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Newsletter: A FoodTech Thanksgiving, China’s Robot Restaurants, and Taste Copyright

This is the post version of our weekly newsletter. If you’d like to get the weekly Spoon in your inbox, you can subscribe here.

Greetings all!

Here in the States, it’s the calm before the storm. I’m referring, of course, to Thanksgiving — the meal where we get together with family and friends, give thanks, and have a mild panic attack while cooking a turkey (and sides, and pie, and…).

Not this year. This year I’m following the lead of my colleague Chris and leveraging food tech to make Thanksgiving a breeze. From smart meat thermometers to alterna-meat stuffing to an eternally warm cup of coffee, he’s got the guide for letting technology help make this year’s feast the best (and easiest) one yet.

But if all that sounds too complicated, Jenn has compiled a list of companies that will deliver the Turkey Day spread to your door, in full or in part. We don’t judge.

Speaking of the kitchen, this week Brava shipped its countertop oven that cooks with light (yes, light) and can supposedly heat up to 500 °F in one second flat. Lately there’s been a wave of connected countertop cooking devices, such as the June, Tovala, Suvie, and the Amazon microwave, so we’ll have to see if Brava’s can break away from the pack and carve out space on our kitchen counters.

The kitchen may be filling up with smart devices, but in the restaurant world there be robots. And soon there will be a lot more — at least in China. This week Chinese e-commerce company JD.com opened the first of its planned 1,000 XCafe robot restaurants, in which ordering, food prep, and serving is all taken done by robots. China is jumping into the robot restaurant biz with both feet: JD.com and Haidilao, which is planning a chain of automated hotpot restaurants, have over 6,000 in the works combined. If the U.S. wants to stay relevant in the automated foodservice game, they’ll have to step up.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (no shade), you heard the news this week that Amazon announced its new HQ2 locations: New York City and Arlington, VA. Which is no doubt a big deal for things like housing prices, but we here at the Spoon are more interested in what it will mean for food tech. Hint: more Amazon Go stores, more drones.

And now onto our favorite topic: cheese. Earlier this week, an EU court presided over a case was between two cheese companies, one of whom argued that the other was copying its signature taste. The conclusion: taste cannot be copyrighted, because it “cannot be identified with precision and objectivity.” But Mike thinks that technology could change all that.

What about a nice Camembert made from cow-free milk? Perfect Day, which uses fermentation to make dairy without the animal, has partnered with food giant ADM to scale up production and enter the market quickly. Which means that in a not-too-distant future you could be snacking on cheese (or yogurt, or ice cream) made from milk created entirely without a cow.

If you’re in the LA area, we’re headed to you on November 27th! We’re putting on a half-day event with hardware VC firm Make in L.A. to explore the world of food tech, from restaurants to robots to investment. Join us for this event to hear from the CEOs of Ordermark, Kitchen United, Pathspot, Somabar & DishyDivvy, all while enjoying a free taco!

And finally, if you haven’t heard we are bringing the latest in foodtech to Vegas next year with FoodTech Live. If you want to show off your foodtech or smart kitchen product to the world’s leading business and tech journalists, you can inquire about sponsorships here. Don’t have a product to show, but just want to just come and check out the latest foodtech from the cool startups we’ve lined up? You can request a pass here.

Have a great weekend,
Catherine

Image credit: Flickr user Niklas Morberg under creative commons

EU Court Rules Taste Can’t Be Copyrighted. Will Tech Someday Change That?
Can taste be copyrighted? According to an EU court, the answer is no (or at least not yet). At least that’s how they ruled this week in a court battle between two cheese companies. But will technology open up new doors to taste copyright?

My Food Tech Plans for Thanksgiving: Delivery, Caffeine, Meater and More
The Spoon Head Editor Chris plans to leverage food tech to make his Thanksgiving run smoothly, from smart meat thermometers to connected countertop ovens.

Video: To Succeed in the Smart Kitchen, “You Have to Get Multi-Model Fast”
In this video from the 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit, experts in voice and connected appliances discuss the role that voice tech will play in the kitchen of the future — and how it has to work with screens in order to be successful.

Groupe SEB Acquires Cooking Site 750g
Groupe SEB, which owns a portfolio of small appliance and cookware brands, announced this week that it has acquired French recipe site and digital media publisher 750g International.

Perfect Day Partners with ADM to Scale up Production of Cow-Free Dairy
Perfect Day, the startup which makes milk without the animal, today announced that it has entered into a partnership with global food processing company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). Together the two are hoping to scale up Perfect Day’s tech and produce animal-free whey over the next few years.

There Are a Ton of Ways to Get Thanksgiving Delivered to Your Door This Year
Amazon’s not the only one peddling Turkey’s in 2018. From grocery delivery to meal kits to ordering in, there are a few ways to get some help with your Thanksgiving feast.

Would You Rent (and Return) a Coffee Mug to Reduce Waste?
In Colorado, Vessel Works launched a beta program which lets people “rent” reusable stainless steel coffee mugs for free and return them to kiosks around town. CupClub in London is doing something similar — but will this trend catch on enough to combat paper coffee cup waste?

Uber Q3 Earnings: Eats Grows 150 Percent YOY, Does $2.1 Billion in Gross Bookings
Uber released its third quarter earnings this week, which revealed that its food delivery business, Uber Eats, generated $2.1 billion in gross bookings — an increase of 150 percent over the same time period last year. Uber is trying to emphasis the success of Eats as its expected to go public in 2019.

