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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Anova

Anova Serves Up a Generous Helping of AI With Launch of Anova Precision Oven 2.0

Last week, Anova announced the second generation of its Precision Oven, just over four years after it began to ship the first generation Precision Oven. The Anova Precision Oven 2.0 is packed with a number of new features, including an in-oven camera and Anova Intelligence, a suite of new AI features designed to power new ways for users to assist in the cooking process.

In fact, the company listed a bunch of features currently offered by their AI-powered cooking and a number of features that they are working on. The features the Anova Precision Oven 2.0 currently has include:

  • Ingredient Recognition: The AI system automatically identifies what’s inside the oven with the internal camera.
  • Suggested Cooking Methods: The oven’s AI will suggest cooking methods tailored to the ingredients, ranging from basic roasting to more complex sous vide style.
  • Packaged Food Conversion: The oven will scan the packaging, and the AI will choose the right settings.
  • Recipe Conversion: The company says the Anova Precision Oven 2.0’s AI can convert nearly any recipe to make it work with its settings, with the caveat that this feature will improve over time as it gains more data.

According to Anova, upcoming features for Anova Intelligence include:

  • Assistant Mode: Anova’s AI-powered co-pilot will simplify complex cooking techniques and offer personalized cooking guidance.
  • Complex Meal Creation: When preparing multi-component dishes, the oven will suggest optimal settings for each ingredient, “streamlining” the cooking process for recipes that typically require juggling multiple cooking techniques.
  • Cook Recall: The oven will recognize repeat recipes for dishes you prepare frequently and return to your last-used settings.
  • Doneness Detection: Powered by the internal camera, the oven monitors the cook’s desired crispness level and alerts them when it reaches the preferred doneness level.
  • Auto Shutdown: The oven will detect when a cook cycle has finished and whether food has been removed, then notify you before automatically shutting off.
  • “Clean Me” Reminders: Equipped with an internal camera that monitors for dirt buildup, the oven will remind you when it’s time for a cleaning.

With the addition of the camera and new AI features, it looks like Anova hopes to fill the void left after Weber sunsetted the June oven about a year ago. While some features (like auto-shutdown) don’t seem all that interesting, I am intrigued by features like the coming co-pilot mode.

In addition to the new AI features, the second-gen oven includes even tighter temperature management (powered by three internal temperature sensors and a more powerful on-board processor) and better steam management. The new oven also includes a new app and an additional recipe subscription service for $1.99 a month or $9.99 annually.

All of these new features come with a hefty price tag increase at $1199, double that of the launch price of the first-gen oven. While some may pass on the 2.0 due to the price increase, given the void left by June and the cult following Anova has, I expect the new Anova oven to sell fairly well when it ships.

Meticulous Espresso Machine Appears on Track to Become Most Funded Food-Related Kickstarter

The heyday of hardware Kickstarter may be behind us (Coolest Cooler anyone?), but occasionally, a project emerges with the right blend of a captivating promotional video, impressive specs, and promise of a better life to lure in thousands of backers.

Meticulous Espresso seems to tick all those boxes, and as of this writing, the result is 2,700+ backers pledging over $3.5 million for the sleek-looking coffee machine.

Why all the excitement? A couple of thoughts:

First, the Meticulous Espresso machine boasts an eye-catching industrial design packed with cool features. It appears sleeker and more futuristic than your average metal knob-laden home espresso machine, and this design is paired with impressive-sounding technology, including six temperature sensors, a pressure sensor, an integrated scale, and a satisfyingly straightforward digital interface.

Second, the intro video. I usually get bored watching long Kickstarter intro videos, but this one weaved together a nice enough mix of creator vision story, intriguing product features, and attention to the coffee-making craft to keep me glued to the end of its 5 minutes plus. The video was made by Adam Lisagor, a well-known ad whiz, actor, and podcaster that’s been in demand for his commercials via his Sandwich video production shop for over a decade. Lisagor often appears in the ads he makes (and sometimes takes equity in the companies in exchange for video work), and in this video, he costars next to company founder Carlos Pendas.

