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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food Tech News Roundup: GM Hops, Food Delivery Mergers & Meat MRI’s

Happy weekend. This was a big week for food tech news, with funding updates from Instacart and Impossible Foods, and big partnership announcements from Innit/Chef’d and Kenwood/Drop. But there were also a bunch of smaller stories that caught our eye, even if we didn’t have time to write a post about them. So we rounded them up in one place for you! Put an egg on something and eat it while skimming through our roundup of this week’s food tech news stories.

Report: Postmates and DoorDash mull over merger 

Sources told Recode that Postmates and DoorDash, two food delivery giants, have discussed a possible merger at least once over the past year. This move would be a bid to gain advantage over competitors like GrubHub and UberEats in the hotly-contested food delivery war.

These murmurings come only a month after DoorDash secured $535 million in funding, which they said they would use to expand operations (and maybe invest in robots?). As of now there’s no deal, but this wouldn’t be such a bad idea. The food delivery sector is just too crowded — if these competitors could pull off a merger and optimize their service, I say go for it.

Photo: Pixabay

Unilever wants to turn plastic waste into food safe packaging

Unilever announced this week that it’s starting a new initiative to recycle polyethylene terephthalate resin, which is commonly used in clothing, food and drink packaging, and engineering projects. They want to turn any of their products made with PET resin, including ones that are colored, into transparent, food safe packaging. The consumer goods giant is partnering with recycling tech startup Ioniqa and Indorama Ventures, the world’s largest producer of PET resin, on the project.

It’s an interesting time in the world of food packaging. Various groups, including NASA and the military, are trying to make it lighter, safer, and more resilient. This initiative from Unilever might make it more environmentally friendly, as well. But it’s got a long way to go; currently, 91% of plastic waste isn’t recycled. With a massive company like Unilever behind it, this project might be able to reduce that statistic significantly. 

Credit-TECAL-GIM-UEx.jpg

MRIs can qualify meat taste without touching them

Researchers at the University of Extremadura in Spain have found a way to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the same technology used in hospitals to look inside our bodies, to measure the taste properties of whole loins and hams — without touching them.

The technology uses non-invasive magnets and radio waves to take images of the meat, which is then run through a computer vision algorithm. Scientists can use the images and readings they see to make predictions on the quality of the meat, including its fat content, color, and salt content, without having to damage a pricey Iberico ham.

This research indicates another approach to food safety monitoring and quality control, which is a fast-growing market full of startups like Mimica and FoodLogiQ.

 

Would brewers replace hops with GMO yeast?

Hold on to your IPAs: A team of chemists and geneticists in California have developed a genetically modified yeast that can mimic the flavor and aroma of hops. To make it, they spliced DNA from mint and basil plants into the genes of brewing yeast, which gave the yeast a grapefruit-like flavor typical of the Cascade hop.

By swapping out hops for GM yeast, brewers could have greater control over their product, reduce the costs of beer-brewing, and reduce environmental impact. As might be expected, craft brewers aren’t eager to replace hops with GM yeast — they feel it takes some of the art out of brewing. But we’re seeing more and more intersections of beer and tech, from IoT-powered beer tracking systems to beer publishing systems for at-home brewers.

 

Photo: AgVend

AgVend raises $1.75M in seed funding

Last week ag-commerce startup AgVend raised $1.75 million in seed funding. The round was led by Drew Oetting at 8VC, with participation from Green Bay Ventures, Seahawk Capital, The House Fund, and others.

Agvend is a digital commerce platform which lets farmers compare prices and purchase ag services and inputs. With AgVend, farmers can order a specific fertilizer and have it delivered (via AgVend’s partners) the same day or take advantage of flash sales promotions, without ever leaving their farm. The startup launched at the beginning of 2018 and now covers states across the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, with plans to expand later this year.

This year has been a big one for agtech startups. In the last few months indoor farming company Agrilyst and peer-to-peer farming network WeFarm also closed fundraising rounds. Agtech is definitely a growing market, and one to keep an eye on.

Dishq CEO Kishan Vasani Predicts You Want Snails for Dinner

At one point or another, we have all suffered from menu confusion: the feeling when a restaurant offers too many good-looking dishes, overwhelming us with choice. You don’t want to choose the wrong thing and be stuck with it, but you need to make a decision.

Bangalore-based startup dishq is using AI and consumer data to try and simplify the process by giving companies like restaurants, office cafeterias, and food delivery services the power to make personalized food recommendations to their customers.