Video: Food Blockchain — Just Hype, Or True Path To Food Transparency?
Blockchain is everywhere, from currency to copyright protection. In this video of a panel from the 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit, executives from Walmart and Ripe.io discuss how blockchain can help increase food safety and promote customer knowledge in the kitchen.

Apples to Apples: Agrofresh’s Tech Optimizes Produce Freshness Along the Supply Chain
Agriculture technology company Agrofresh helps optimize produce freshness along the supply chain, from post-harvest to the grocery shelves.

Impossible Foods’ Plant-Based Burgers Will Be in Stores Next Year

Impossible Foods announced today that it will start selling their popular plant-based burgers in retail stores in 2019.

The Redwood, CA-based company has been expanding rapidly over the past year. It raised $114 million in April of this year, bringing its total war chest to over $387 million (according to Crunchbase). Their “bleeding” burgers are available in roughly 5,000 restaurants around the globe, including all 377 locations of the fast-food chain White Castle and select Air New Zealand flights. In September of 2017 the company cut the ribbon on an Oakland production facility which can make 500,000 pounds of the plant-based “meat” per month.

Now the startup is making its long-anticipated entry into the retail space — and their strategy to start out in restaurants seems to have paid off. While competitor Beyond Burgers, which has been available in retail since 2016, is struggling to keep up with demand, Impossible’s comparatively slower rollout has given them ample time to scale up production while building brand awareness.

On a separate note, it will be interesting to see what the price point for Impossible’s retail burgers. Beyond Meat typically retail for around $5.99 for two patties, which is roughly twice the price of beef per ounce. While Impossible debuted at an expensive $18 at Momofuku Nishi, their decision to offer sliders for $1.99 at White Castle shows that they’re trying to appeal to all price points.

By moving into retail, Impossible Foods is becoming an even more direct competitor for Beyond Meat. However, Beyond’s products are available in over 30,000 locations — comparatively, Impossible’s footprint is much smaller. But even if they do scale up to sit side-by-side on the grocery store shelf, demand for plant-based protein is so high that it might not take a bite out of Beyond’s sales. If 2019 is indeed the year we move beyond (ha!) meat, there’s plenty of room for all.

Newsletter: Meal Kit Misfires, Microwaves with Cameras, 7-Eleven vs. Amazon Go

Happy election day!

While poking around the internet last night reading election coverage, we noticed a Spoon reader comment that Boston meal kit company Just Add Cooking (JAC) has ceased operations. JAC specialized in meals with locally-sourced ingredients from the New England area, and launched a crowdfunding campaign earlier this month. Sadly, they fell far short of their goals and weren’t able to track down enough financing to continue serving their customers.

As Michael Wolf wrote, “The news is yet another sign that startups are having trouble making the economics of meal kits work even while sales rise.”

If meal kits are going to survive at all, it’ll likely be on retail shelves — in stores such as Amazon Go. This week Chris unpacked a study on shopper behavior in their cashierless stores. One of the most surprising finds? On average, customers spend a whopping 27 minutes in a Go store per visit.

As Amazon Go stores start popping up around the country, 7-Eleven is scrambling to keep up. This week they launched a Scan & Pay pilot that lets shoppers scan their items on their phone for speedier self-checkout. Chris wasn’t optimistic that this would help 7-Eleven keep up with Amazon’s cashierless stores, which he wrote were “putting the ‘convenience’ in convenience store.” I’ll still pop in for those slushies, though (cherry cola swirl FOR LIFE).

In the home kitchen, this week our resident intellectual property nerd Michael Wolf uncovered a patent issued last week to BSH Appliances for a microwave oven with a camera built into it. While it might not be that useful to watch your popcorn pop, Mike guessed that the camera would act as a sensor which could “enable AI-powered cooking applications such as real-time precision heat adjustment.” No more burned popcorn!

Electrolux has teamed up with Karma to create a smart grocery fridge aimed at reducing food waste. The appliance giant invested in their fellow Swedes this past summer as part of a $12 million funding round, and at the time the two agreed to team up to find ways to reduce food waste. The new smart fridge seems like an innovative approach that taps into both companies respective expertise.

Other news: Today Israeli startup Taranis raised $20 million for its AI-powered aerial imaging tech, which can help farmers find and fix crop threats like disease, insect infestations, and weeds. And meat corporations Oscar Mayer and Tyson entered the fray of a hotly contested question: What is a sandwich?

If you haven’t noticed, we’ve been rolling out posts featuring videos from the Smart Kitchen Summit (watch our growing video library here)! Our latest post: a fireside chat with Eli Holzman, who created Project Runway and went on to co-found guided-cooking video platform Project Foodie. He has some great insights on the role of video in the kitchen, so give it a watch.

And if you’re in the Los Angeles area, join us on November 27th for our next food tech meetup, in partnership with hardware VC firm MiLA. It’s a half-day of programming around restaurant tech, food investment, and hardware innovation — plus, it’s free! Bonus: there will be tacos. We’d love to see you there.

Lastly, it’s never too soon to plan for CES. The folks behind SKS will be bringing the first and only foodtech event to Vegas during CES this year, FoodTech Live on January 8th.

That’s all from me this week! I’m off to get that coveted “I voted” sticker (Just kidding, I am a lazy person and mailed in my ballot!)

