Happy Saturday! Hopefully you’ve got some pancakes and a hot liquid of your choice. Maybe you’re recovering from the Specialty Coffee Expo, like we are (check out the robot barista and connected coffee roasters we saw!). To kick off your weekend, we’ve rounded up some quick food tech stories from the week that caught our eye. Enjoy!
Edible insects leap forward in Canada
It was a big week for edible insect company Entomo Farms. First, Maple Leaf Foods, a company best known for its plant-based meat products, took a minority stake in the company. Secondly, food distributor Loblaws launched a cricket powder made with insects from Entomo Farms. These two updates are a big step towards introducing edible bugs into the mainstream — at least in Canada, where Maple Leaf and Loblaws are based.
Grubhub adds Venmo payment option
This week food delivery service Grubhub launched an update that will allow its customers to automatically split the cost of their food with Venmo, the Paypal-like app that lets you send money to friends, and request payments. This is a (smart) way that Grubhub is adding value, trying to distinguish itself from the competitive food delivery pool. Grubhub owns Eat24 and Seamless, so they’ll also offer the Venmo payment option.
Finally! A way to fix that wobbly table
You can stop wedging sugar packets and napkins under your wobbly restaurant tables — a pair of restauranteurs have developed a hydraulics system that will keep your table wobble-free, even on uneven floors. Customers can either purchase their FLAT table bases, which use fluid to expand or compress table feet, stabilizing the table, or if they don’t want to purchase all new furniture, there’s also a modular option which can replace screw-in table feet. A low-tech solution to a highly annoying problem.
The Food Corridor releases a guide for commercial kitchen spaces
On Tuesday The Food Corridor launched their Shared Kitchen Toolkit. The Food Corridor, which raised $555K in February, is an online platform which lets budding food entrepreneurs connect to shared commercial kitchen spaces. The web-based toolkit is geared not towards startups, but towards people who want to launch and manage a commercial kitchen space. Because with more shared kitchen spaces come more startups; if you build it, they will come.
Did we miss any food tech updates from the week? Tell us in the comments, or on twitter @thespoontech.