In preparation for SKS Europe this June in Dublin, we decided to ask dishq co-founder and CEO Kishan Vasani a few questions about how his company is trying to simplify the food decision-making process.

Read the full Q&A on our Smart Kitchen Summit blog to learn about how the company uses AI to personalize your restaurant recommendations, the future of predictive ordering, and what Vasani predicts that I want for dinner. (Hint: he was (partially) right.)

If you want to hear Kishan Vasani speak more about how AI and predictive ordering will shape our eating patterns, make sure to get your tickets for SKSEurope in Dublin June 11-12th. 

Crispr Gene Editing Software May Dramatically Change Our Food — And Soon

Last week, the USDA ruled that organisms gene-edited by Crispr technology will not be subject to the same regulations as genetically modified organisms (GMO). US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said that the USDA currently does not, and has no plans to, regulate plants or animals “that could otherwise have been developed through traditional breeding techniques.” In other words, Crispr-edited organisms are just as safe to eat as traditional ones.

If you don’t know about Crispr, it’s a buzzy new technology that allows scientists to delete, add, or modify genetic sequences with an organism, be that a plant, a turkey, or even a human. As you might expect, it has huge implications for the food system. Crispr technology can transform genetic codes to make crops or animals grow more quickly, taste better, or be more resistant to disease and harsh environments.

Genetic modification (as in GMO’s), by contrast, involves adding genes from organisms like bacteria into crops order to change plants’ properties. The differences may seem pretty minimal, but not to the USDA; Crispr-edited organisms are subject to much less regulation than GMO’s, which have to be approved by the FDA, the EPA, and the USDA before they’re allowed on shelves.

 

Source: Agri-Pulse

This is because the USDA views gene-editing with Crispr as a sped-up version of selected breeding. So instead of humans slowly selecting and growing only the juiciest apples over decades and decades, eventually creating an extra-juicy varietal, scientists can just do this in one go by editing the genome of the apple itself.

The U.S. isn’t the first one to be lenient on gene-editing technology. In 2017 Germany and Sweden ruled that gene-edited plants were distinct from GMO, and therefore should not be subject to the same regulation. Which gives scientists working on Crispr technology a lot of freedom to manipulate crops and meat animals, at least compared to those developing GMO’s.

So what does this mean for you and your dinner plate? To start with, Crispr will enable biotech companies to develop a whole slew of modified foodstuffs. Think wheat suitable for people with celiac disease, like they’re making at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture in Spain. Or pigs and cows that grow more quickly and with fewer health problems, which they’re developing at the U.K. livestock company Genus Breeding.

Proponents claim that Crispr technology will be used to make food more nutritious, more resistant to adverse environmental conditions, and taste better. Anti-GMO advocates, however, aren’t so keen on the new technology. They view Crispr as just another form of genetic modification; which, to be fair, it technically is — just one that’s more efficient and effective than traditional GMO processes, and which doesn’t require a transplant from another organism.

As our environment degrades and it becomes harder to produce food, CRISPR could also hold the answer to feeding our population (which the UN projects will grow to almost 10 billion by 2050). By allowing scientists to create plants that are resistant to drought, increased temperatures, and poor soil, it could theoretically help increase crop yields despite the challenges of climate change. It could also extend products’ shelf life, reducing food waste from spoilage.

If this all sounds remote and unrealistically futuristic, it’s not; Crispr-edited foods could be in supermarkets sooner than you think. Ozy.com reported that DuPont Pioneer is currently creating a strain of Crispr-edited corn that they claim could be ready for planting as early as 2019. Genus also hopes to have their meat from their quick-growing cows and pigs on supermarket shelves in 5 years. So you might be able to purchase Crispr-edited pork chops and ears of corn by as early as 2023.

The USDA hasn’t yet decided if they will require companies to inform consumers which of their foods have been edited with Crispr, which they currently do for GMO’s. But stay tuned; they’re expected to release a decision by July. No matter which way they go, their recent decision not to submit Crispr to the same regulation as GMO’s means that they’re giving enormous freedom to gene-editing technology. We’ll have to wait and see if it lives up to the hype.