-Catherine

Electrolux and Karma Team up for Smart Grocery Fridge to Reduce Food Waste
Appliance giant Electrolux partnered with startup (and fellow Swedes) Karma to create a new smart refrigerator that helps grocery stores fight food waste.

Taranis Harvests $20M for Aerial Imaging Tech that Detects Crop Diseases
Crop threat detection company Taranis closed a $20 million Series B funding round, bringing their total funding to $30 million. The Israeli startup uses aerial imaging and deep learning to help farmers detect crop threats at early stages.

Meal Kit Startup Just Add Cooking Ceases Operations
Just Add Cooking (JAC), the Boston-based meal kit company specializing in locally-sourced meals from the New England area, has ceased operations. Despite launching a crowdfunding campaign earlier this month, the startup couldn’t secure enough funding to continue their services.

Study: When Do People Go to Amazon Go? (And You Won’t Believe How Long They Stay)
Chris takes a deep dive into a study which examined shopper habits in Amazon Go’s across the country. The most surprising takeaway? The average time a shopper spends inside the store is a whopping 27 minutes.

From Project Runway to Project Foodie: Eli Holzman on The Power of Kitchen Video
In this video from the 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit, Eli Holzman, the creator of Project Runway and co-founder of Project Foodie, talks about the role he thinks video will play in the kitchen.

7-Eleven Launches Scan & Pay Pilot to Keep Up with Amazon Go
Storied convenience store chain 7-Eleven launched a new Scan & Pay pilot program that lets shoppers use their mobile phone for self-checkout. But is it convenient enough to compete with the cashierless Amazon Go?

BSH Appliances Patents Camera-Enabled Microwave Oven
Michael Wolf uncovered a patent recently issued to BSH Appliances recently for a microwave oven with a camera for observing food inside the cooking chamber. He guess it’ll be less used to check on your food visually, and more useful as a way to adjust temperature or time throughout the cooking process.

Oscar Mayer and Tyson Jump Into the “Is it a Sandwich” Debate
Two food giants, Oscar Mayer and Tyson, recently jumped into the fray of a widely debated (and heated) question: What, exactly, is a sandwich?

Allergy Fears and Transparency Among Issues at latest USDA/FDA Meat-ing

Earlier this week, scientists, entrepreneurs, and concerned members of the public got together to discuss the future of cell-based (also called “cultured” and “lab-grown”) meat during a joint meeting put on by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to the FDA news release, the meeting was intended to “focus on the potential hazards, oversight considerations, and labeling of cell cultured food products derived from livestock and poultry.”

The FDA held the first meeting on cultured meat back in July, and while it succeeded in starting the conversation around regulation of meat grown outside an animal, not much was concluded. From the people I spoke to who attended the meeting, everyone agreed that something had to be done to regulate this new edible technology, but no one could agree exactly what — or even what to call it.

Watching recordings from the meeting and scanning through Twitter, one topic seemed to be the most divisive, contentious, and downright critical: labeling. It’s where I think that the real stakes (steaks?) are: nomenclature will be a determining factor in consumer perception of this new technology. Here are a few interesting points that came up during the meeting:

Labeling is actually a health concern

“We cell-based food producers do need to use the terms ‘fish’ and ‘meat’,” said Michael Selden, the CEO of cultured seafood company Finless Foods. “If one is allergic to animal-based seafood, that person has a high probability that they’ll be allergic to the seafood made with our technology.”

His company is working to create fish meat that is identical, on a cellular level, to traditional fish. If they succeed, labeling cultured salmon something like “cell-based artificial salmon product,” consumers with a life-threatening allergy to salmon might not realize that it posed just as big a threat.

Given, not all that many consumers are allergic to meat and seafood. But it’s still an important point: cultured meat is meat on a molecular level.

Photo: Flickr, by Adactio

Should labeling address how the product is made?

“It’s clear that consumers care about the way that their food is produced,” said Liz Holt of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. If cultured meat is required to disclose all the substances that went into it, should traditional meat be held to the same standards?

As of now, meat companies can choose whether or not to display information about the animal’s life and diet, such as “grass-fed” or “free-range.” They don’t have to disclose what the animal ate, or where it was raised.

Some consumers might not want to know exactly what type of life the cow in their bargain ground beef had before making its way onto their plate. Specht’s point shows that more information is generally good — but sometimes the consumer doesn’t want or need it.

Cell-based meat wants its own labels

Both sides of the table agreed on one thing: cultured meat should be labeled differently than traditional meat. Cultured meat startups want to indicate to the consumer that their product is meat, but is also different than meat from a slaughtered animal.

Peter Licari, CTO of JUST, said that there should be a regulatory nomenclature that “sufficiently differentiates cell-cultured products from traditional meat products but appropriately acknowledges these products as meat.”

What exactly that elusive final term will be — one that effectively communicates both that the product is meat, but not meat from a slaughtered animal — isn’t clear. But companies and regulatory bodies need to figure it out pretty quickly. JUST is still planning to be the first company to bring cultured meat to market by the end of this year, and Finless Foods will launch its cell-based tuna in 2019. By 2021 Mosa Meats and Memphis Meats will join them.

Isha Datar of New Harvest said it best, speaking at the meeting: “This is not just a product, but a new paradigm for food production.” Now the FDA and USDA need to figure out what to call it.