Pendas himself does a good job of describing his mission and talking up the machine’s features, including the ability for users to create, save and share personalized espresso profiles through the Meticulous app. While profile sharing to different locations would require others to also own a Meticulous – a tall order given the machine’s $2,000 MSRP ($1,500 on Kickstarter) – I do like the idea of being to replicate my best espresso formulations and also sharing a profile with others using the same machine.

Whatever the reason for Meticulous’s fast start on Kickstarter, the machine has already entered rarified air in terms of funding raised, already eclipsing several top campaigns in the food category, including PicoBrew and Anova. With about 30 days remaining in the campaign, Meticulous could become the highest-funded food-related hardware campaign if it reaches around $5 million in backing, which would allow it to overtake the Otto G32 grill.

However, it’s important to note that Kickstarter success doesn’t always translate to successful products or companies. We all know what happened to PicoBrew, and while both Otto and Silo appear to still be breathing, the companies’ backers have been complaining for years as the companies behind them delay and delay delivery.

But who knows? Maybe the Meticulous will be different and ship the product on time. For its backers, here’s hoping they get their machines by December 2023

Meticulous Espresso is LIVE!

CES 2022: As LG and Others Embrace Steam, Could 2022 Be The Year of Steam Cooking?

When asked at Smart Kitchen Summit in 2017 what appliance he was waiting for to make its way to the consumer kitchen, award-winning chef Philip Tessier said, “the combi oven.”

As it turns out, Tessier wasn’t the only chef that day who thought a steam-powered consumer kitchen was a good idea. When asked the same question a couple of minutes later, Serious Eats’ Kenji López-Alt agreed.

“I was going to say combi ovens too,” said López-Alt.

The combi oven, also known as combi steamer, combines traditional convection (dry) heating and moist heat using steam to enable the cook to do all sorts of things they can’t do with traditional ovens: Sous vide cooking, steaming vegetables, and baking moist delicious bread to name a few.

While steam cooking has been a long-time fixture in pro kitchens, it has never taken off in a big way in the consumer kitchen. But that might be changing. In 2020, Anova finally started shipping their countertop Precision Oven, and the critics embraced it. Since that time, the company has had trouble keeping the $599 appliance in stock.

Other upstarts such as Tovala and Suvie are also bringing different spins on steam-powered cooking to consumers. And LG, which introduced steam cooking into their convection ovens in 2018, is now adding Steam Cook functionality to the microwave.

In some ways, steam cooking is following the same early path pioneered by sous vide circulators. Like sous vide, steam cooking is a technique long-embraced in the pro kitchen, and it is also finally reaching consumer price points and showing up in friendlier form factors.

However, while sales of sous vide circulators eventually hit a wall because most consumers didn’t have the patience to cook meat in water baths for hours on end, my guess is steam cooking has a much wider appeal. A big reason is that unlike sous vide, steam cooking arrives in the kitchen via traditional-looking appliances (not to mention steam ovens like Anova’s allow you cook sous vide without the water bath or the plastic bag).

If 2021 was the year air-fry was everywhere, I suspect in 2022 we might begin to see the year the chefs get their wish and steam cooking begins to enter the mainstream.

Podcast: Creating New Categories in Kitchen Tech With Scott Heimendinger

Scott Heimendinger was ready to talk about his plan.

I’d just spent a half hour talking to the longtime culinary innovator who’d spent much of the past decade bringing some of the first consumer sous vide and steam oven products to market, and after telling me about his journey through starting a company, working for Modernist Cuisine and later Anova, Heimendinger was ready to raise the curtain on what he wanted to do next.

Well, almost.

Heimendinger was ready to talk about the type of product he wanted to build (a category creator) and how he wanted to do it (by doing lots of prototyping and researching). However, what he wasn’t ready to spill the beans on is what he is actually building.

I can’t blame him. The kitchen hardware market is notoriously competitive, a space where something goes from novel to commoditized in a matter of a few years. Heimendinger had that experience with his own company (Sansaire), where he’d helped create one of the first consumer sous vide appliances.

“It’s only a matter of time until you could walk into a RiteAid and buy a sous vide machine on the same aisle that sells the Oster toasters for $25,” he told me.

