneyland drew in 18.7 million people last year, while Disney World attracted 20.9 million visitors. According to MagicGuide, Disney World serves 10 million hamburgers a year.

Burger King, another Impossible partner, on the other hand, serves 11 million people globally every day, and claims to sell 2.1 billion Whoppers around the world each year.

Obviously, there’s only a certain subsection of these audiences that will choose the plant-based option, but the bigger point is that the Disney partnership shouldn’t put a strain on Impossible’s production, like the BK deal did last year.

But what the Disney deal does do is give Impossible another direct connection with the consumer. Disney patrons will be ordering Impossible products by name, an important point as Impossible continues its moves into grocery stores.

Impossible launched its ground meat product last year at select grocery stores. But at retail, Impossible faces competition from the likes of Beyond Meat, Light Life, and a host of other plant-based meat players vying for your greenbacks.

Disney, however, with its parks and cruises, has a variety of different eateries on-site. So the relationship also gives Impossible a number of venues to show off the Impossible Burger served in ways other than a straight up patty, and even outlets to serve up the new Impossible pork product.

The bottom line though is that the happiest place on earth just got a little happier for flexitarians.

Newsletter: PicoBrew is up for Sale, What Does That Mean for the Home Brewing Market?

On Friday, The Spoon’s very own Mike Wolf got the scoop that home brewing appliance maker, PicoBrew, was in receivership and being put up for sale.

Read Mike’s full story for all the details, but the TL;DR version: PicoBrew was going after a lot of different markets including both home and professional beer brewing, cold brew coffee and even spirits aging. All of which added up to a complex cap table, and none of which added up to a breakthrough business.

But perhaps more interesting is that PicoBrew is the latest in a long line of crowdfunded beer brewing devices that didn’t make it as an independent, ongoing concern. HOPii, iGulu, and Brewbot, all promised to make beer brewing easy for the masses, and all are gone.

To be fair, those other devices never really got out of the starting gate. HOPii ran into legal trouble before going into production, iGulu ran into a string of problems during production, and Brewbot reportedly only made a few units before it ran out of money.

PicoBrew, on the other hand, had always been a gold standard for crowdfunded hardware. The company raised millions and actually delivered their products (they even canceled the Pico U crowdfunding because it wasn’t trending as well as previous campaigns).

So the question becomes, is the home beer making appliance market dead? If PicoBrew can’t make it work on its own, can anyone? We’ll definitely be watching BEERMKR more closely now. That company had already delayed shipping its product by more than a year, and now the Coronavirus epidemic in China could delay it even further.

The one reason to hold out hope for BEERMKR, however, is that it is a more open platform than the PicoBrew. Initially, the PicoBrew required PicoPaks of ingredients to make beer, something the company later relented on and opened up. From the get-go BEERMKR lets you add your own ingredients, not locking the user into a particular eco-system.

The MiniBrew is another appliance making a go of it. That company raised €2.6M in funding at the end of 2018, and has been shipping across Europe since then. The company has set a target of 2020 to enter the U.S. market, so we’ll be keeping eyes on them as well.

But independent home brewing companies will face pressure from another side as LG has its own beer brewing appliance, which it showed off at IFA last year. However, LG’s Homebrew wasn’t on display at CES, so who knows how much emphasis it’s putting on the device. But with its combination of sales channel and marketing muscle, will LG’s mere presence prevent more hardware startups from entering the beer making biz?

Who knows? Perhaps LG or some other consumer appliance company will swoop in and buy PicoBrew’s assets and the device will live on. If that happens, The Spoon will be working hard to get that scoop.

The coronavirus’ impact on food tech

Let’s just start this by saying that the deadly coronavirus epidemic is frightening in just about every conceivable manner. And while there are far more important ramifications about the disease, for our purposes, it’s worth taking a moment to see how it is impacting the business of food tech.

We haven’t heard from any big food tech companies specifically, but manufacturing is impacting production of all kinds tech companies like Nintendo, Apple and Tesla. It’s a safe bet that food-related consumer electronics companies won’t be immune from this.

As noted above, the outbreak is delaying the production of some Kickstarter projects, and hopefully those campaigns raised enough money to weather this crisis.

We’ve also seen how food delivery is adapting when there is a fear of human to human contact. Robots are being used to deliver food to people stranded in a quarantine hotel in Hangzhou, China. Each floor has its own robot that runs down the hallway announcing itself, as people wearing surgical masks pop out to retrieve food off the bot.

Elsewhere, KFC and Pizza Hut are employing a contactless method of food delivery. Human delivery drivers get their temperature taken before they depart, wear a surgical map and drop food off at an outside spot. The driver sets the food down and stays ten feet away from the recipient while the food is picked up. Hands and delivery boxes are disinfected after each delivery.

Looking ahead, it’s worth thinking about how this pandemic could permanently alter the delivery business in China and elsewhere. Will this accelerate more autonomous delivery vehicles a la Starship and Kiwi? Will sterilization protocols become de rigeur for any delivery vehicle? Will there be greater adoption of external, temperature controlled delivery lockers that sit outside apartments and houses?

Hopefully the spread of corona will subside soon, so we can start to answer these questions.

Customize is coming! Get your ticket today!

Hard to believe, but Customize, our food personalization summit is almost here! Happening February 27 in New York City, we have put together a stellar lineup of speakers including:

  • Scott Wu, CTO, Compass Group, will be talking about the impact of personalization on food service and restaurants.
  • Brian Kathmann, Dir., Commercial Platforms, Healthcare – 84.51° Kroger will be talking about the early results from the big grocery store’s entry into food as medicine
  • Dr. Sherry Zhang, CEO, GenoPalate, will be talking about how our DNA could shape personalized food choices
  • Josh Baillon, Digital Innovation Manager, Nestlé, will be discussing some of the key considerations for a big CPG as they create a personalized food business

Tickets are going fast, so you’ll want to make sure you have a spot at the table. Use the special Spoon subscriber discount code THESPOON15 for a 15% discount off your tickets.