Wool, Cool! This Company Makes Food Insulation Out of Sheep’s Clothing

No matter how sustainable your produce delivery or meal kit may be, it still carries one whopping environmental cost: packaging. One company is trying to solve that using a very old material — one that you might know from your sweaters.

The Wool Packaging Company came about when CEO Angela Morris was developing a way for British cattle farmers to keep meat cool during shipment without using polystyrene (also known as the much-maligned styrofoam). She had heard that wool was a natural insulator for buildings, and decided to try it out as an insulator for food. To her surprise, during test trials the wool kept the meat cool for 48 hours — outperforming even the styrofoam.

Established in 2009, the company’s brand, Woolcool, consists of liners and padded envelopes made of wool and covered in recyclable, food-grade polyethylene. The wool interior is biodegradable and will compost in one year; the outside lining is reusable and recyclable.

Anyone who’s ever splurged on a 100 percent wool sweater will tell you that material costs a pretty penny. But Woolcool uses so-called “waste” wool — that is, wool from the belly of the sheep that’s too short to weave into textiles and is often discarded by farmers, making it cheaper to buy.

According to Josie Morris, Managing Director of WoolCool (and daughter of CEO Angela), last year alone the company sold roughly 5 million of their liners. That’s the equivalent of over 2 million sheep. In addition to the liners — two will fully line the insides of most boxes — Woolcool also makes padded envelopes and pouches that can keep food, even the frozen stuff like ice cream, chilled below 5° C (41° F) for over 24 hours.

There are other perks to using wool as insulator. It’s more breathable than polystyrene, so it can absorb condensation from the air to keep food cooler for a longer period of time. (However, it’s sealed in plastic so the wool doesn’t come in direct contact with the food). It can also be flat-packed, which means less shipping cost than premade rectangular styrofoam boxes.

Roughly 75 percent of Woolcool’s clients are in the food industry: in addition to local butchers, cheesemongers, and farmers, the company also works with some pretty major customers such as juice and smoothie company innocent, Unilever, and meal kit company gousto. They also make insulated sheets and pouches for pharmaceutical shipments. Morris didn’t disclose exact pricing details, but said they were very competitive in the insulation market.

As of now the majority of Woolcool’s customers are in the U.K. and Europe. However, Morris said that they were looking to gain traction in the U.S., though they’re conscious of the increased carbon footprint of shipping their products so far.

Their emphasis on the environment also means that Woolcool has to work harder to prove themselves. “There’s an automatic assumption that if you’re going to use something eco-friendly you’ve got to sacrifice something too: either cost or performance,” said Morris. “Actually, that’s not true.”

Woolcool has had to fight to become known as not just a sustainable insulator, but also an effective one. “In fact, sometimes you have to prove yourselves even more because you’re a natural material,” said Morris.

As a growing contingent of people order food and groceries via delivery, more companies are working on ways to reduce the shocking amount of packaging required to ship said food around the world. Also based in the U.K., Aeropowder makes insulation sheets out of surplus feathers from the poultry industry. In the U.S., NaturalBlue transforms recycled denim into insulation. Ecovative Design uses mycelium — a.k.a. mushroom roots — to created insulated packaging.

But the eco-friendly insulation space is definitely not a zero-sum game. The global sustainable packaging market is projected to reach roughly $440 billion by 2025. With food delivery and grocery e-commerce also on the rise, Woolcool and its contemporaries have the potential to seriously shear (sorry) high environmental price of food packaging.

Food Community Rallies Around Those Impacted by Pilotworks Shut Down

Given the state of the world and the steady stream of negative garbage that flows through our news feeds every day, acts of kindness and generosity have an outsized impact and seem to shine that much brighter.

When commercial kitchen space Pilotworks abruptly shut down over the weekend, it wasn’t just employees and investors of the company that were impacted. Because Pilotworks was trying to build the “AWS for kitchens,” it’s closure sent shockwaves through the food entrepreneur community. The closure of the Brooklyn Pilotworks location alone impacted 175 food vendors working out of there, and Pilotworks had locations in Newark, Chicago, and Dallas (not to mention the Providence and Portland, ME locations that it closed earlier this year).

The stress associated with an office location shutting down is bad enough, but when your business is food, there is an additional layer of anxiety because your inventory and product are perishable. All the ingredients (literally) that make up your business need to be stored properly, and might require specialized equipment that can be large and bulky. Basically, when Pilotworks closed its doors so quickly, people had to scramble and come up with a solution fast.

This is where it all gets heartwarming. Out of the ashes of Pilotworks arose a vibrant community that immediately sprang into action to help.

We at The Spoon were inundated with comments and tweets and emails from kitchens near Pilotworks locations offering space. A Slack channel and resource website were set up. But we are on the outside, looking in. Nick Shippers of Ube Kitchen sent me the following note that really captured what went on from someone who was directly impacted:

What we learned through this chaos is that the soul of Pilotworks had always been the makers who created a coalition within hours. We jumped into pools of rides, with equipment still our laps, to tour other kitchens and process a transition as soon as possible. Slack channels filled with help as it came in from all over the city and country to help shift operations and provide resources for everyone’s needs. The outpouring of support, at all hours of the day, reflects that there is still a very organic force of food makers in New York City that will come back stronger.

Right now, most of the help seems to be centered around NYC/Newark, NJ businesses, though we have heard from a few Dallas and Chicago operations offering their help.