One way to prevent that fast move towards commoditization – or at least make money before it happens – is to lock up the intellectual property first by filing patents (something Heimendinger has already done) and keep quiet about what you’re building until it’s ready (something he’s doing now).

So while Heimendinger wasn’t ready to give me all the details about the new product he hopes will be a category creator, I was happy to hear about his motivation for starting a new kitchen tech company.

“I’ve realized over my past experiences with MC (Modernist Cuisine),with Sansaire, with Anova and doing my own thing, even with my time at Microsoft, is that I really love zero to one,” he said. “I really love the part that I’m in right now, which is that I’m making something new.”

In other words, Heimendinger likes inventing things. Navigating the unknown.

But while he loves the ‘zero to one’ part, what he doesn’t like is taking a product beyond that. For that, Heimendinger knows he needs a team.

“When I get through prototype and spin up some flashy PowerPoints, bug all of the friends in my network to test this thing and give me feedback and listen to my stupid pitch over and over and over again, then I would like to go to companies that might be able to commercialize it,” he said. “And do what they’re really good at, which is make sure that it can get successfully manufactured and priced right, and marketed right, and distributed right. All that stuff.”

And then what?

“Hopefully, go back to the next zero.”

I caught up with Heimendinger for the latest episode of the Spoon Podcast. If you’d like to hear our full conversation, just click play below or find it at Apples Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you’d like to see Heimendinger at Smart Kitchen Summit 2021 virtual in November talking about how to build category creators, get your ticket here.

Anova Launches Sous Vide Line with (RED) to Raise Funds for Global Health

Anova, a maker of smart kitchen appliances, today announced a partnership with (RED) to create a collection of sous vide circulators to help raise money to fight global health crisis such as HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. (RED), an organization founded by U2 frontman Bono and politician-activist Bobby Shriver in 2006 to fight AIDS pandemic, partners with brands like Anova on products to raise money for the Global Fund, the world’s biggest funders of programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The new collection will feature three different versions of the Anova circulator that mirror the company’s current sous vide lineup: Nano ($129), The Precision Cooker ($199) and Precision Cooker Pro ($399). For each purchase of the new Anova RED collection, 5% of the proceeds will go to the Global Fund. Anova and RED have pledged a minimum commitment of $200 thousand.

The new product line is available on Anova’s website and will be available on Amazon starting on September 30th.

To find out more about why Anova decided to team up with RED, I asked Anova CEO Steve Svajian a few questions.

What was the thinking behind having Anova participate in this socially conscious campaign with (RED)?

When entering a partnership, we look at the mission, the values and how we can work together to really make an impact. (RED) disrupted the original model of philanthropy by being the first to rally the corporate sector through (RED) branded products. With sous vide, we changed the way the world cooked.  When the opportunity came up for Anova to partner with (RED), we jumped at the chance to work with an organization that takes such a bold stance on fighting pandemics. 

Why this specific cause?

The COVID-19 pandemic affected communities around the world, hitting the most vulnerable communities the hardest, including those battling illnesses like HIV/AIDS. California was one of the hardest hit states during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a San Francisco-based company, HIV/AIDS advocacy has been a central part of our city’s history. (RED)’s mission to fight pandemics aligns with not only our values but our community’s needs. 

Is this a sign of the company’s evolution?

We started Anova on the principle of accessibility. This partnership with (RED) furthers that principle by being part of the mission to create a stronger  and more accessible global health system for communities around the world. 

Anova Launches its Own Line of Reusable Silicone Bags for Sous Vide Cooking

Anova announced today that it is launching its own line of reusable silicone bags to make sous vide cooking a little less wasteful.

The appropriately named Anova Precision Reusable Silicone Bags are BPA free, have an airtight seal, can withstand temperatures from -40 to 446 degrees Fahrenheit and are dishwasher safe.

Sous vide cooking is a great way to prepare a steak (and other foods), but the food has to be sealed shut when submerged in the water bath to cook. Single-use plastic bags are easy, but wasteful. Vacuum sealers and accompanying bags are expensive, take up space, and also wasteful. And with either of those options, you may not like the idea of having your food wrapped in chemical-y plastic in a warm environment for an hour or so.

This is where silicone bags can come in handy. They are food grade, keep the water our during the cook and can be easily washed and re-used multiple times.

