Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Video

SKS 2019: Food Retail is Evolving Fast, but Some Things Aren’t Going Anywhere (Hint: Brick & Mortar)

The next time you step into a grocery store, take a look around and think about how much work went into orchestrating the selection. Which CPG products should the store stock? How many? And how does fresh food factor in?

Those questions don’t have an easy answer, and they’re the reason that food retail is such a tricky business. Thankfully, there are companies trying to reinvent the space with the help of tech, innovation, and creative thinking. And we heard from a few of them onstage last month during a panel at SKS 2019.

In the panel, Brita Rosenheim of Better Food Ventures spoke with Stefan Kalb of Shelf Engine, Mike Fogarty of Choice Market and Andreas Wuerfel of METRO Group about how companies are re-imagining food suppliers to be more sustainable, more efficient, and be better at serving quick-shifting consumer demands. 

You should check out the video below to get a deeper look into how companies are leveraging tech to transform food retail. First, here are a few high-level takeaways:

Food retail is changing — and fast
 Kalb kicked off the panel by pointing out that the grocery space is in the midst of rapid transformation. “Because it’s a highly commoditized industry, changes spread quickly,” he said. His company Shelf Engine helps retailers stay on top of fast-moving trends by crunching customer data to forecast exactly how much of each SKU needs to be ordered. The more retailers they work with, the more data they get, the better they can help grocers optimize selection. Which, in today’s incredibly competitive food retail market, is crucial. 

Brick and mortar isn’t going anywhere
“In retail, the physical space is always going to be a quintessential part of people’s lives,” Fogarty told the SKS audience. Right now, only a small percentage of grocery sales happen online (though that number is growing). Physical retail space, he argues, will be an “anchor” for all the different sales channels that are emerging now, like pickup, delivery, vending machine, and more. 

Food retail is a slippery challenge. Tech can help
Wuerfel pointed out that optimizing retail in a company with a global presence (Metro has 750 stores in 35 countries) is, unsurprisingly, incredibly tricky. They have to “cater to every possible palate out there,” all while ordering the right number of products to reduce waste and maximize profit. To do so, Metro knew it would have to leverage new technologies. So it teamed up with TechStars to make an accelerator program to catalyze outside-in innovation for the company. That, according to Wuerfel, has helped their company stay on the cutting edge of food retail.

Check out the full video below to hear more insights from these three thought leaders in grocery and food sales. It’ll make you think a lot more the next time you set food in your local grocery store.

SKS 2019: Re-Imagining Food Retail

From Edible Spoons to Adaptogen Chewing Gum, Here are 8 Startups Shaping the Future of Food

Super nutritious noodles. Cricket-based seasoning powders. Edible spoons to replace single-use plastics. Chewing gum that’s actually good for you.

These are just some of the awesome companies that pitched at the inaugural SKS 2019 Future Food Competition last month. Check out the video below to see the 8 finalists describe their company and explain why they’re the next “it” edible CPG company.

Once you’ve determined which startup you think should be the winner, click here to see if our judges agreed with you. And keep an eye on The Spoon to follow along as these companies grow, head to market and continue their efforts to shake up the way we eat.

SKS 2019: Future Food pitches

SKS 2019: Here’s What Investors are Looking For in Food Tech

Here at The Spoon we often write about funding news for new food tech companies: how much they’re raising and what they’ll do with the money. But what about the investors who are allocating these funds? How do they decide which ventures are worth investment?

We gathered four VCs to talk about just that at SKS 2019. In the panel, Tom Allison of ZX Ventures, Nate Williams of UNION Labs, and Brian Frank of FTW Ventures spoke with Brita Rosenheim of Better Food Ventures about the dynamics of investing in the food tech space.

If you’re curious about what investors are looking for in this area or are a startup hungry for funding, you should definitely watch the full video below. Here’s a quick overview to whet your appetite:

The food tech space has lots of opportunity
Rosenheim summed things up pretty well when she said, “We’re really at the infancy of the food tech sector in terms of potential.” Frank, who is a longtime SKS attendee, echoed this thought as he reflected on the growth within the conference itself. SKS was originally focused on consumer tech but now has expanded to cover tech from restaurants to supply chains to waste management in addition to the consumer sphere. Nonetheless, “it’s under-invested and under-managed,” he said. In short, there’s plenty of opportunity.