I’m sure all the entrepreneurs impacted by Pilotworks would have preferred it if Pilotworks stayed open and everyone could have gone about their business as usual. But it’s the worst moments that define us, and from what we can tell, the food community will only get stronger from this.

Instacart Bags Another $600 Million in a Bid to Be Your Grocery Delivery Service

Grocery delivery startup Instacart announced today that it has raised another $600 million in a new funding round led by D1 Capital Partners. According to Crunchbase, this brings the total amount of funding raised by Instacart to $1.6 billion (with a b).

This latest mega-funding round comes after Instacart had raised $150 million in April, which followed a $200 million round in February. But Instacart isn’t alone, as money has been poured into grocery delivery companies this year. Just during the back half of this summer, Postmates raised $300 million and DoorDash raised $250 million (which followed a $535 million raise back in April for the company).

Phew! With that much money, all these startups should be delivering groceries in warchests instead of reusable totes.

The online grocery space is expected to hit $100 billion by 2022, and all these startups are ramping up to grab your business now so you’ll spend more with them then. In its press announcement, Instacart said that it will be using this new money for “further expansion in North America, marketing investments to increase awareness of Instacart at our retail partners’ stores, and recruiting world-class engineering and product development talent.”

Instacart recently signed a deal to provide grocery delivery for 1,600 Kroger stores by the end of this month. Last year the company signed a deal to be in 1,800 Albertsons stores. But as I noted previously, while Instacart is expanding at a rapid clip, it’s not really innovating.

Kroger has been on an innovation tear this year, ramping up investments in Ocado to do robot-driven smart warehouses, and piloting tests of autonomous delivery vehicles. DoorDash is experimenting with robots. And Walmart is launching its own delivery service.

Hopefully we’ll see some innovation announcements come from Instacart in the near future. At the very least, ideally all this money means any bananas I order from them won’t arrive in a deep shade of unripe forest green.

Cinder Grill Flames Out, Files for Bankruptcy After Production and Legal Problems

After a year of manufacturing issues and legal woes, Palate Home, the maker of the Cinder smart grill, is shutting down and filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Palate Home Co-Founder and CEO, Eric Norman, posted the news on Indiegogo, where nearly a thousand people had crowdfunded Cinder, giving it more than $550,000 in total.

We kind of saw this coming when we uncovered last month that a San Mateo court had ordered Palate Home to repay a $250,000 convertible note plus interest to Tony Fadell’s Future Shape investment firm. The court issued a summary judgment, which indicated that Palate Home didn’t even provide a defense in the case.

In yesterday’s update, Norman said the lawsuit was the “proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back,” but also said that “the root cause of this is that the company was simply not able to sell enough product, or produce that product consistently and economically.”

Chapter 7 bankruptcy means that Palate Home’s assets will be sold off to pay its creditors. What this means for the future of the technology behind Cinder is unclear. Will the underlying IP be acquired and baked into a different product? Those who used the Cinder (our own Mike Wolf included), really liked the countertop precision cooking device.

This means that the vast majority of those who backed the project will not be getting their Cinder grills, joining the sad chorus of crowdfunding failures which includes HOPii and BrewBot. In previous Indiegogo updates, Norman indicated that there were hundreds of Cinder smart grills in a warehouse in China. The fate of those devices is unclear, or how they will work if the app is no longer being supported.

We’ve reached out to Norman for comment, and will update if we hear more. Here’s the full text of the update he left on Indiegogo yesterday:

Resolution

Dear contributors,

Today I write you with a heavy heart. Our final attempt at negotiating a settlement was not accepted and I have instructed our attorney to file for a Ch. 7 bankruptcy. Unfortunately, this means the company will not be able to ship any more perks. I never expected this to happen, but I do take responsibility for it and I am very sorry this is how things turned out.

We made a generous offer to which the rational response would be to accept, but unfortunately I cannot control the other party. Had that offer been accepted, I believe we would have been able to deliver all perks and continue supporting the product. At this point I have exhausted our options and there is no way to continue operating the business.

While it would be simplest to blame the other party, and I admit that I have felt anger and depression during this trying process, it ultimately comes down to my responsibility as CEO to take in what the world presents and turn it into a viable business. I was unable to make that happen and some promises are left unfulfilled and I feel terrible about that. I’m sure many of you will be angry, and I can’t blame you for that. All I can say is that I am very sorry and I hope that you can accept my apology.

While this lawsuit was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, the root cause of this is that the company was simply not able to sell enough product, or produce that product consistently and economically. Many people thought that if only the product could be explained better, to more people, it would become a smash success, which is why we launched this campaign. We were so excited at the support and were on track to deliver perks and close out. Along the way, we experienced death by a thousand cuts which ultimately prevented that from happening (production was slower and at lower quality than expected, we sold less than expected, and the lawsuit reduced available resources, etc.).

I will monitor the comments for the rest of the day, so post if you have any questions or suggestions.

Eric

P.S. If you’re an entrepreneur, I recommend being wary of convertible notes. Brad Feld mentions in Venture Deals in passing that there can be problems like this, and it has caused enough difficulty that YC created a funding method that does not mature. If you’re like me and you love building product and making it something people love, then any time spent on things like legal matters is agony – you can avoid any chance of this happening by simply not using this type of funding.

From the Newsletter: Amazon 4-star, “Pizza! Pizza!” Pizza Portal, and Shake Shack!

It feels trivial to cobble together a newsletter highlighting recent food tech news, given the events of this week.