There are other silicone bags on the market. Stasher has been around for a few years making silicone bags that can be used for sous vide. In fact, the Anova store in San Francisco used to sell Stasher bags as an add-on. The Anova bag is different, however, with its roll down top that resembles more of a dry bag that you take camping.

The Anova bag is available on the company’s website and soon for a limited time at Target, selling for $19.99 for a half gallon bag (Stasher bags that size are the same price). So if you’re sous viding and want to do a small part to save the planet, you should consider picking one up.

The Food Tech Show: Steam Ovens, Sustainable Packaging & Paying With Your Face

The Anova Precision Oven was first announced at The Spoon’s own Smart Kitchen Summit in 2016 and now it’s finally shipping. Chris and Mike strategize about how to convince their significant others to fit yet another countertop appliance in the kitchen.

Other stories discuss on this week’s show:

As always, you can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also download it direct to your device or just click play below.

If you like the podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Anova’s New Connected Steam + Convection Oven Now Selling for $599

Anova announced the launch of its connected, countertop steam + convection oven today. The Anova Precision Oven is a wifi-enabled, multi-stage combi oven can now be purchased worldwide for $599.

Anova, which is owned by Electrolux, made its mark in food tech with its consumer sous vide circulator, which helped kick off a consumer sous vide boom a few years back. Anova is one of the only surviving companies of that first consumer-focused sous vide circulator cohort (RIP Sansaire and Nomiku), and a smart combi oven is the first new category product for the company… though the oven does have a sous vide mode.

As Scott Heimendinger explained to us at CES this past year, the oven – which was first announced at Smart Kitchen Summit 2016 – can create 100 percent humidity in the cooking cavity, which promises to keep foods juicy because there is nowhere for water inside the food to evaporate into. It’s like cooking sous vide, just without the cumbersome water bath or the need to finish cooking in another appliance. In addition to keeping precise temperatures to cook something like a whole chicken low and slow, Anova’s multi-stage cook programs will automatically drop the humidity and raise the temperature to create a crispy skin.

“This is our magnum opus,” Stephen Svajian, Co-Founder and CEO of Anova told me by phone this week. “Everything has led up to this point.”

Beyond traditional meat proteins, however, Anova’s oven can also cook everything from vegetables to crusty breads. Out of the box, the accompanying mobile app will have automatic cook programs for 100 items, with more to come.

With precise temperature controls and robust steam cooking tools, Anova seems to be carving out its own prosumer space in the connected countertop oven market. The Tovala is a cheaper ($299) and offers steam cooking, and is geared more towards Tovala’s own meals and other CPG meals like frozen entrees. The June is also less expensive ($499), and while it doesn’t have steam cooking, it does offer automated food recognition. The Brava is more expensive ($1,095), and cooks with light rather than steam, but also allows multi-zone simultaneous cooking (meat and veggies on the same tray at the same time).

While this is a new product for Anova, the company is not abandoning its sous vide circulator roots. Svajian said that Anova’s sous vide cookers have seen 100 percent year-over-year growth, partially attributable to the pandemic and people cooking from their homes more.

While purchases of the new Anova oven commence today, the devices won’t actually ship until a little bit later: Sept. 28 for North America and December 2020 for the rest of the world. Hopefully we can get our hands on a review unit to see firsthand how hot it really is.

UPDATE: A previous version of this post incorrectly listed the price of the Tovala as $349.

StoreBound’s Evan Dash Wants to Create a Housewares Brand for a New Generation

“Breville was doing incredibly well,” said Dash. “They were still fairly new. And a lot of brands were chasing them to the high end. And then you had this whole like lower end, that was just in shambles, fighting over price, price price.”

While Dash didn’t want to necessarily compete with Breville or fight over tiny margins in a brutal price competition, he saw an opportunity in between the two.

“It really left this beautiful gap in the middle that we felt like we could step into with great design, great quality, great value, and a social media strategy.”

Ten years later, he and his wife sold the company they had built after growing their revenue to $100 million by focusing on that neglected middle space with their flagship namesake brand, Dash.