Food Tech News Roundup: Tooth Calorie Counters, Snoop Dogg, and Amazon’s Next Move

The time has come for our weekly roundup of food tech news stories; ones that caught our eye, but weren’t quite big enough to justify a whole post. This week’s news update focused on some of our favorite foods (and drinks): pizza, beer, and coffee. Also, did we mention that Snoop Dogg is involved? Or at least his voice is. There’s also a tiny tooth sensor that can track everything you eat and — surprise, surprise — more news on Amazon’s journey to rule the ecommerce world. Let’s get started, shall we?

Photo: Modernist Cuisine

Modernist Cuisine’s newest book is about pizza

Modernist Cuisine may have just published their 5-volume compendium Modernist Bread a few months ago, but they’ve already announced the subject of their next literary venture: pizza. The multivolume will be written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, along with the Modernist Cuisine team, and will cover a broad array of pizza recipes, pizza history, and pizza-making techniques, both traditional and modern.

It’ll be a year before the ‘za anthology comes out, but if you want to give Nathan Myhrvold and his team some insider advice on your favorite pizzerias and pizza-makers, they’re already crowdsourcing tips: just email pizza@modernistcuisine.com. Then treat yourself to a slice of pepperoni for doing a good deed.

Photo: Diageo

Alexa and Snoop Dogg are your new mixologists

This week Amazon Alexa partnered with Diageo to launch a “Happy Hour” skill. It offers three features, including one called ‘Mix-It-Up’ which offers drink recommendations based on users’ mood and tastes. There’s also the ‘Find a Bar’ feature which has a Yelp integration to recommend bars nearby that serve Diageo cocktails (which, since Diageo is the world’s largest spirits producer, is pretty much everywhere). All recommendations are sent to the user’s Alexa app. This is another example of Amazon pushing the boundaries with voice assistants, taking a step forward so that competitors like Google and Apple will have to rush to catch up.

My favorite part of this skill is the fact that Snoop Dogg is involved. Yes, Snoop Dogg. Users can also ask Alexa for “Snoop Dogg’s drink of choice,” and he’ll give cocktail recommendations. One can only hope they’re not all iterations of gin and juice. 

Photo: Starbucks

Starbucks hops onto the blockchain train

Starbucks announced this week that it would launch a pilot program applying traceability technology to its coffee beans to monitor their journey from “bean to cup.” They’ll partner with small coffee farmers in Costa Rica, Colombia and Rwanda, logging and sharing information about the coffee supply chain. Essentially, they’ve embraced the blockchain trend — though they don’t use that term anywhere in their release.

With this program Starbucks is hoping to connect its coffee drinkers to coffee farmers, though it’s not exactly clear how. While the traceability may indeed give their farmers an “individual identity” — one that will no doubt be capitalized upon as a marketing angle — the system is only really applicable to the players downstream.

I can only see this used as a marketing scheme. With this program, Starbucks can trace beans from one particular farm through the roasting and packaging process, and can then market that product as a “single origin coffee” (not doubt for a higher price). This is something that previously only smaller coffee roasters and distributors could do. But thanks to blockchain tech, Starbucks can hop on the bandwagon. We’ll have to wait and see if they actually deliver on their promises of transparency, but suffice it to say I’m healthily skeptical.

Amazon expands Whole Foods stores to support delivery

Amazon is looking for bigger Whole Foods stores in urban centers to serve as both grocery stores and delivery jumping off points for some of their most popular items, like books and electronics. If Whole Foods serves as a city-based delivery hub, it would reduce Amazon’s need to maintain warehouses for non-grocery items. That way, they can deliver goods to urban consumers more quickly.

This move comes a little over a month after Amazon started rolling out 2-hour Whole Foods delivery. It’s another step in the ecommerce giant’s strategy to use brick-and-mortar Whole Foods locations to bolster their online sales.

Photo: Nomiku

Nomiku expands delivery to 6 more states

Nomiku, one of the first companies to launch a home sous vide circulator, just expanded  the map for their Sous Chef meals. The company started experimenting last year with food delivery and, after a year of working the kinks out within their home state of California, has started shipping their sous vide ready meals to to six additional states: Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Their meals, which offer a large range of vegetarian and meat options, are precooked meals are heated to serving temperature in 30 minutes with the Nomiku sous vide appliance. Nomiku is part of a growing number of startups such as Tovala, ChefSteps, and FirstChop that are pairing cooking appliances with subscription food services to create additional convenience for the consumer.