But if there is any tenuous connection that can make it worth your reading, perhaps it’s that food creates small acts of kindness, and these small acts of kindness can connect us. And advances in technology that help more people make (or sure, get delivery of) more food can, in turn, create more small acts of kindness that have big impacts with our families, our friends and our communities.

We are excited to bring our community together in-person at our Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle, which is just days away. We’re going to take two days to really explore the future of food, and what that future means. We look forward to seeing everyone who can make it there in person, and if you bump into myself or Mike or Catherine or Jenn in the crowded halls, please say hi. We’d love to connect.

With that said, here are some of the big stories we ran this week:

“Convenience isn’t a trend,” is something the CEO of Ordermark told me this year, and three companies made moves to deliver greater convenience for its customers. Amazon opened up its first 4-star Store in NYC, carrying only products that rate 4 stars or higher on its site. Translation: All killer, no filler. Can you think of another company that could pull this off?

No matter how many stars you’d give Little Caesar’s pizza (pizza), its new Pizza Portal is a good example of giving customers more choice. As Jenn Marston wrote, users can order and pay with the Little Caesar’s mobile app and when they arrive at the store, they skip the line and pick up their hot pizza.

If instead of pizza you’re going for a night out, Cargo raised $22.5 million to scale up its rideshare vending service. The company outfits the likes of Uber cars with small plastic boxes that hold snacks, cosmetics and even USB cords. It’s a shrunken, mobile convenience store that travels with you to your destination and gives drivers a chance to make a little extra money.

One place Seattle-ites will be lining up is the impending Shake Shack (our first). One of the featured menu items will be a local-themed burger with craft beef provided by Seattle startup Crowd Cow, which even avowed vegetarian Catherine Lamb wants to try.

Students were also in the news this week. We uncovered a trend of kids meal companies shutting down. Nomsly, Wide Apple and Red Apple all either closed completely or hit the pause button. Perhaps mail order wasn’t the way to go.

And finally, Grubhub is going after college students with the $150 million acquisition of Tapingo. Already in more than 150 colleges and universities, Tapingo lets students order ahead from campus eateries and cafeterias. Presumably, this means that students will continue to use Grubhub after they graduate from college.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy the weekend. Be kind and be sure to introduce yourself at SKS!

Stories in this issue:

Amazon 4-Star Store is Kinda Like a Wirecutter in Real Life
The concept of the new physical store is that it only stocks products that are rated 4 stars or higher, is a top seller or is new and trending on Amazon.com.

Little Caesars Pizza Portal Could Boost Mobile Sales and Pizza Innovation
While everyone else has been duking it out for space in the delivery sector, Little Caesars — who does not and maybe never will deliver — has been hard at work perfecting a totally different tactic.

Snack on This, Cargo Raises $22.5 Million
Cargo, the startup that helps rideshare drivers sell snacks and such inside their cars, announced today that it has raised a $22.5 million Series A round of funding led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

provided by Seattle startup Crowd Cow
The Montlake Double Cut, is a double cheeseburger made with local beef sourced from Crowd Cow, topped with Just Jack cheese from Seattle institution Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, caramelized onions, and a mustard-mayo sauce on a locally made Macrina bakery bun.

Nomsly, Red Apple, Wise Apple All Shut Down. What can Save Kids’ Meal Kits?
Yumble was a a bright spot in the flailing meal kit sector, Nomsly launched a Kickstarter campaign, and Chicago-based Wise Apple was peddling its pre-packed lunch subscription service to families. Over in Boston, Red Apple offered the same thing to East Coasters.

https://thespoon.tech/grubhub-goes-back-to-school-with-150m-tapingo-acquisition/
Grubhub announced an agreement to acquire Tapingo, whose platform enables college students to order ahead at on-campus restaurants, cafes, and dining halls. The acquisition is for $150 million, according to the Grubhub press release.

Ordermark Raises $9.5 Million for its Online Order Management Tools
Ordermark, a startup that helps restaurants unify and organize online orders, announced that it has closed a $9.5 million Series A round.

The FDA Wants Your Opinion on What Should be Called “Milk”

Have you ever gone to the grocery, bought a carton of milk only to get home and find that you grabbed soy milk instead of the more traditional cow’s milk? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to know!

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb posted a statement on his organization’s website today saying that his agency is seeking public comments on the ongoing debate over what can and can’t be labeled as “milk.” In explaining the rationale for this discussion about labeling, Gottlieb writes:

The rising demand for plant-based products, like soy-based alternatives to cheese and nut-based alternatives to milk, has created a growing number of new food choices in supermarket aisles. However, these products are not foods that have been standardized under names like “milk” and “cheese.” The FDA has concerns that the labeling of some plant-based products may lead consumers to believe that those products have the same key nutritional attributes as dairy products, even though these products can vary widely in their nutritional content. It is important that we better understand consumers’ expectations of these plant-based products compared to dairy products.

Earlier this year, Gottlieb indicated that his agency would begin to enforce the existing regulation around what can be marketed as milk. Gottlieb made headlines when he noted that the current standard for defining milk is that it comes from a lactating animal before going on to say “almonds don’t lactate” (a comment soundly mocked by Stephen Colbert).