While the terms of the sale to French consumer goods conglomerate Groupe SEB were not announced, a conservative revenue multiple of 3-5 times sales would easily put the acquisition within the half a billion dollar territory, which would put the deal possibly higher valuation than that of the Anova acquisition by Electrolux (but well below the Instant Brands $2 billion estimated deal size).

So how did Dash go from an idea to $100 million company in a decade? According to Evan Dash, it was in large part thanks to their focus on young consumers who didn’t feel any loyalty to the brands their parents had brought into the home.

“While everybody talks about how the ‘millennials are up and coming, but they really don’t have the money to spend,’ they absolutely do”, said Dash. “And they are so influential, they’re influencing their parents generation, even their grandparents generation and a lot of cases.”

A big part of attracting the attention of those customers was through the use of social media, primarily Instagram. According to Dash, that early emphasis on Instagram was influenced by his own kids.

“They were showing the way that they could build momentum,” said Dash. “And one of them had a sports page, and he was editing jerseys of doing jersey swaps of players. And he had 10,000 followers.”

Beyond speaking to younger consumers through social media, much of the focus by Dash was creating products that not only looked different than those he and Rachel had grown up with, but were designed to be more user-centric.

“We tended to look at products with fresh eyes,” said Dash. “For example, we launched a two slice toaster early on and my head designer for toasters came to me and they said, ‘Hey, Cuisinart has one through six on their control, and KitchenAid has one through seven on their control. Can we just say light, medium, dark, defrost and keep warm?’

Armed with the resources of a company like Groupe SEB, Dash doesn’t have any plans to slow down. The company will expand into products that focus on circular economy, and Dash also hinted at plans for bigger products like refrigerators.

Spoon Plus subscribers can read the full transcript of my interview with Dash or watch the full interview below. If you’d like to learn more about Spoon Plus, you can do so here.

With Consumers in Quarantine, Connected Cooking Companies Spring Into Action With Tailored Content

With a good chunk of the world’s population currently in quarantine, most of us are cooking at home a lot more nowadays.

Along with all this home cooking has come a massive spike in demand for information for culinary how-to, ranging from recipe suggestions to tutorials on how to do everything from making rice to baking bread. While many are simply searching Google for recipes, others are settling in to learn cooking skills to help them learn to get food on the table.

This sudden hunger for cooking-related guidance has led some tech-forward cooking startups to ramp up the content as they look to both satiate newfound interest in cooking skills while also giving quarantine bound consumers something to do with their time.

Here are a few ways in which kitchen tech startups have ramped up their efforts to serve homebound consumers:

Hestan Cue

While the Hestan Cue already walks users through recipes with step by step instructions, the guided cooking startup has launched Hestan Cue Cooking School, a series of virtual classes to help users of the connected cooking platform build up on their cooking skills during quarantine.

Built with the virtual class platform Teachable, the initial classes cover techniques for cooking beef, eggs and vegetables. The cool thing is that while the classes suggest you use your Cue for certain steps, you can use the classes even if you don’t have the Hestan device.

According to Hestan Smart Cooking managing director John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen, about one third of the Hestan Cue users have signed up for courses.

Anova

Sous vide specialist Anova has always been active in creating cooking content for their user community, and over the past month they’ve gone quarantine cooking focused by creating content to help consumers with everything from making pantry staples to batch cooking. And for the parents with bored kids, Anova suggests enlisting them to help with the brisket.

Thermomix

Thermomix is known for its in-person sales model for the high-end multicooker, but in the age of COVID-19 they’ve gone virtual with a “quarantine kitchen” series of cooking demos and are also allowing potential customers to book online cooking demos with the TM6 sales team.

You can see one of their latest episodes of their quarantine kitchen series below:

SideChef

SideChef is also ramping up its quarantine specific content. In early March they created a quarantine cooking recipe collection. A month later, and with virtual happy hours firmly planted in the stay-at-home zeitgeist, they’ve created a guide for virtual dinner parties.

Instant Pot

The massively popular pressure cooker is famous for leaning on its Facebook community to create content for them. Still, the company seems to have recognized our new shared reality and is letting people know that Instant Pots can help you cook bread while you’re cooped up during quarantine.