Image: Fio Omenetto, Ph.D., Tufts University

A new tooth tracker can track everything you eat

Think of it as a calorie counter you can’t cheat, a fitbit for your eating habits. Researchers at Tuft’s University have developed a 2mm x 2mm sensor that you can stick on your tooth to monitor what you eat. It syncs up with your mobile device to wirelessly transmit data on your glucose, salt, and alcohol content. While this could be a helpful tool for some people who want to keep a super accurate account of their calorie intake, it could have some scary implications. It could exacerbate unhealthy food obsessions, or create a way for people to monitor individuals who are supposed to be limiting their sugar, salt, or alcohol intakes.

In the future, scientists want to create abilities for the sensor to track nutrients, chemicals, and psychological states. And if that brings Black Mirror to mind, I’d say you’re not too far off base.

One-Stop Shop Wine App Vivino Snags $20M in Funding

It’s a good day for wine lovers (and wannabe lovers) everywhere. Vivino, the world’s most downloaded wine app and largest online wine marketplace, just raised $20 million in series C funding.

The latest funding round was led by SCP Neptune International, the investment arm of former Moet Hennessy CEO and Chairman of VinExpo Christophe Navarre. This comes about two years after Vivino’s series B funding round which raised $25 million, also led by SCP Neptune International. Put ’em together and that puts Vivino’s total aggregated funding at $56.3 million.

Vivino plans to use the new investment capital to expand its wine marketplace and add key team members. They’re aiming to reach $1 billion in wine sales by 2020 and have plans to expand into Hong Kong

The Denmark-based company launched in 2010 with the goal of easing consumer’s wine purchasing experiences. After downloading the app, users can take a photo of their wine label and proprietary image recognition technology will promptly deliver pricing, ratings, and provide them with an option to purchase. And, with an annual subscription of $47, users can get their curated wine selections delivered to their door at no added cost.

According to Vivino, since its series B funding round closed, their user base has skyrocketed from 13 million to almost 29 million. They haven’t cornered the wine delivery market yet, though: companies like Winc, Blue Apron Wine, and retail behemoth Amazon also offer vino delivery.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this announcement is what it could mean for the specialty foods purchasing experience in general. Vivino brands themselves as “an online wine community, database and mobile application” aimed at easing the user’s wine-buying experience. Which, let’s face it, can be pretty confusing and inconvenient: Do you prefer Bordeaux or Zinfandel? What’s a good bottle to go with fish? And once you’ve found a grape you want to try, you’ve got to track it down and find the best price. (Delectable is an app that offers wine label scanning, recommendations, and pairings, but you have to download a companion app for delivery.)

We’ve already written about direct-to-consumer wine delivery and Ai-powered sommeliers, but the interesting thing about Vivino’s is its abililty to combine these into one neat app. They provide a trusted review platform, suggesting new bottles for their users, then deliver them to their door, creating a seamless purchasing experience across multiple channels. Plus it would really come in handy for those times your party ran out of rosé but you don’t want to go to the store to get more.

Vivino’s move to combine mobile commerce and an online marketplace with their personalized wine recommendation system is an exciting example of vertical integration in the grocery-delivery sphere. It’s a model that I could see expanding into other specialty consumable goods, such as artisan coffee or even marijuana; areas where delivery apps may already exist but not with such a heavy emphasis on customer guidance and handholding.

I could also envision a future where Vivino (or similar apps) link up with food delivery services like UberEats, delivering you a bottle of wine paired perfectly with your tofu pad thai. I’d be hyped to try this combo, just as long as it doesn’t involve my wine nemesis: Pinot Noir.

You can hear about Vivino in our daily spoon podcast.  You can also subscribe in Apple podcasts or through our Amazon Alexa skill. 

Dessert Meets Tech and It’s Love at First Bite

It’s February 14, which means sappy love songs, heart-shaped chocolate boxes, and . . . 3D printing?

As Michael Wolf predicted in his prescient post “10 Trends Shaping the Future of Cooking in 2018,” dessert-tech is a market that’s growing fast. From intelligent ovens that speed up the cookie-making process to a whole mess of ice cream innovation, we’ve rounded up some of the sweetest (sorry) pairings in dessert-tech for your V-day holiday pleasure.

Desserts On Demand:

Some chocolate made-to-order ice cream from Solo Gelato.