Big Food is getting involved, too
Allison, who’s the Head of Investment Strategy and M&A at ZX Ventures, part of AB InBev, spoke about how Big Food is trying to formulate its investment strategy to mimic the efficiency and agility of smaller independent companies. One takeaway? Look at untapped resources within the company (e.g., spent grain) and figure out how to capitalize on it. (Protein!)

Hardware is, well, hard
Williams, the Entrepreneur in Residence for Union, a new spinout from Kleiner Perkins, dropped some truth bombs about the difficulty of investing in hardware. “[It’s] extremely hard to execute well,” he said. “The be honest, lean startup [mentality] is bulls—t when it comes to hardtech investing.” Especially compared with the relative ease of scaling software.

Check out the full video below to hear more about what opportunities these investors are looking for — and their current favorite food tech product.

SKS 2019: Investing In Food Tech: Hardware, CPG & Future Food

SKS 2019: Plant-Based Foods Aren’t Going Anywhere, But Taste is Key

Ask almost anyone in the food space about the biggest trends they’re seeing, and odds are they’ll mention one thing: plant-based. From meat to dairy to eggs, plant-based alternatives to traditional animal products are becoming more and more commonplace — and tasting better and better.

Considering the ubiquity of plant-based dining, we invited a few experts to come speak about the trend at SKS 2019 earlier this month. Author and scientist Dr. PK Newby, Bjorn Oste, co-founder of Oatly, and Daniel Scharff Director of Strategy & Analytics for JUST,  took the SKS 2019 stage to unpack the plant-based dining trend: who’s catalyzing it, what products they want, and why is it gaining so much popularity right now?

If you’re curious about why ‘plant-based’ has suddenly become the buzzword du jour, it’s worth watching the whole video below. Here are a few high-level takeaways from the conversation:

Health is a big driver
There are many reasons that people shift towards a plant-based or flexitarian diet: ethical concerns, environmental motivations, etc. But according to Scharff, health is another big driver. “The number one reason for dietary change isn’t weight loss,” he said. “It’s health.”

Dr. Newby echoed this idea, siting studies which showed that plant-based diets are key to longevity and chronic disease prevention — as well as the health of our planet. Since millennials are motivated by health and sustainability, she said, they’re a primary driver for the adoption of plant-based food.

Mission matters
It may seem like new companies (of Big Food corporations) are popping up every day promising a unique twist on plant-based foods. But according to Oste, companies can’t just slap the term “plant-based” on their products and expect to see a loyal customer base spring up overnight. “Consumers care about companies on a mission that are authentic, transparent, and value-driven,” he said. In short: You can’t just talk the talk. You have to walk the walk, too.

Taste is king
All of our panelists agreed that, while mission and health are key, taste is still king. “Taste will always be first,” said Dr. Newby. “It’s the primary driver.” The others? Cost, followed by convenience. But the overall conclusion was no matter how sustainable, healthy, or affordable a plant-based product is, if it doesn’t taste amazing — it doesn’t have a chance.

Scarff went one step further. He said that animal product alternatives don’t only have to taste great, but also has to look, cook, and eat like the original product. “It has to replicate the experience that they’re used to,” he said, referencing consumers. That’s one of the reasons that JUST is so adamant that they sell their plant-based egg next to actual egg cartons in the grocery store.

Dr. Newby finished her talk with a bold claim. “The future is absolutely meatless,” she said. It’s too early to say if her prediction is correct, but there’s one thing we can be sure of: the plant-based revolution is here now, and it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

If you want to hear the full conversation, check out the video below.

SKS 2019: The Plant-based Revolution

SKS 2019: The Kitchen Evolution is In a State of “Good Chaos”

What’s next for the smart kitchen? What sort of new appliances will be gracing the countertops of the future, and what sort of technologies will power them? In short: What will it look like to cook at home in the future?