Food Network Kitchen

While the Food Network Kitchen app doesn’t seem to have created any tailored content for quarantine bound consumers, they have seen a big jump in usage and consumers look for more ways to cook. Company spokesperson Irika Slavin told me via email that Foodnetwork.com has seen “double digit increases” in page views and the Food Network App, the guided cooking premium offering launched in October, has seen what Slavin describes as a “triple digit increase” in visitors.

ckbk

ckbk is a ‘Spotify for cookbooks’ app that puts pretty much any cookbook or recipe just a click away.

Since ckbk only offers access to existing cookbooks, the company isn’t creating any quarantine specific content, but they do have a good idea of what people are cooking. Company founder Matthew Cockerill told me he’s noticed most of his subscribers, and the world in general, seem to be moving in sync over the past month through what he calls the ‘seven stages of cooking grief.’

“So first of all it was about the prepping – stockpiling durable good – beans and pasta,” said Cockerill. “Then came the “staff of life” basics bread and baking. And after that, I think, there’s a need for some comfort, yes, but also some relief from the monotony. Which is where I think chocolate and dessert cravings are kicking in. It’s either that or alcohol. And in many cases both!”

“Lastly,” he continued, “we’ve also seen a trend of interest in ways to use the new found time which people see stretching out ahead of them, with longer-term projects” like baking bread.

Cockerill told me that new subscriptions are up 250% over pre-COVID times. If you want to cook your way through grief, the company is giving away 30 days free access to their app to help you cook through your pantry items.

Scott Heimendinger Leaves Modernist to Launch New Cooking Tech Startup: “We Haven’t Conquered Improving the Kitchen”

Longtime cooking technology entrepreneur Scott Heimendinger announced today he was leaving Modernist Cuisine to launch a new startup where he will develop kitchen technology.

Heimendinger made the announcement about leaving his employer of the last four years via tweet:

I decided to catch up with Heimendinger to discuss his plans post-Modernist Cuisine. While the founder of Sansaire and kitchen tech hired gun is keeping his plans under wraps for the near future, he did give me some hints about the general direction and also shared his thoughts on the need for innovation in the kitchen tech space.

Answers have been edited for brevity.

You’re starting something in kitchen tech. Is it hardware?

Yes.

Can talk about the idea or do you need to protect the IP first?

Like so many products, protecting IP is necessary to ward off competitors.  I will be really vague about what it is. I still need to invent my way through the idea. Once I do and the patents are filed and my attorney says it’s ok, I can’t wait to scream from the mountaintops about it.

Is it cooking equipment?

It’s in the kitchen. It’s something that you will use in the kitchen. A physical product that you can use in the kitchen that will improve your experience of cooking.

Is this an idea that came to you in the middle of the night or over years?

It’s a little of both. For better or worse, I get flashes of ideas over time. Most of them are silly or throw away. Every now and then there is an idea that sticks in my head. When I knew I was feeling the gravitational pull of wanting to go entrepreneurial again, I asked ‘What will be something I want to do and something that is feasible for me to do?’

You can rule out tons of stuff because it’s a cool idea, but it requires a ton of money. Or, it’s a cool idea or there’s no way to defend from competition. Eventually I ran out of reasons to rule out the idea.  It was a pretty deliberate process to convince myself this idea was worth taking a leap for.

Did you learn anything from Sansaire experience?

Sure hope so (laughs).  As you know, the end of my story in consumer sous vide was not the happiest story.  I walked away from Sansaire and the company shuttered. 

What Sansaire did do is help me understand why people are serial entrepreneurs. There are all these things you have to figure out.
It’s a big scary monster. It’s in the dark. But once you shine a flashlight on it and look it in the eye, you realize it’s hard but not scary.

The biggest thing I have now compared to when I started Sansaire is the confidence of having done it once and knowing what to expect.

Have you gotten funding?

No, and I hope I can bring this idea to life without outside funding. When I was at Sansaire, we did a Kickstarter and that’s how the business got going. But at some point, we tried to raise money because we were outgunned by bigger players with more money.

I had a very bad experience trying to raise money. It was emotionally taxing, hugely time consuming. And, frankly, if I get to choose, I’d rather focus my time on trying to make good products or make happy customers than do all the things you have to do to fundraise. 