Solo Gelato

This Israeli-based startup is basically applying the Keurig system to desserts. Currently, their capsules containing ice cream mixture are quite a bit bigger than the coffee pods, though the two systems work in a very similar way: after the Solo Gelato capsules are inserted, the machine “freezes and expels air” into them. Sixty seconds later, out comes fresh gelato. The company’s website also boasts a cloud-based database and “state of the art mechanical and cooling solutions.” Solo Gelato currently boasts a lineup of 24 flavors, with offerings including sorbet, traditional ice cream, and even boozy treats for the 21+ crowd.

Churned-to-order ice cream made with the freezing power of liquid nitrogen has been around for a few years. However, bringing on-demand ice cream into your home, Solo Gelato is hoping to “disrupt the ice cream industry” in the very way that coffee pods disrupted the coffee industry. (Side question: to what extent have coffee pods really done that?)

Tigoût

Another dessert company piggybacking off the Keurig model is the Argentinian startup Tigoût—though really, they’re more like a souped-up Easy-Bake Oven. How it works: pop two capsules into their designated slots in the top of the machine (I’m assuming one is liquid and one is dry ingredients, but no details are given). In just a few minutes (again, no details on cook time are given) you get a freshly baked pastry. According to LinkedIn, the startup is preparing to launch a minimum viable product (MVP) and has a patent in process.

Tigoût also has an integrated app which allows you to order more pastry capsules, monitor your baking process and set alarms. As of now, Tigoût offers seven different types of dessert capsules ranging from chocolate fudge to a caramel “volcano.”

CHiP’s cookie oven promises fresh, homemade cookies in 10 minutes.

CHiP Cookie Oven

What if instead of having a warm, melty chocolate chip cookie in, say, an hour—taking into account the time to soften the butter, make the dough, shape it, and bake it—you could get your mitts on one in only 10 minutes? That’s the promise of CHiP, a smart oven that uses patent-pending convection cooking technology to speed up the cookie baking process.

For all the tech nerds out there, CHiP is also wifi-enabled and can integrate into your smart-home system. Customers can order cookie dough pods in a variety of flavors, including vegan and gluten-free options, which are clad in biodegradable parchment paper for easy insertion into the oven. Milk not included.

Less Sugar, Less Dairy

Healthier options are another big trend in the dessert-meets-tech sphere, especially when it comes to ice cream. Vegan, non-dairy, high-protein and low-sugar desserts are gaining popularity, as proven by the runaway success of HaloTop. The low-calorie treat, which became the No. 1 best-selling ice cream in U.S. grocery stores in 2017, and other ice cream brands are scrambling to cash in on the healthier trend. Plant-based desserts such as the coconut-based ice cream NadaMoo!, non-dairy Ben & Jerry’s, and a whole host of vegan ‘screams have been rising rapidly in popularity.

NadaMoo! is a coconut-based ice cream based in Austin, TX.

However, not all health-conscious ice creams come in pint form. Veru is a company that uses patent-protected flash-freezing technology to make ice pops that are low-calorie, additive free, and (apparently) still manage to taste good. They make use of our old friend liquid nitrogen to freeze their ice cream mixes to temperatures as low as -196 degrees Celsius in just seconds. This quick freeze allows them to preserve maximum flavor so that they can cut calories without sacrificing on taste.

3D Printing

Another pioneer in the frozen-dessert field is Pixsweet, an L.A.-based company that participated in the Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase last year. Pixsweet makes customizable, 3D-printed popsicles, so you can turn everything from brand logos to unicorns into edible pops.

The pop possibilities are endless!

Pastry chefs are another group embracing the edible 3D printing trend. One of the most popular, who has also become an internet darling, is Dinara Kasko, an architect-turned-pastry chef known across the web for her sculptural desserts (just check out her 555,000 Instagram followers). Kasko uses computer modeling software to make intricate molds, which she then 3D prints and uses to make her custom cakes. The popularity of her desserts and the customizable pops from Pixsweet suggest 3D printing might play a significant role in the future of dessert.

Dessert Meal Subscription Kits

It seems that no matter your lifestyle and dietary preference, there’s a meal kit for that. Now sweet lovers can sate their sugary cravings with Sweetbake, a food subscription service from Nestle (its first) that caters to those with a sweet tooth. For $35 per month, subscribers get two ready-to-bake kits—just add milk, butter, and eggs. At first glance, it’s like a fancier version of boxed brownies, only you get the added thrill of receiving mail. However, Sweetbake’s repertoire extends far beyond chocolate chip cookies; their kits have ingredients for everything from gingerbread biscotti to peppermint brownie cups.

