Ohayōgozaimasu! Greetings from Tokyo, where we’ve been spending the week for our third year of SKS Japan, connecting with a global ecosystem of companies and academics in the food innovation space. Oh — and eating many, many bowls of ramen.
Before we leave to fly back home, we’ll leave you with a few food tech news stories that caught our eye between the discussions on futuristic dining and slurping noodles. Enjoy!
Rome lets commuters trade plastic bottles for Metro rides
The Italian capital just launched a year-long trial this week in which people can exchange plastic bottles for a ride on the Metro (h/t Food & Wine). Commuters can put bottles in vending machines at the stations; for each bottle, five euro cents is reduced from their Metro ticket (30 bottles = one ticket). The program is currently available at three subway stations.
Rebellyous starts serving vegan “chicken” nuggets in Microsoft
Seattle startup Rebellyous (formerly Seattle Food Tech) announced this week that they would start serving their plant-based nuggets at select dining stations on Microsoft HQ campus. This is the latest partnership for Rebellyous, the plant-based manufacturing company focused on selling their products (so far, just vegan “chicken” nuggets) to large-scale foodservice operations such as hospital, school, and office cafeterias. Their nuggets are currently available in two Swedish Hospital locations in Seattle.
Alkaline Water Company debuts canned CBD water
Love CBD water but hate plastic waste? You could try the new product line from the Alkaline Water Company. Alkaline Water Company makes, well, alkaline water, which is water that’s less acidic than what comes out of the tap. This week the company announced the launch of its flavored, CBD-infused water sold in aluminum cans, which will be available in Q1 of 2020. However, that timeline seems a bit ambitious, as they’ve stated they will only release the products in states where the sale of CBD-infused food and drink is legal, which — as of now — is none.
Did we miss any cool news? Tweet us @TheSpoonTech!