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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Podcast: What Does Nomiku’s Demise Mean For Consumer Sous Vide?

Last Friday, Nomiku announced it was closing its doors.

Alongside Anova and Sansaire, the San Francisco based startup founded by Lisa and Abe Fetterman was part of an early class of consumer sous vide startups looking to democratize the high-end cooking technique through technology. Now, nearly a decade after the publication of Modernist Cuisine, only Anova is left standing (after being acquired by Electrolux) while Nomiku and Sansaire are no more. So what does it all mean?

No spoilers here! You’ll have to listen to The Spoon editor podcast to find out.

In addition to discussing the end of Nomiku and the broader meaning of it all, the Spoon editor team also discuss the following stories:

As always, you can listen to this episode of the Food Tech Show on Apple podcasts or Spotify, download directly to your device, or just click play below.

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Three Last-Minute Bits of Kitchen Tech That Could Make Your Thanksgiving Easier

If you are having stress dreams about hosting the Thanksgiving meal this year, take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay because we at The Spoon are here to help. While we can’t provide another pair of hands, we can point out some connected kitchen gear that could make your cooking easier and can still be overnighted to you in time for the T-Day.

MEATER THERMOMETER
The Meater is a connected meat thermometer that will let you keep track of your turkey’s internal cooking temperature via its mobile app. The device has a “whole turkey” setting, so you can stick the probe in and monitor your bird without having to open up the oven (losing all that heat) a bunch of times. You can buy a single Meater for $69, or the Meater Block ($269), which has four probes in case you’re cooking more than one turkey or need to coordinate the cooking of more than one meat.

The Anova Nano

ANOVA NANO SOUS VIDE
While you could certainly sous vide a whole turkey, that would take 24 hours and you’ve got enough going on. No, you can use the Anova Nano ($79) to help with other duties like keeping mashed potatoes warm. Make them the day before, and when it’s time to serve them up, load the potatoes into a bag and keep them at a precise temperature in the water bath to free up your oven for other cooking duties .

FOOD NETWORK KITCHEN
If you’re looking for inspiration or need some helpful tips with your trimmings, the Food Network Kitchen app delivers Food Network shows and live instruction from Food Network celebrity chefs. Tomorrow (Tues., Nov. 26th), for example, Martha Stewart will teach you how to make Herb Roasted Heritage Turkey, and Giada De Laurentis gives a class on making a holiday salad. You can watch on your iOS or Android device or on an Alexa Show. Even better, you can try Food Network Kitchen for free for 90 days ($6.99/month after that), so Thanksgiving and all your holidays are covered!

Do you have any bits of food tech that can alleviate the stress of Thanksgiving? Leave a comment and let us know!

SKS 2019: The Kitchen Evolution is In a State of “Good Chaos”

What’s next for the smart kitchen? What sort of new appliances will be gracing the countertops of the future, and what sort of technologies will power them? In short: What will it look like to cook at home in the future?

That’s exactly the question one of our panels tackled at SKS 2019. The discussion was led by The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht, who spoke with Lisa McManus of America’s Test Kitchen, Matt Van Horn of June and Steve Svajian of Anova about what’s coming down the pipelines for kitchen tech. The full video is below, but if you want a few quick highlights read on:

The future of the kitchen is software
Svajian argued that the smart kitchen space started out more hardware-driven, but has recently been shifting to focus more on software. Van Horn agreed. He said that in the early days of the company, people used what he called the “primitive” settings of the smart oven: bake, broil, etc. But now they’re using the automatic cook programs more and more. “That said, the hardware [still] has to be great,” added Svajian.

All tech aside, it has to work
McManus drove home the point that high-tech appliance are great, but they have to actually help people cook better — not just look cool. “We look at things that will make [cooking] easier and more accessible to everyone,” she said. “Things that are practical, that are functional.”

The smart kitchen space right now? “Good chaos.”
McManus summed up the evolution of the food tech ecosystem pretty neatly during the panel. “It feels like a really exciting brainstorm,” she said. “It’s good chaos.” Svajian agreed, equating the space to the evolution of the Web in the late 90’s. ‘The law of entropy is real.’

If you want to hear more about where these three insiders see the fast-paced evolution of the kitchen heading, make sure to watch the full video below.

SKS 2019: Kitchen Tech Futures: A Look At What's Next

Anova Reveals New Connected Steam Oven

Anova, a company best known for making sous vide wands, showed off online yesterday the new product it’s been working on: a connected steam oven.

That the company is branching out from wands into ovens isn’t new. Anova first announced its precision oven at our Smart Kitchen Summit in October of 2016. But it looks like things have changed since that initial inception, and the product has been on a bit of a journey. In a corporate blog post yesterday providing an update on the steam oven, Anova CEO Stephen Svajian wrote:

In 2017, we were acquired by Electrolux and our work on the oven temporarily ceased. We started working on the oven last year and this year got approval to push it forward.

