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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

agtech

AgTech IoT Startup TeleSense Raises $6.5M to Help Prevent Food Spoilage

TeleSense, an agtech startup that provides wireless monitoring for grain and food production, today announced it has raised a $6.5 million Series A round of funding led by Finistere Ventures. Congruent Ventures, Maersk Growth, Rabobank’s Food & Agri Innovation Fund, Radicle Growth and Trailhead Capital, as well as previous investor Plug and Play Ventures also joined the round.

TeleSense is basically an industrial internet of things (IoT) company that uses a combination of wireless sensors and data tracking to help improve the food supply chain. TeleSense is initially focusing on grain storage and food transport, with its sensors continuously monitoring elements such as temperature and humidity. Using TeleSense’s cloud-based analytics platform, food producers can detect and be notified of anomalies or other problems early, and take action to prevent food spoilage. The company says that it has already helped its customers save $3 million dollars worth of grains.

According to the press announcement, TeleSense will use its new funding to invest in research and development of its GrainSafe artificial intelligence platform and build out channels for international expansion.

We’ve covered a lot of farm IoT startups over the past year as there is a huge rush towards giving farmers and other food producers data-driven insights into their operations. Companies like Teralytic and Arable analyze soil and crop conditions, while Connecterra keeps track of cows. The danger with all these data platforms and a potential challenge for TeleSense is vendor fatigue. Farmers want to farm, not implement multiple platforms and analyze millions of data points.

But TeleSense’s transport monitoring technology is also working to help improve the supply chain, an area which is also seeing a lot of action. Companies like AgShift, Zest Labs, and Apeel are all bringing new technologies to market to help reduce food waste.

Food Tech News Roundup: Mushrooms, Corporate Catering, and Delivery Fee Wars

You head to the Spoon every week for the big, juicy food tech stories — ones that cover behind the scenes visits to the Beyond Meat headquarters, fundraises for robot baristas, and next-generation smart ovens.

For the other cool news bits around the web, the ones we don’t write a full post on, there’s the food tech news roundup! Grab yourself some lemonade and read up before you head to your local swimming hole for some weekend adventures.

Catering company Hungry expands into Philadelphia
Hungry, a service which connects chefs with corporate catering clients, announced this week that they had acquired Philadelphia company LocalStove (which offers a similar service) for an undisclosed amount. Hungry already works with 300 companies in the Washington, D.C. area, and will continue with LocalStove’s chef and office clients. This news comes a few weeks after the Virginia-based startup raised $1.5 million — I guess we’re seeing some of the promised expansion efforts already.

 

Chinova Bioworks raises $2 million for its natural food preservatives
This week food tech company Chinova Bioworks raised a $2 million seed round with participation by AgFunder, DSM Venturing, Rhapsody Venture Partners, and Natural Products Canada. The Canadian startup uses chitosan, a component found in mushrooms, as a natural food preservation agent in an attempt to fight food waste without artificial preservatives. They will use their new funding to scale up production and grow their team.

 

Doordash launches subscription service for restaurant deliveries
If you live in California, Texas, or the Midwest, you might be able to try out Doordash’s brand new subscription delivery service. Dubbed ‘Dashpass,’ customers in those locations can pay $9.99 to receive free delivery from restaurants in their area — as long as their order is over $15. According to Christopher Payne, COO at DoorDash (catch him at the Smart Kitchen Summit!), the subscription will pay for itself in three orders.

Interestingly, this move came around the same time that UberEats did away with its flat $4.99 delivery fee in favor of a sliding scale based on delivery distance. Which goes to show that the economics of restaurant delivery are clearly changing as demand grows and companies are experimenting to find the pricing sweet spot.

Did we miss any food tech news stories? Don’t keep it to yourself! Tweet us @TheSpoonTech.

Ganaz Wins $250,000 to Become the Glassdoor for Farms

A combination of aging farmworkers, immigration crackdowns, and the dangerous, backbreaking work of farming have created a labor crisis in U.S. agriculture. Which means that more than ever, the industry needs tools to help find and retain reliable workers.

To help uncover solutions to this labor shortage, Radicle Growth, an agtech accelerator fund, and the Western Growers Association held the Radicle Automation Challenge. Last night in Salinas, CA, Ganaz was named one of the winners of that challenge and was awarded $250,000 in seed investment.

Ganaz (pronounced “GAH-nahz”), is a year-old, Seattle-based startup that aims to be the “Glassdoor for Farms.” It’s a mobile app that lets farms advertise jobs and communicate with its workers.