One of sweetbake’s dessert subscription boxes.

They’re not the only company breaking into the dessert delivery kit sphere: companies foodstirs and SoBakeable also offer baking subscriptions. The latter even provides videos with recipes and baking tips for those who download the companion app.

What’s Next?

One dessert-meets-tech innovation we’d love to see at the Spoon is a home bean-to-bar chocolate-maker. As contributor Allen Weiner has pointed out, “the home chocolate market appears to be a large, untapped opportunity.” Tech entrepreneurs, smart kitchen gadget makers, and startup upstarts—we’ve got your next project ready for you.

Did we miss anyone doing exciting things in the dessert/tech field? Tell us in the comments!

Video: James Ehrlich Talks Food, Epiphanies, & the (Eco)Village of the Future

Take a second, right now, and picture the community of the future. Are there green roofs, lazily-turning windmills, and streetlights powered by solar energy? Maybe even a lawn-mowing robot or two?

James Ehrlich, CEO of ReGen Villages, has a pretty innovative vision for how neighborhoods of the future should look and function. After a career as a tech entrepreneur and television producer for The Hippy Gourmet, with a few epiphanies along the way, he came to the sobering realization that “the planet is, in fact, falling apart.”

In response, Ehrlich began sketching out plans for modern ecovillages with food “not as a sidebar or a flourish, but as the actual mechanism for how a neighborhood infrastructure is built.” ReGen Villages is currently in the midst of construction their first pilot community in Almere, Netherlands, with plans to expand.

After he wowed us with his optimistic vision for the future of homes, neighborhoods, and communities at the Smart Kitchen Summit last year, Ehrlich sat down with Allen Weiner of The Spoon chat with about epiphanies (and breakdowns), the concept behind ReGen Villages, and what’s on the horizon (hint: their ecovillages might be coming to a state near you!).

Psst—look out for videos from past Smart Kitchen Summits every Friday on The Spoon. And if you’re in Europe (or just want an excuse to EuroTrip), register for SKS Europe, coming to Dublin in June.

Aryballe’s Digital Nose On Display at CES

Aryballe, maker of digital odor detectors, is showing off an early production model of its portable NeOse digital smell sensor at CES 2018 in Las Vegas.

The device is intended for the pro market and is priced as such; when it ships in about two months, it will cost about $10 thousand. Company spokesperson Fanny Turlure talked about various commercial scenarios in which the device could be used, including by large consumer packaged good manufacturers for R&D or quality control.

The product works by attracting odor molecules into the device’s chamber where they then interact with chemical sensors. The device lights up the prism with an LED light and the device records optical signal transduction and then analyzes the odor signature and matches it against a database in the cloud.

While the device is clearly priced for the pro market, Aryballe is currently working with “many of the large consumer electronics manufacturers” who want to add additional intelligence to their appliances according to Turlure. While she wouldn’t give an estimated time frame when we might see this type of technology embedded into an appliance, Turlure said the company has been working with appliance makers for about a year.

In October, Aryballe CEO Tristan Rousselle was at the Smart Kitchen Summit and showed off a prototype of the product by using it to detect French cheese (the company is French, after all). You can see a video of the session below:

Babylon Micro-Farms

This Stylish Table Is the “Next Generation” of Automated Urban Farming

One of the more promising urban-farm concepts is not in New York, Los Angeles, or any other major city. It’s in Charlottesville, Virginia, courtesy of one University of Virginia alum and a very small team of employees.

Recent grad Alexander Olsen started Babylon Micro-Farms in 2016, as part of the UVA student entrepreneurial clubhouse, HackCville. An early prototype won $6,500 from Green Initiatives Funding Tomorrow, part of the UVA student council.

Now, Olsen and six other employees are working to get the hydroponic farms inside the homes of consumers, billing them as “the next generation home appliance.”

The concept is pretty straightforward. You start by selecting crops from Babylon’s online menu. Pre-seeded plant packs are then delivered to your door. Right now, pod pack choices include: wellness (kale), spicy peppers, pesto, a mini romaine crop, herbs, edible flowers, a cocktail mix, Asian greens, and arugula.

Once seed pods are set up, the farm regulates itself—you may occasionally have to top off the water or nutrients, but otherwise, the process is automated. A corresponding app provides live data about crop health, notifies users when water and nutrients are needed, and tells you when it’s time to harvest your crops. Once the latter is done, you can order another round of crops and start the process all over again. For the extra-ambitious (and restaurants), the app can control multiple farms at once.