That’s exactly the question one of our panels tackled at SKS 2019. The discussion was led by The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht, who spoke with Lisa McManus of America’s Test Kitchen, Matt Van Horn of June and Steve Svajian of Anova about what’s coming down the pipelines for kitchen tech. The full video is below, but if you want a few quick highlights read on:

The future of the kitchen is software
Svajian argued that the smart kitchen space started out more hardware-driven, but has recently been shifting to focus more on software. Van Horn agreed. He said that in the early days of the company, people used what he called the “primitive” settings of the smart oven: bake, broil, etc. But now they’re using the automatic cook programs more and more. “That said, the hardware [still] has to be great,” added Svajian.

All tech aside, it has to work
McManus drove home the point that high-tech appliance are great, but they have to actually help people cook better — not just look cool. “We look at things that will make [cooking] easier and more accessible to everyone,” she said. “Things that are practical, that are functional.”

The smart kitchen space right now? “Good chaos.”
McManus summed up the evolution of the food tech ecosystem pretty neatly during the panel. “It feels like a really exciting brainstorm,” she said. “It’s good chaos.” Svajian agreed, equating the space to the evolution of the Web in the late 90’s. ‘The law of entropy is real.’

If you want to hear more about where these three insiders see the fast-paced evolution of the kitchen heading, make sure to watch the full video below.

SKS 2019: Kitchen Tech Futures: A Look At What's Next

SKS 2019: How Data Can Help You Live Longer — and Drink Better Cocktails

You might think that in order to make a perfect cocktail or figure out your healthiest foods, you need to channel the mind of a mixologist or nutritionist. But what if it’s more useful to get into the head of a data scientist, instead?

That’s what Marc Drucker and Jacques Moore of Drinkworks, which makes an automated countertop cocktail and beer making machine, and Victor Penev of Edamam, the company putting a data layer on the Internet of Food, spoke about on the SKS 2019 stage earlier this month.

Penev argued that dietary behavior change is difficult; people don’t like working hard to figure out how to eat better. At Edamam, he and his team are figuring out ways to leverage data to help you figure out what to eat, and then get that food to your kitchen without any added work for the consumer. “It’s a no-brainer solution,” Penev told the SKS audience.

The Drinkworks team is taking that level of personalized convenience and applying it to one of our favorite things: cocktails. The company wanted to create a countertop drinks machine that would be different than anything else on the market. To figure out what that would look like, they turned to data — what people want to drink, what times of day they’re drink it, and how exactly they want those beverages to taste. “Data really is the key to our product development,” said Drucker. “Probably much more so than the traditional ethnographic interview systems we used the first time around.”

Check out the video below to learn how companies are harnessing Big Data to make kitchen products that can do everything from improve your Happy Hour to figure out how to make you eat healthy enough to live to 120 years old. It’s an awesome, nerdy conversation that will make you appreciate just how many numbers go into kitchen product development.

SKS 2019: IBM and McCormick Use AI to Make the Best Possible Barbecue Chips (and More)

Say you’re developing a new barbecue potato chip. You’re using spices from McCormick, which has not one, not two, but over 100 types of garlic flavoring. How do you decide which garlic(s) to use, and in which combinations, to make the best product for your target demographic?

That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) can help. Last year, McCormick, the largest flavor company in the world, went public with its five-plus-year partnership with IBM to build a flavor platform using machine learning. We dove deep into this partnership at SKS 2019, when The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht spoke with McCormick’s Chief Science Officer Hamed Faridi and IBM Principal Researcher Richard Goodwin about how AI can help make better, tastier products in less time and with fewer dead ends.

Check out the video below to watch the entire panel (it’s super nerdy and cool).

Hamed Faridi on the SKS 2019 stage. (Photo: The Spoon)

To whet your appetite, here’s a quick overview of what Faridi and Goodwin discussed in the session.

“The [CPG] iterating process is a very time-consuming, old system,” said Faridi during his onstage presentation. “But that’s the only thing the industry has.” All of that changed when Faridi was driving home and heard an NPR interview with a scientist from IBM’s Chef Watson, a program that develops bepsoke recipes based off of chemical flavor affinities (for example, leeks and chocolate.) Immediately, he was struck: this was the missing piece of the puzzle to develop better products in a smarter way.

Computers can’t taste or smell, so how do they know which flavors taste well together? That’s where data comes in. McCormick has kept all of its data from various flavor development processes and product experiments since the 1980s. IBM’s machine learning algorithms can take those data points and make suggestions about new ingredient combinations without having to go through all the trial, error, and staff training that a human R&D team requires.