While you may not have your own late night talk show, you can make your voice heard on the topic. As Gottlieb goes on to explain, the FDA is reaching out to the public for comment on the topic:

We’re on a fast track to take a fresh look at the labeling of products that are being positioned in the marketplace as substitutes for dairy products. And, today, we’ve taken the first step in this process by issuing a request for information (RFI) in the Federal Register to solicit comments and feedback from the public to gain more insight into how consumers use plant-based alternatives and how they understand terms like “milk” or “cheese” when used to label products made, for example, from soy, peas or nuts. We’re interested to know if consumers are aware of, and understand, the nutritional characteristics and differences among these products — and between these products and dairy — when they make dietary choices for themselves and their families.

While it’s being framed as a discussion around consumer information and protection, the whole debate smacks more of protecting existing industries. Sales of plant-based milks are up while cow milk sales have dropped. Dairy and other agricultural associations have lobbied Gottlieb to enforce the existing regulation. Forcing plant-based “milks” to instead refer to themselves as “beverages” on all their branding could have a negative impact on sales.

Milk isn’t the only product label looking at being disrupted. There is a whole other debate raging about what can and can’t be called “meat” as cell-based meat and other plant-based meat alternatives come to market. The lines there are similarly drawn, with traditional ranchers and cattelmen lobbying to keep the status quo.

And just so there’s no confusion on this, if you have thoughts on the topic of “milk,” you can visit the Federal Register tomorrow, Sept. 28, and leave a comment.

Farmshelf Brings Indoor Mini-Farms to Sustainable Chain Oath Pizza

Earlier today Farmshelf CEO Andrew Shearer announced on Linkedin that the new Upper West Side location of Oath Pizza, set to open this Thursday, will feature one of their indoor growing units.

Farmshelf builds turnkey hydroponic mini-farms, about the size of a bookshelf, for use in restaurants and hotels. Their systems are equipped with sensors which can automatically manage the growing process, so all users have to do is plug in the device and harvest.

By growing produce 15 feet from the kitchen instead of, say, 1,500 miles, Farmshelf units can dramatically reduce food packaging, waste, and carbon footprint. It’s also is a pretty cool marketing gimmick for restaurants which put emphasis on local ingredients.

Oath Pizza is one such restaurant. The fast-casual pizza chain, which started in Nantucket, specializes in local and ethically sourced ingredients. So it’s a natural fit for them to install a grow unit which will let them take the leap from “farm to table” to “restaurant to table.”

According to their website, Farmshelf units can currently support over 50 leafy greens, herbs, and edible flowers. Judging from the Linkedin photo, the only thing the indoor farms will be growing at Oath Pizza is basil. However, their menu also features oregano and spinach, so maybe those will make an appearance at some point down the road.

This could be just the beginning of the Farmshelf-Oath Pizza partnership. Last month, the pizza chain partnered with Aramark to bring their ethical ‘za to new, larger venues, such as college campuses, sports arenas, and office buildings. Oath currently has locations in Boston, D.C., and New York, and this partnership opens them for some pretty massive expansion. It would be a smart idea to bring Farmshelf along with them; their mini-farms provide very visual publicity. Not to mention a great Instagram opportunity.

The Upper West Side outpost will join Farmshelf’s current location lineup, which includes several restaurants in Washington, D.C., as well as The Great Northern Food Hall in New York’s Grand Central Station. Maybe soon college students and baseball fans will be able to see their basil growing right next to their Crazy Caprese pizza — and then Instagram it.

The Spoon Newsletter: Cinder Gets Sued; Food Blockchain Ripens; PicoBrew Ships

This is the post version of our bi-weekly newsletter. If you’d like to get it in your inbox, you can subscribe here.

Happy Friday, all! Catherine here. Our team’s hard at work putting the finishing touches on the Smart Kitchen Summit (you have your tickets, right?), but it’s been a busy couple of days for news as well.

First and foremost, a few days ago Chris Albrecht uncovered the story that Palate Home, the company behind the Cinder grill, was ordered by a court to pay $294,736 to Tony Fadell’s investment firm, Future Shape LLC. We’ve been following this smart grill, which delivers sous-vide-like precision cooking via a unique two-sided precision heating surface, for the last couple years. But like so many crowdfunded hardware companies before it, Cinder was hitting manufacturing roadblocks and delaying shipping dates to its backers. Which is why Chris looked into it in the first place — and found much more than he bargained for.

We’re not sure if this is a death knell for Cinder, though it certainly seems that way. Stay tuned for updates.

In positive news, Ripe.io, a company which is working to create the “blockchain for food,” just raised a $2.4 million seed round. Mike Wolf spoke with Raja Ramachandran, the company’s CEO and co-founder on his podcast last year. Here’s how he explained the concept behind his startup:

If a farmer wants to say I harvest strawberries these two days, well, they can say that, but do they say that to everyone? … That’s the beauty of blockchain. It manages the decentralized nature of the food business, so people can post data, they can protect it, they can share it, they can create records with it… In the end for the consumer, they basically get a longer record.

Ripe.io is capitalizing off of two trends: blockchain madness, and people’s desire for increased food transparency. If the company can successfully create the blockchain for food — something that others like Goodr and FoodLogiQ are already playing around with — then consumers can instantly know a plethora of details about their food: where it was produced, when it was harvested, whether it’s organic/GMO, etc. Ramachandran will be at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) discussing blockchain’s potential within the food system, so join us there to hear more.

The ability to trace the origin of your food with 100% accuracy is a good thing, but what if you could bring the farm to you? That’s exactly what Freight Farms, a company which creates “Leafy Green Machines” — that is, climate-controlled vertical farms in shipping containers — is trying to do.