One thing setting Babylon Mirco-Farms apart from other urban farming products is its emphasis on visual design. To that end, the system takes the form of a table with a UV light hanging overhead, and is small compared to its industrial counterparts: 6 feet wide by 3 feet deep and 6 feet tall. And instead of seeing wires and buttons, everywhere, pinewood hides those operational things and makes the farm as much a stylish conversation piece as it is a food supply.

The company isn’t alone in their mission to marry urban farming with, uh, urban style. The Ava Byte also uses soil-less grow pods, which come in a slick, space-age-looking container that would blend into a lot of modern kitchen designs. Verdical calls itself “a living food appliance” and is also small enough to fit into most homes. Farmshelf is more geared at serving restaurants and retail spaces, but as of November, they were considering a move to more residential markets.

UVA has given Olsen and Co. considerable support for the project, from grants to advice about the next phase of business. Farms are also installed at university dining halls, where students are encouraged to harvest what they need. According to Olsen, the farms are “a massive hit” amongst the students.

Babylon is now focused on bringing the farms to consumers outside of universities. Currently, a the micro-farm farm goes for $1,799. Pre-order one here. East Coasters get free shipping.

The company also wants want to eventually offer a smaller system for less than $1,000, which would be a hit for both cost-conscious consumers and those of us living in shoebox-sized apartments. Neither price tag is pocket change, but I suspect with the right amount of dedication, an investment in one of these would pay for itself pretty fast. Stay tuned.

Photo credit: Dan Addison, University Communications, UVA

Minneapolis-St.Paul

Techstars Unveils Startup Accelerator for Foodtech Innovators

Agriculture in the U.S. is a $3 trillion industry, but, paradoxically, it’s innovations in technology that have slowed growth in terms of how many people the agriculture industry employs. All that’s to say there are fewer workers on farms nowadays, which means fewer people and less time for innovative ideas.

Entrepreneurship network Techstars wants to change that with its latest startup accelerator. The Farm to Fork Accelerator is Techstars first program that will focus on helping companies in the food and tech side of agriculture develop their ideas and businesses. Early- and late-stage startups from areas like AgTech, manufacturing, food safety, and waste reduction are invited to apply for the three-month program, which will be held in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area this summer. 

Techstars has partnered with the $13 billion water and energy provider Ecolab, as well as food- and agriculture-services provider Cargill. “The Techstars Farm to Fork Accelerator is the perfect platform to connect these global giants in food processing, food safety and agriculture with innovators who have ideas and technical knowledge,” Farm to Fork managing director Brett Brohl recently wrote.

The three-month program helps entrepreneurs across several stages: finding mentors, building out products, and learning how to communicate with investors and major stakeholders. The program ends with a demo day where participants show off their progress.

Techstars says its choice of The Twin Cities as a host for a food innovation program is a strategic choice: food and ag tech programs there are worth more than $25 billion, and these companies employ over 100,000 people. “Our history is food and agriculture and with programs like this food and ag tech will play a big part in the region’s future,” Brohl says.

Agriculture technology has a growing number of startups in it these days that cover everything from farm data platforms and online marketplaces for imperfect produce to livestock management and using blockchain to assess sustainability. “Digital agriculture” is a trend to watch out for in this space in continuing search for more sustainable farming methods and using biotech to create food alternatives (e.g., plant-based “meat”). Given those trends, now feels like an exciting and appropriate time to launch a startup accelerator focused on this area.

The Farm to Fork program will run from July 16–October 11, 2018. Applications open on January 8, and close on April 8.

Quick-Service Restaurants Are Quickly Turning to Facial Recognition

Once upon a time in the not so distant past, most considered ordering food via facial recognition either a gimmick that was either unrealistic or just creepy.

Times have changed, thanks in large part to technologies like the iPhone X, which you can unlock using your own mug. And while we’re some distance from facial recognition becoming a facet of everyday dining everywhere, there’s a growing number of restaurants now offering customers this option when it comes to ordering.

CaliBurger was the latest to join that group this week when it launched self-ordering kiosks at its Pasadena, California location. If customers like this move, the company said it plans to roll out kiosks to all 40 of its locations in the future.

It’s the quick-service restaurants like CaliBurger where facial-recognition ordering appears to be making the biggest impact. It’s not hard to understand why. Quick service got its name for a reason, and facial recognition can certainly speed up the order and payment process. 