The result is a 70 percent reduction in product development time and increased stickiness in the market. Faridi said that the IBM partnership is working so well they expect all of their labs will be using AI by late 2021.

This session was a fascinating look into how a flavor giant and a technology giant have teamed up to make better everyday products. Watch the full video below and get ready for more SKS 2019 content coming your way over the next few weeks!

SKS 2019: Case Study: McCormick & IBM Build an AI-Powered Flavor Platform

SKS 2019: How Can Tech Break Down Barriers to Get More People in the Kitchen?

At the Smart Kitchen Summit we bring together innovators who want to make the kitchen more high-tech, connected, and futuristic. But what does that matter if it doesn’t actually get people in the kitchen and cooking?

That’s exactly the question that the first panel of SKS 2019 tackled onstage last week. Nancy Roman, of the Partnership for a Healthier America, Beth Altringer, of Harvard, and celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor spoke with The Spoon’s Michael Wolf about how we can build a bridge to the future of food and cooking. Without alienating people.

Onstage Roman emphasized that the kitchen of the future should have one goal: building a healthier population. One way to do that is to make it easier for people to cook simple, nutritious meals at home — be it with a new cooking app, a recipe platform, or something else entirely.

For Dr. Altringer, the kitchen of the future isn’t all rosy. In fact, she showed data that suggests outsourcing more and more cooking processes to automation or other convenience measures doesn’t necessarily equate to happier eaters. “People enjoy food more when they know they worked for it,” she said onstage. One way they might cook and enjoy it is by employing her Flavor Genome Project, which is gamifying food preparation to help consumers and chefs figure out better dishes and fix flops.

With all this talk of automation, you’d think that a career chef like Sanjeev Kapoor might be worried about what the kitchen will look like down the road. Instead, he’s excited about it. “It’s an opportunity,” he said onstage. For example, Kapoor leverages social media to reach more viewers and leverages tech to help feed 1.8 million kids per day for his nutrition outreach project.

Overall, it was a really fascinating way to kick off the summit, and a departure from some of the typical conversations you hear around the future of food. If you’re interested in how tech can help us eat better, you can listen to the full video below! Keep an eye out for more content from SKS 2019 coming your way over the next few weeks.

SKS 2019: Building The Bridge To The Future of Food & Cooking

SKS 2019: For Gen Z, Eating is all about “Access, Portability, and Fluidity”

When you hear about new trends in the food and CPG space — plant-based, sustainable, snackable, etc. — they’re usually credited to younger generations: specifically millennials and Gen Z. But what exactly are younger eaters looking for, both in and out of the kitchen? And what will they demand next?

That’s exactly what Michael Wolf asked two analysts, Susan Schwallie and Joe Derochowski, from the market research firm the NPD Group at SKS 2019 last week. Schwallie looks into where, why, and how consumers are preparing food and eating at restaurants, and Derochowski focuses on kitchen space — and its appliances.

If you’re at all curious about how younger generations are reshaping dining habits, it’s worth watching the whole video below. But here’s a quick rundown on what millennials and Gen Z are looking for:

Schwallie said that millennials prioritize experiential eating — they want to cook or eat something Instagrammable that will give them what she called ‘The Betty Crocker effect.” Gen Z has some similarities, but above all they prioritize “access, portability, and fluidity.” In short, they want to get exactly the food they want, where and when they want it — be it getting a Domino’s pizza delivered to their park bench or having groceries sent to their doorstep to make a recipe they discovered just an hour before.

Generations may have different dining habits, but Derochowski pointed there are some unifying factors that all groups share — like prioritizing health and wellness and the desire to entertain more at home. These “consistencies between generations,” as he put it, are exactly what kitchen appliance makers are trying to target with convenience products like slow cookers.

Watch the full video below to hear what younger generations are eating, and how companies are hustling to figure out how to capitalize off of changing dining habits. Then keep an eye out for more content from SKS 2019 coming your way!

SKS 2019: Eaters of the Future: A Look at Millennials, Gen Z & Food

SKS Hot Seat: WPC’s David Baarman Says the Future of The Kitchen is All About Simplification

As kitchens get smarter, they also tend to get more cluttered and complicated, especially if the various connected devices involved don’t communicate with each other. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some sort of universal standard that allowed all smart appliances to be interoperable?