Excited to see new ideas for recreating the future of food and cooking? We announced our Startup Showcase winners this week, so you’ll want to check them out!

Jenn Marston wrote about their new Grown service this week, which helps Freight Farms customers manage temperature, water usage, and other aspects of the indoor farm units so that they can grow produce with super-limited space. Jenn’s optimistic that this tech could allow institutions — like public schools and hospitals — to have access to super-fresh, healthy greens (and more). While smaller scale than Freight Farms, Estonian smart indoor grow system Natufia raised $1.2 million this week.

The PicoBrew Z brewing system

In other news, Mike Wolf covered PicoBrew’s initial shipment of their Z Series, a modular brewing system that lets home beer creators scale up to make 10 gallons per brew. They may have delayed the Kickstarter for their Pico U, but this shipment shows that PicoBrew is still kicking — er, brewing.

Chris also covered NEXT Future Transportation’s new mobile lockers, which are yet another step towards a future in which autonomous vehicles deliver us our groceries and pizza along with our packages. For those who still want a retail experience in the future, however, the convenience store will probably still be there — it just might look different. Read Chris’ piece on Dirty Lemon’s new cashierless, honor system-run pop-up store to see how.

Finally, this week I wrote about all the food I tasted at last week’s inaugural Good Food Conference. It’s a smorgasbord of plant-based products, from vegan sausages to eggs made of mung beans. Check it out.

Smart Kitchen Summit is a mere three and a half weeks away, and it’s shaping up to be our best one yet. Just check out our program and speakers if you don’t believe me. Don’t get left behind — use the discount code NEWSLETTER to get 25% off of tickets (just click here to have the discount applied automatically via Eventbrite).

Have a great weekend!
Catherine

In the 09/14/2018 edition:

John Pleasants Thinks the Oven of the Future is Powered by Light

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 14, 2018 10:02 am
We at the Spoon have long been curious about Brava, the stealthy smart kitchen startup which recently debuted its first product: an oven which uses the power of light to cook food quickly and precisely, with low energy usage. See him at the Smart Kitchen Summit in October.

Walmart Acquires Cornershop, While Jet.com Gets in a New York State of Mind

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 14, 2018 08:50 am
Walmart announced yesterday that it is expanding its digital presence in Latin America with the $225 million acquisition of Cornershop, an online marketplace for on-demand delivery from supermarkets in Mexico and Chile. While that move continued the retail giant’s global spending spree, domestically, the company’s subsidiary Jet.com unveiled a revamped website featuring enhanced grocery delivery options.

Dirty Lemon’s New Pop Up is Part of a Convenience Store Revolution

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 03:48 pm
Dirty Lemon, a startup that sells fancy water infused with ingredients like charcoal, CBD and collagen for more than $10 a pop, made The New York Times today with its new pop-up store in New York that puts you on the honor system when you pay.

Mod Pods! NEXT Future Transportation Announces Mobile Lockers

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 12:19 pm
A lot of transportation in old sci-fi movies was pod-based. People would travel through futuristic cities in quiet, autonomous, sleek pods that picked them up and dropped them off. What those movies missed, and is now becoming a reality, are fleets of pods running around to bring us our packages, restaurant food and groceries.

A Plant-Based Tour of What I Ate at the Good Food Conference

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 13, 2018 09:00 am
From vegan sausages by Beyond Meat to mung bean scrambled eggs from JUST, here’s a culinary tour through all the plant-based foods I tried at the Good Food Conference last week.

FoodShot Global Launches Fund to Land Food Moonshots

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 06:30 am
We know that there is no shortage of food-related accelerators helping get the next generation of startups off the ground. But FoodShot Global, a new investment platform that launched today, doesn’t just want to get startups off the ground: it wants them to aim for the moon.

Court Ordered Cinder Grill Maker to Repay Tony Fadell’s Investment Firm $294,736

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 12, 2018 11:00 am
Palate Home, the company behind the Cinder grill, was ordered by a San Mateo court in August to pay $294,736 to Tony Fadell’s investment firm, Future Shape LLC. The default judgment compels Palate Home to repay a $250,000 loan to Future Shape plus $43,737 in interest as well as $999 in costs.

Impossible Sliders Roll Out at all White Castles Nationwide

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 12, 2018 10:18 am
Today Impossible Foods, the company famous for their plant-based “bleeding” burgers, announced today that it’s expanding its partnership with fast food chain White Castle. The Impossible slider is now available in all of White Castle’s 377 locations, from New York to St. Louis.

PicoBrew Ships Z Series, A Modular Brewing System for Aspiring Craft Brewing Pros

By Michael Wolf on Sep 12, 2018 09:00 am
PicoBrew announced this week that the first Picobrew Z1 has rolled off the production line and made its way to the customer, local food pioneer Ron Zimmerman of the Herbfarm. As you might recall, the Picobrew Z series is PicoBrew’s attempt to fill the gap between the home and pro markets with a modular brewing system.

Freight Farms Unveils Onsite Vertical Farming Service

By Jennifer Marston on Sep 12, 2018 06:00 am
Your average institution, be it schools, company, hospital, or university, typically doesn’t have the space or cash to consider an indoor farming initiative, even if it would mean putting fresher, more local greens into cafeterias and dining halls. That’s an issue Freight Farms looks to solve with the release of its new service Grown.