I met Ganaz Co-Founder Sri Artham at the Food IT conference in San Francisco yesterday. He explained to me that there are a ton of digital services like Glassdoor and Linkedin if you are looking for a white collar job, but if you’re a farm worker, there really aren’t those same tools.

“There could be a job on a farm just 30 miles away from you, and you’d never know,” said Artham.

Ganaz works to connect workers with those open jobs and help farms communicate more effectively with its workforce. Farms list job openings on the app in both English and Spanish, and workers can scroll through listings and apply for them. Once on the job, Ganaz facilitates communication with the workers by letting farms send work-related updates (e.g. show up to a particular field the next morning) via the app or SMS. Communications written by farms on Ganaz are automatically translated into Spanish.

Right now Ganaz is available in Washington, Oregon, California and Baja, Mexico, and the platform is used by 4,000 people weekly. Ganaz currently makes money by charging a fee for job postings as well as a subscription fee for ongoing communications with workers.

Eventually, the Ganaz platform will also incorporate more robust in-app communication features, a way for workers to rate farms, and potentially a way for farm workers to find off-season, non-farm work. But first, Artham said that if Ganaz accepts the Radicle seed funding award (terms of the investment still need to be worked through), the money will go towards building out the engineering team and adding people to help interact and support farms on the platform. The total amount raised by the company at that point will be just over one million dollars.

Ganaz is among a wave of startups that are using networks to connect and improve farming operations. Farmers Business Network allows farms to share data analytics and input purchase pricing, and WeFarm helps farmers share knowledge with one another through text messages.

And these startups could not have come at a better time. With the current administration circulating the idea of limiting visas for temporary agricultural workers, farms are going to need all the help finding all the help they can get.

Podcast: E-I, E-A-I, Oh! Connecterra’s Deep Learning Helps Dairy Farmers

Don’t call Connecterra a Fitbit for cows. The Amsterdam-based company’s “Ida” product is actually a complex artificial intelligence platform to help diary farmers manage their farms.

Why does a dairy farmer need AI? Well, until now, a lot of farming practices have been passed down through generations. Today we live in the age of data, so sensors on cows and complex algorithms can help dairy farmers see which of those practices are actually useful, and which need to be changed.

Connecterra just raised €4.2 million, which seemed like a good reason to sit down with its CEO, Yasir Kokhar, for a fascinating deep dive into the overlap between AI and agtech. We touch on how Ida helps improve animal welfare (early disease detection), dairy farm productivity (improved yield!) and even the lives of dairy farmers themselves (more sleeping)!

The Automat is The Spoon’s weekly podcast about food-related robots and artificial intelligence. Subscribe to it for the best conversations and insight into how automation is changing the way we eat.

Q&A with Michael Setton, CEO of Smart Grow System TipCrop

We’ve got a brand new Q&A in our series to introduce this year’s talented crop of startup showcase finalists for Smart Kitchen Summit Europe. Next up is Michael Setton, CEO of connected indoor grow system TipCrop. They’ve developed a smart lighting tool which lets growers — like chefs, urban farmers, and anyone with a spare bit of indoor space — to fine-tune environmental conditions so they can grow microgreens, herbs, and other produce with high levels of control.

Head to the SKS Europe blog to learn more about how TipCrop is using machine learning to facilitate indoor farming, educate kids about plants, and even control how fragrant your basil is.

And if you want to meet the TipCrop team in person and see their tech in action, register for Smart Kitchen Summit Europe in Dublin on June 11-12th!

 

CropX Makes Soil Sensors to Measure Moisture, Gets Investment from ICL

Though CropX’s soil moisture measuring sensors are prominently displayed as the main product on the company’s homepage, CropX CEO Tomer Tzach’s ambitions are much bigger. “We want to be the Nest of agriculture,” Tzach told me, referring to the smart home thermostat company that Google bought for $3.2 billion in 2014.

Just as Nest thermostats provided Google with valuable data, CropX sensors are a gateway for valuable agricultural insights.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, CropX makes sensors that farmers can literally screw into the ground, making for super easy self-installation. According to Tzach, the screw-like shape of CropX actually makes their product better than other soil sensors on the market. The sensors are embedded along the “threads” protruding from the shaft of the device embedded in the soil. Because of this placement, water can pass through the sensor. Tzach says other sensors are just tubes that go straight into the ground, and the narrower footprint creates a less accurate reading.

On average, one CropX sensor can cover 40 acres, and using topographic and USDA data, the company can tell a farmer the optimal spots to plant their sensors. Once installed, each sensor communicates via cellular networks directly with the CropX software in the cloud, which analyzes the sensor’s readings. Farmers download a smartphone app and receive notifications about field conditions so they can maintain optimal soil moisture levels.

