Were we the only ones whose heads were spinning with all the food tech news this week? Especially the funding announcements. Corporate catering company ezCater raised $100 million, cultured fish startup Finless Foods snagged $3.5 million, and Hungry raised $1.5 million. And that was just in the U.S.! There were quite a few other big fundraising announcements from food innovation companies around the world, from food delivery to meal replacement shakes.
Here are some of the other food tech news bits — funding-related and otherwise — from around the web this week. This one’s a bit longer than usual, so we’ve divided it up into categories for you.
Crowdfunding updates
Dash Rapid Cold Brew Available In Stores
Tired of waiting a grueling 24 hours for your cold brew to be ready? This week Dash Rapid Cold Brew, which claims to create cold brew coffee in 5 minutes, is now available in stores and online. It’s the latest product from Storebound, the company that brought you such tech-enabled appliances as the Pancakebot 3D Printer and the SoBro Coffee Table. After raising funds for the product on IndieGoGo, the product found its way online earlier this year to mixed reviews. At the time, the company told us they were working on adjustments to the product, so let’s hope they’ve gotten those fixed as the product heads to brick and mortar retail for $129.99.
IoT-enabled brewing airlock PLAATO ships
This week PLAATO, an IoT powered smart airlock we wrote about last year that lets you monitor beer fermentation via phone app, has started shipping. The Norwegian project had raised over $200,000 on Kickstarter, beating its $30,000 goal in the first 12 hours. The PLAATO, which monitors fermentation levels, CO2 amounts, and temperature throughout the brewing process, will retail for $149.
Robots and… more funding.
Creator offers $6 cheeseburgers made by robots
Restaurant/culinary robotics company Creator opened up their robotic burger chef to a select few this week before their June 27th opening. The San Francisco-based company, formerly Momentum Machines, will serve up robot-created cheeseburgers for $6. Automated chefs are all the rage right now, from Miso Robotics’s burger-flipping Flippy to Chowbotics’ automated food bowls. If you want to stay on the cutting edge, be sure to check out The Spoon Automat podcast, which covers all things food robots.
Bossa Nova raises funds to scale up inventory robots
This week Pittsburgh-based Bossa Nova raised $29 million to increase the production of their mobile inventory robots. The robots work perform tasks like shelf-scanning to facilitate re-stocking in retailers like Walmart (its currently in more than 40 of its stores), and are apparently 50% more efficient than human workers. This latest funding round brings Bossa Nova’s total war chest to $70 million.
Everything else
Beyond Meat goes to Canada
A&W Services is bringing Beyond Meat burgers north of the border into Canada. Starting July 9th, the national restaurant chain will offer the plant-based patties in its nearly 1,000 locations across the country. This will make A&W the first Canadian chain to carry Beyond products, and will also mark Beyond Meat’s largest restaurant chain partnership to date.
Apeel avocados now on Costco shelves
Midwest Costco stores got a new item in their produce section this week: avocados coated with a plant-based protective layer by Apeel Sciences, which should make the fruit last up to four times longer. According to the Washington Post, Costco hopes to roll out these long-living avocados in their stores nationwide. The next Apeel-ified produce to look out for: citrus and asparagus.
Nomiku debuts Nima-tested gluten-free meals
This week sous vide startup Nomiku partnered with allergen-testing sensor Nima to put out a bundle of gluten-free meals. Nima’s portable, handheld sensor can detect even trace amounts of gluten, and they just unveiled their peanut sensor a few months ago. The bundle will source from Nomiku’s library of gluten-free options.
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