Are you starting this company solo or with partners?

Solo. If I can get away with it, that is how I hope that it will continue to be, at least for a while until it requires more people. 

That is an intentional choice. I have a lot of OCD tendencies, tend to be a perfectionist and very tidy about things. When it’s just me, there’s no one to say “that’s enough”. I get to be the last word on perfection.

Anything you learned from your time at Modernist Cuisine?

When I left previously, there was a project I always wanted to bring to life which was in turn the content of the Modernist Cuisine books into a TV show. Basically Planet Earth for food. I was never able to do that the first time. I got a call when I left Sansaire,  saying hey, ‘Nathan is really interested in doing this. Do you want to come back and make a show?’

Sadly, it hasn’t worked out. For one reason or another we were never able to land it.  I hope someone else in my absence can do it. A TV show that really explains the science of how cooking works in a visual and scientific way is something the world needs, but it was time for me to move on.

So what have I learned? I’ve become a much better engineer. While I’ve been here, not only have I gotten to learn about cinematography. I’ve also become a much better electrical engineer and software engineer. I’ve become much better at a bunch of disciplines.

Did consulting for Anova on their smart oven contribute to getting your entrepreneurial juices flowing?

Yes it did. It reminded me how much I love working on problems where we put ourselves in the mind of the user. I love working with the team at Anova because we’re all focused on how do we make the best design decisions to create the best experience for someone using this product. That turns out to be something I didn’t know I was missing so much. 

There have been some struggles in kitchen hardware. Why are you optimistic?

Part of the reason I’m optimistic is circular logic. I am optimistic because I have to be. I wouldn’t decide to take the plunge into the space again if I weren’t optimistic.  I am making a bunch of assumptions and have to hope they work out.

The most substantive answer to your question is the smart kitchen industry has gone through a phase where being smart meant adding Wi-Fi and a mobile app. In some cases, that was really useful and delivered value to the customer. In other cases, it wasn’t. It was for the sake of doing it, or it was maybe to satisfy an investor.  That makes me sad.

We haven’t conquered improving the kitchen. It is not a solved problem. There are a thousand things that can be done better that could lead to a better experience cooking.

I also think there is a lot of opportunity to make things smart that is not just adding Wi-Fi or an app to it.  There is an opportunity to improve all sorts of things we are doing in the kitchen.

My favorite type of technology in the whole world is technology that is invisible. I have a Samsung Frame TV and when you turn it off, it doesn’t become a big black rectangle, but instead it shows art. It disappears and becomes art. I love that.

What are some things you think are exciting in terms of how cooking can change over the next couple of years in cooking innovation?

It seems like there is sustained excitement and enthusiasm about cooking. For the segment of the population that does cook at home, that seems like it is a lasting part of their identity and it makes me excited that someone wants to do something because they love the craft of it.

Is there any space in cooking that is particularly ripe for innovation?

Think some of my favorite surprises comes out of material science. Cooking is intrinsically linked to the materials we use. Look at how silicone has transformed what we are doing. At the International Housewares Association (IHA) there is this little corner of companies experimenting in materials and it makes me excited because it’s science fiction. 

Thanks for taking time today to talk about what’s next.

You’re welcome.

Watch the ‘Seattle Food Geek’ Explain How the New Anova Steam Oven Works

If you’re a sous vide or precision cooking nerd, chances are you’ve heard of Scott Heimendinger.

Not only did Heimendinger basically invent the consumer sous vide circulator back in 2010 and eventually turn that invention into a company and a successful Kickstarter campaign, but the culinary experimenter known as the ‘Seattle Food Geek’ also spent much of the past decade working at Modernist Cuisine, ground zero for high end culinary experimentation.

So naturally when I heard last year Heimendinger was lending a hand to Anova to help bring their steam oven to market, I became excited to see whether the pairing of these two sous vide pioneers would finally create a steam oven that might break through in the consumer market.

With the Anova steam oven shipping this year we should find out soon enough. In the meantime, you can check out this video I filmed this past week at CES of Heimendinger walking us through a demo version of the oven Anova with product designer Harry Lees.

CES 2020: A Look at the Anova Precision Steam Oven