The sensors also measure temperature and electroconductivity in the soil to determine salinity levels, which can help farmers with nutrient management and fertilizer application.

The result of all this monitoring, according to CropX, is healthier crops and improved yields for farms.

Sensors cost from $600 to $899 apiece and there is a $275 yearly subscription per sensor. Farmers own their own data, and anything CropX learns is anonymous and on an aggregate basis. But it’s these data insights that are the real play for CropX. Tzach wouldn’t go into specifics but said that eventually, the company will be able to “provide significant data to other industries and geographies.”

Perhaps pointing to one such industry, just yesterday it was announced that ICL, a global fertilizer company, made an investment in and formed a strategic partnership with CropX. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CropX does have some competition; there are quite a few sensors options and data generating platforms currently available to farmers. Teralytic‘s soil sensors help farmers manage fertilizer use (and monitor moisture), and Arable‘s Mark packs in 40 sensors to monitor moisture, ambient temperatures and more.

This raises the question, how many sensors and accompanying dashboards does a farmer need–or want? Pretty soon we’ll get the data on that.

Food Tech News Roundup: Plastic-Free Grocery Stores, Food Waste Accelerators, & Crowd Cow Tackles Pork

This week certainly kept us busy. Bear Robotics, which we were the first to cover, got a $2M investment, and Amazon opened the door to in-car grocery delivery. We also explored meat alternatives, from a tour of JUST’s cultured meat lab to Omnipork’s plant-based pork. Most excitingly of all, we had our first food tech meetup in which we explored the future of recipes.

If you don’t feel news-ed out, we’ve rounded a few food tech stories that caught our eye around the web this week. Great to peruse on a Sunday morning, post-snooze.

Photo: Crowd Cow

Crowd Cow moves to pork
Beginning May 2nd, Crowd Cow, the Seattle-based startup that lets carnivores buy cuts of meat directly from farmers, will expand into pork. Customers will be able to buy various snout to tail porcine products like bacon, pork chops, and sausages from four pig farmers; two on the East Coast, two on the West Coast. This expansion speaks to consumers’ growing interest in food transparency, especially in meat, as well as their demand for convenience — Crowd Cow cuts out the visit to the grocery store and delivers flash-frozen meat directly their customers’ doors.

 

Photo: Somadetect

Documentary on minority women in Agtech
Journalist and filmmaker Amy Wu has created a documentary called “From Farms to Incubators,” which tells the stories of minority women entrepreneurs in agtech in the California area. The film will premiere on May 3rd in the 2018 Steinbeck Festival in Salinas Valley. The documentary profiles minority women who are creating innovation in the agricultural sector through mobile apps, robotics, data systems, and beyond. Agtech, like many tech fields, is male-dominated. (Despite notable exceptions like women-run companies SomaDetect and AgShift.) The screening is free and open to the community.

 

Photo: Hooch

Hooch debuts next-level exclusive subscription
Hooch, the company that lets you claim a free drink every day from one of their participating bars and restaurants, just launched a new subscription level: Hooch Black. It’ll cost you quite a bit more — $295 per year, instead of $9.99 per month — but it has a lot more perks, too. On top of the drink-a-day service, subscribers also get hotel discounts, preferred restaurant reservations, and even tickets to performances like Hamilton or Coachella. Wannabe users also have to fill out an application before they even have the option to pay for the subscription.

CEO Lin Dai told Techcrunch that Hooch Black will continue Hooch’s mission to be the “an antidote to apps that ‘facilitate a couch economy’,” such as food delivery services. Instead of bringing the booze to you, they’re encouraging you to get out and drink it in a bar — and Hooch Black takes that even further by pushing users to go on trips, eat at restaurants, and attend live shows.

 

Photo: Ekoplaza

100% plastic-free grocery store opens in Amsterdam
This Wednesday a grocery store opened in Amsterdam that claimed to be the world’s first plastic-free pop-up store. The shop, dubbed Ekoplaza, has over 700 grocery items according to The Washington Post — and no plastic. Instead, food is packaged in plant-based compostable biofilm or just displayed, packaging-free, in glass, metal, and cardboard containers.

Plastic waste from food packaging is a huge problem — that’s why companies like NASA, the U.S. Army, and Unilever are working on ways to find alternatives. Ekoplaza, and other stores focusing on bulk shopping like Bulk Market, are tackling plastic food packing waste from the consumer shopping side.

 

Edible grasshopper company reportedly has $5M in order requests
This week Israeli edible insect company Hargol FoodTech told CTech that they had already received $5 million in requests for orders from companies in the U.S. and Europe. According to the aforementioned article, Ikea, Whole Foods, and Pepsico have already expressed interest in purchasing the startup’s grasshopper-based protein powder.