Just look at UFood Grill, who earlier this year debuted self-order kiosks in its Owings Mills, Maryland location. According to the restaurant, customers using the kiosks can order and pay in less than 10 seconds. Kiosks use facial recognition to remember customers’ orders for future visits; they’re powered by technology from Michigan-based Nextep. 

Addressing the need for restaurants to increase speed, Nextep president Tommy Woycik recently said, “Imagine visiting your local drive-thru and ordering your favorite customized coffee drink with a quick glance at the camera.” Likewise, if you’re in China, you can pay for your next KFC order just by smiling at the camera.

While it’s not a quick-service restaurant, Dallas’ Malibu Poke opened this past November with the option to order via facial recognition already in place. Talking to the Dallas Observer, owner John Alexis referenced the new iPhone, saying that thanks to the phone, ordering via facial recognition is no longer gimmicky. He was also quick to point out that the system Malibu Poke uses actually prevents him or anyone on staff from accessing the scanned faces from customers: “I literally would not know how to find [a customer’s face] if I wanted to. If you want extra cucumbers, that’s between you and the machine.”

Data—who sees it, where it’s stored—is definitely one of the challenges that has to be addressed in order for facial recognition to become a more widely used way of ordering. (See this year’s lawsuit against Lettuce Entertain You, who owns the Wow Bao quick-service chains.) Just because, for example, Malibu Poke can’t access your facial scan doesn’t mean some ill-humored cyber criminal can’t.

Data will continue to be both a question and a challenge moving forward, but so far, it doesn’t appear to be raising too many concerns for businesses. Restaurants themselves are more likely to be occupied by things like increasing the speed of these kiosks and dealing with some of the reported glitches around lighting and camera angle—basically things that will impact the business’s bottom line today.

3D Burger

Israeli Researchers Cook Up 3D-Printed Food You Can Personalize

The concept of 3D-printed food has ushered in many new novel treats, from pizza to popsicles. But there hasn’t yet been a huge amount of talk around using the technology to create entire meals, let alone healthy ones.

Researchers in Israel are hoping to change that.

The Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem just introduced a 3D-printing technology that would allow for “personalized” food options via 3D printing. Professors Oded Shoseyov and Ido Braslavsky developed a patent-pending process that uses a natural fiber called nanocellulose. While the team have only produced dough as of yet, their aim is to develop full meals that would be both nutritious and able to serve a wide range of dietary needs.

Nanocellulose has a huge range of use cases—body armor, lightweight car materials, and even water purification. As far as food is concerned, nanocellulose fibers can bind to other components like fat, carbohydrates, and vitamins. It’s this binding property that enables control over food elements like texture. Meanwhile, infrared lasers and localized heat are applied to give the food its shape and replicate the effect of frying, baking, or grilling.

Nanocellulose is also an attractive option for food because it’s calorie free and easily breaks down in the human body.

If the technology does as claimed, it could answer a number of different needs we have in terms of food. It’s an obvious win for anyone with dietary restrictions, whether they’re mandatory (diabetes) or lifestyle choices (vegetarians).

Shoseyov and Braslavsky’s technology also puts on the table another option for creating meat alternatives that truly mimic the taste and feel of the real thing. If the technology becomes as widely available as the researchers hope, it could join others in figuring out how to raise meat without destroying the planet. Fish, too.

Finally, Yissam CEO, Yaron Daniely, recently noted that technology like this can also address the food situation in developing nations, where famine, starvation, and lack of access to nutritious food is widespread.

All of those scenarios help to answer the question, “Can we use 3D-printed food in a practical way?” In other words, researchers like Shoseyov and Braslavsky can help us realize the possibilities of the technology beyond the “Hey, that’s cool” factor.

The team in Israel isn’t the only group examining everyday uses for 3D-printed food. One other notable example is Smart Kitchen Summit attendee nūfood, who makes a “3D printing robot” controlled by a smartphone interface. Via a subscription service, users receive monthly flavors they can shape with the nūfood machine and add to regular food. The company currently accepts pre-orders.

The larger question is how realistic it is to count on nutritious meals like this in the near future. The team in Israel aims to have its technology in commercial restaurants within a couple years, and in homes within five. Is that a realistic timeframe, given the cost of 3D-printing technology, or is it just unguarded optimism? The next couple years should tell us.