That’s exactly what the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) is trying to achieve with its new Ki wireless power standard. The consortium works with over 600 companies to simplify the smart kitchen, making various connected devices simpler to use in tandem — and, of course, wireless.

We sat down with David Baarman, Co-Chairman of the Kitchen Application & Promotions Group at WPC, at SKS 2019 last week to ask a few questions about how his company is working to make the kitchen not only smart, but also simple to navigate. Check out the video below and be on the lookout for more videos from SKS 2019 to hit The Spoon soon!

SKS Hot Seat Interview: David Baarman, Wireless Power Consortium

Video: Do Food Robot Startup Founders Need Restaurant Experience to Be Successful?

Say you’re a VC looking to invest in a company that makes strawberry-picking robots. There are three or four companies in the space, all vying for your capital to get off the ground.

How do you choose where to put your dollars?

That’s one of the questions that we tackled last week at ArticulATE, our inaugural food and automation summit. We closed out the day with a lively panel on the opportunities — and challenges — in the food robotics investment landscape. Our speakers were VCs from the foodtech, hard tech and IoT spaces: Brian Frank of FTW Ventures, Brita Rosenheim of Better Food Ventures, Rajat Bhageria of Prototype Capital, and Avian Ross of Root VC.

The Spoon’s Michael Wolf moderated the conversation on what these investors are looking for in a food automation startup pitch specifically — and where they see significant opportunities in the fast-growing market. (Yes, both Frank and Ross have invested in strawberry-picking robots — and Ross claims he made the right choice.)

It’s certainly an exciting time in the food robotics space: there are tons of entrepreneurs out there with lofty plans to build the next robotic sushi restaurant, the next automated food delivery bot, or the next burrito-rolling robot arm (which, apparently, really hard to do).

However, the panelists seemed to agree that food robotics is a trickier investment space than a lot of other tech areas. Sure, the basic building blocks of food robotics — AI, articulating arms, etc. — are pretty democratized. But Ross (who — fun fact — spent a former life building robots for the Food Network) said that “robotics feels special and different.” He pointed out that the food system is incredibly complex and that a whole host of players have to be involved to deliver even the most basic meal to the consumer. And that’s just logistics: getting a robotic system to reach parity with a basic human fast food experience in terms of taste or customer experience is really tricky.

Because there are so many complexities at play it can require more capital than some other tech investments. It can also take longer to bring food automation technology to market. Which isn’t a problem — unless, as Rosenheim pointed out, you’re working with investors who are looking for “the next shiny thing” and aren’t patient enough to be in it for the long haul.

Investors in food robotics have to be especially willing to take risks and play the long game. However, not all the VCs saw eye-to-eye on what it takes for a food automation startup to be successful. The panelists disagreed on whether or not startups need deep restaurant market knowledge to be successful, how high the capital investment has to be in food automation, and what sets one seemingly identical food robotics startup apart from another.

Check out the video below to see the whole conversation — it was a really fun one.

Articulate 2019: Investment Opportunities in Food Robotics

Look out for more ArticulATE 2019 videos rolling out on our YouTube channel over the next week! 

CES 2019 Video: SeedSheet Launching Sensor for Idiot-Proof Home Gardens

Much as I love the idea of home gardening and picking fresh herbs from my windowsill to sprinkle over a pasta dish, anything I try to grow at home usually ends up dying within a few weeks. I either forget to water my plants, or else they perish due to weeds or lack of sunlight.

Maybe I should give Seedsheet a go. We wrote about this startup, which makes sheets that have pods of seeds embedded in a weed-blocking fabric, back in 2017, just a month after they got half a million bucks from Shark Tank investor Lori Greiner. Basically, it’s an idiot-proof garden.

And soon it will become even more easy to manage: in June, Seedsheet will launch a bluetooth sensor which you can stick in your Seedsheet-covered pot to give real-time data about ambient light, soil moisture, and more.

We caught up with Seedsheet CEO Cameron MacKugler on the CES floor to talk about what’s next for his company and the home gardening space in general. Give it a watch below:

The Spoon Talks to Seedsheet At CES 2019