If these numbers are accurate, it would indicate a shift towards acceptance of edible insects — especially after recent growth news from Entomo Farms and Aspire/Exo. And if companies like Pepsico and Ikea are really getting on board, bugs could become a mainstream ingredient relatively soon.

 

A new accelerator for startups fighting food waste
Copenhagen-based transport and logistics company A.P. Moller-Marsk is partnering with startup accelerator Rockstart to create a program targeting food waste, reported FoodNavigator. Dubbed FoodTrack, the one-month program will start on June 6th and will offer workshops and guidance from mentors to the 10 startups selected to participate. They hope to help give the startups tools to tackle food waste, specifically in the early stages of the value chain (growth, harvest, and distribution.)

Motorleaf Uses AI to Predict Crop Yields for Indoor Farmers & Greenhouse Growers

Between unpredictable weather, pests, and degrading soil quality, farming is an extremely difficult way to make a living. Indoor farming, though less weather-dependent, carries its own set of burdens.

Montreal-based startup Motorleaf wants to lighten the lift for indoor farmers by improving crop yield predictions and optimizing growing conditions. The company hopes that their software, which CEO and co-founder Ally Monk likens to a “virtual agronomist,” will take the uncertainty out of farming.

To do this, Motorleaf first gathers data on the grow environment through machine vision, agricultural sensors, and historical information. It then applies algorithms and AI to help farmers determine the adjustments they need to make to the indoor grow environment to optimize their crop. Which means farmers can monitor CO2 levels, light spectrum, and other atmospheric conditions remotely through wireless devices or laptops.

Customers can opt to install Motorleaf’s own hardware (a suite of IoT-enabled sensors), though they can also just connect the Motorleaf’s software to the farm’s existing pre-installed hardware to measure and remotely adjust environmental inputs. Its interoperability makes Motorleaf an easy tool for larger greenhouse operations, ones who already have their own monitoring hardware in place, to install.  “At the end of the day, we are a software company,” said Monk.

Motorleaf isn’t the only company helping indoor farmers help manage the lifecycle of their crop. In fact, it’s not even the only company which sees itself as a “virtual agronomist.” What sets it apart, however, is its ability to predict crop yield. Monk claims that motorleaf is the first company to use AI and machine learning to increase the accuracy of yield estimations.

This is a lot more important than an average person (read: the author) might think. Commercial greenhouses pre-sell produce before their harvest based on estimations given by agronomists — though they’re not always accurate. It’s extremely difficult to guarantee the quantity or quality of their crop before it’s harvested, and miscalculations can lead to loss of profits for both the buyer and producer, and also generate huge amounts of food waste.

Motorleaf claims that their software can cut yield prediction error by more than half — at least for some crops. Monk explained that each plant needs its own specialized software for yield prediction, likening farming to a recipe. “Maybe they think there’s a right recipe to growing kale; they need this many nutrients, this much light,” he explained. “We very strongly disagree with that. We think that any farming protocol needs to be dynamic, because if something happens in a greenhouse — which happens all the time — why would you stay rigid? You have to adapt.”

So far, their AI has only been proven to work for estimating tomato yield. However, they’re also deploying algorithms for peppers and silently developing technology for five other crops.

Photo: Motorleaf.

I was surprised to learn that indoor farming environments could be so volatile. After all, that’s the whole point of bringing them indoors, right? Apparently, not so. Monk explained that variable factors like sunlight, outside air temperatures, and human error can all affect greenhouse conditions. Even the plants themselves can do unexpected things that can affect their climate change.

Motorleaf got $100,000 Canadian dollars from the FounderFuel accelerator in the summer of 2016, and later that month Motorleaf raised $850,000 (US) for their seed round of funding. The startup is currently working with clients in Canada, USA, South Africa, South America, Mexico, Holland, Poland, New Zealand and the UK, and aims to be in Spain, France and Germany by early 2019.

Monk concluded our call with what he called “a crazy thought,” one he had when he saw celebrity-branded color palettes. “Why can’t I have a Jamie Oliver taste palette? Why can’t I buy a radish that’s the exact kind he likes to cook with?“ he asked. Farmers could use Motorleaf’s software to manipulate crops into having a certain taste and look, one that would be specific to, and branded by, celebrity chefs. Consumers could purchase produce that had the same taste profile as those preferred by their favorite chefs, and even integrate them into those chef’s recipes.

In the age of celebrity-branded meal kits and baking mixes, this idea isn’t too far-fetched. We’ve even seen companies like Bowery use AI to tweak the flavor, taste, and color of fruits and vegetables.

Motorleaf hasn’t started developing any of this technology yet, but Monk used it chiefly as an example to show how AI can open up “a whole slew of possibilities” for farming. He hopes that one of its applications will be to take the unpredictability out of farming, and put the power back in the hands of the growers.

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.

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.

Walmart’s New Patent Filings Look to Farming, Drones, and “Bee Robots”

Not to be outdone by Amazon, Walmart has rolled out a series of updates to its grocery business recently, including a partnership between its Sam’s Club wing and Instacart, the acquisition of Parcel, and the recent announcement of its Eden technology, which could help save the giant retailer $2 billion in food waste costs over the next half-decade.

But as a new research brief from CB Insights points out, all these endeavors could benefit from Walmart’s getting involved in the other end of its grocery store supply chain—that is, farming the crops that eventually wind up on its store shelves.

To that end, the retailer giant recently applied for a series of six patents aimed at farm automation.

These include an application that uses machine vision for identifying pests and monitoring crop damage, drones that shoot targeted sprays of pesticides instead of the usual cloud, and the “robot bee” patent, which would carry pollen from plant to plant. There’s also potential for drones to act as the next generation of  “scarecrows or shiny devices” to scare away hungry birds, according to the patent.

While all this is fairly abstract at the moment, the patent filings do suggest that Walmart wants to be more involved with the source of its supply chain in order to save time and money, and even give consumers more transparency. 

But how deep into the farming business could—and should—a major retailer go? After all, it’s one thing to file a patent; it’s another to actually execute on the processes and technologies outlined in those documents, particularly when they’re outside a company’s core business. Multiple retailers, including Amazon, have been testing drones from some time now, but most of those efforts are around how to deliver food, not grow it. As this piece noted last year, “the agricultural use of drones sounds good in theory—feed the world, save the planet—but is difficult in practice.”

But that may be to Walmart’s advantage as it looks to differentiate itself from Amazon and others in the ensuing fight for grocery store supremacy. I don’t imagine Walmart will operate full-fledged farms anytime soon. But if the above patents prove successful, it may give the massive retailer a new part of the grocery store supply chain to dominate.

What do you think? Should Walmart consider a serious play in the farming space? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Augean Robotics’ Autonomous “Burro” Follows Farm Workers to Haul Stuff

As Augean Robotics Co-Founder and CEO Charles Andersen explains it, when you work on a farm, you do a lot of high dexterity activity—like picking fruit. But you also spend a lot of time just running stuff like harvested fruit or equipment back and forth. He should know: Anderson grew up on a 100-plus acre farm in Pennsylvania.

To help with the repetitive drudgery of hauling items to and fro, Andersen’s company has developed Burro, an autonomous, rugged cart robot that can follow a person around and haul things for them.

The Burro has a 26-inch by 48-inch chassis and comes with a two-wheel and a four-wheel drive option. The two-wheel Burro can carry 300 pounds and the four-wheel drive up to 450 pounds. Burros are powered by sealed lead acid batteries, have a top speed of five miles per hour, and can travel up to 15 miles on a charge.

Using sensors and machine learning algorithms, the Burro can lock on to you as you approach it. From there it will follow you around without the need for you to hold a remote or a beacon. Its following capability, however, isn’t perfect. It can be likened to a dog; if someone else walks in between you and the Burro, it can get distracted. It will stop and wait for you to come back, or for someone else to come within its range.

The Burro can also create an automated route by following a person. For example, if blueberries are being harvested, it can follow a farmer who walks around a particular row of plants. The Burro then learns this route and can go around on its own. Each picker on that row can then set their harvested baskets of berries on the Burro as it passes by on its route.

The goal is to create a robot that collaborates with, rather than replaces, human workers. Farm workers can stick to high dexterity tasks like picking fruit while the nimble Burro navigates its way around people and crops to move stuff around where it needs to go. To achieve that, Andersen wants to keep Burro small, so farms can have many of them just running around all the time carrying fruit, tools, or whatever needs to be moved.

Each Burro costs between $9,000 and $10,000, though Andersen says that half of that cost goes towards one sensor that’s key to making the robot autonomous. He claims the price of that should come down in the future, making Burros a lot less expensive. Augean’s ultimate plan is to make the Burro a platform, and offer expansion kits that allow the robot to do more tasks.

Based in Phoenixville, PA, Augean is currently bootstrapped and has five people working on the product. It uses Anderson’s 191 acre farm for testing purposes, and hopes to have field trials with big growers this summer.

If it takes off, farmhands could soon get a big hand from a bunch of small robots.