Anova’s original Precision Oven announcement was highlighted it’s multi-function cooking, with the ability to sous vide, sear, broil, bake and steam. For the new oven, Anova is still keeping all of that functionality, but yesterday’s blog post focuses on steam cooking:

Steam is a much better conductor of heat. Steam, combined with heating algorithms written in the age of endless computing power, can maintain temperature with levels of precision would make your old-school oven blush. Yet, we were unsatisfied with the levels of precision in crazy expensive, state-of-the-art ovens. You see, ovens have two temperatures. The temperature of the air inside the cavity and the temperature that the food experiences. The temperature of the air is referred to as the “dry bulb temperature.” The temperature that the food experiences is lower because water evaporating off the food cools it off. This temperature is called “wet bulb.” To achieve the best results, the oven needs to understand both. In addition, most current steam ovens don’t allow users to control relative humidity.

The company didn’t provide any other details about the oven (size, power, price, availability, etc.), though Anova says it still plans on debuting the new oven at CES in 2020. In a bit of a surprise to us here at The Spoon, Anova revealed that Scott Heimendinger is working with the company to develop the oven. Heimendinger is also Technical Director of Modernist Cuisine.

When it does come to market, Anova’s won’t be the only connected steam oven. Tovala is on the second generation of its connected oven, which also uses steam to cook and costs $299.

Anova has been on a bit of a roll this year. In May it launched a new Pro version of its sous vide cooker, and in August the company launched a smaller, lighter version of its main sous vide Precision Cooker. Last week, Anova also launched its own vacuum sealer for sealing food for sous vide cooking.

Anova’s new oven is something we will surely be talking about with Svajian, who will be speaking at our Smart Kitchen Summit next week. Get your tickets now!

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this blog post incorrectly inferred that the new oven did not have the same multi-functionality as previously announced. That was incorrect and the post has been updated.

Anova Launches New Smaller, Lighter Sous Vide Precision Cooker

Anova announced a new version of its Precision Cooker sous vide wand via a corporate blog post yesterday.

The new version of the Anova Precision Cooker is two inches smaller and 20 percent lighter than the older version and unlike the Anova Nano, it has wifi connectivity. The company also claims the device is more durable and provides better connectivity than the previous version. The new sous vide wand is available for pre-order right now for $129 (which the company says is $70 less than the retail price).

The first Anova Precision Cooker launched in 2014 and was among the initial wave of devices, along with ChefSteps and Nomiku, that kicked off a sous vide mini-boom. With the advent of a circulating wand that could attach to any pot of water and be controlled via mobile app, a full-fledged countertop sous vide machine was no longer necessary.

But this year that mini-boom has given way to turmoil. ChefSteps went through layoffs and product cancellations before finally being acquired by Breville. A spat between Nomiku CEO founder Lisa Fetterman and Anova CEO Steve Svajian over idea theft went public earlier this summer.

But Anova, which was bought by Electolux, carries on. In addition to new hardware, Anova also recently released a new version of its mobile app, which controls its devices.

With the introduction of the new Precision Cooker, Anova is no longer making the older version of its device. The blog post said that the company would still support it, but it was putting remaining inventory on a fire sale. But when we went to check out the price, the devices were already sold out.

ChefSteps Lays Off Staff as CEO Young Vows Company Will Live On

ChefSteps, the Seattle startup which began life as an online culinary community and recipe site before expanding into hardware with the Joule sous vide appliance, has laid off a significant percentage of the staff according to reports.

The news of the layoffs was first leaked via food delivery review site Food Oasis, which was told by an anonymous source that the company would be shutting down.  Not true says ChefSteps CEO Chris Young, who told Geekwire the company would live on and continue to sell and support the Joule.

There are still not many details beyond what’s been reported, so it’s hard to tell exactly what happened and why ChefSteps was forced to downsize. I can only speculate that sales of the Joule (or their related Joule Ready sauce business) wasn’t substantial enough to fund the ongoing business and that they had exhausted funding provided by early backer Gabe Newell.

Newell, a billionaire who made his money in the video game business as the founder of Valve, had given the company a low-interest loan early on. While Young had described Newell’s support as giving the company the financial flexibility to push in new directions (such as with the Joule), it looks like Newell’s generosity has its limits. It’s unclear if ChefSteps had sought funding from other outside sources (or is still seeking funding).

It’s also unclear how many of ChefSteps roughly 50 employees will stay on, but a quick look at Linkedin shows some of them have already hung “looking for my next gig” signs on their profiles.

I also have to wonder if the company’s early sales of the Joule had tailed off as pricing pressure on the commoditizing sous vide circulator market has become more pronounced. The Joule, which is priced at a premium ($199) compared to other circulators, has sold well on Amazon and through ChefSteps own website, but lower-priced circulators (Anova launched the sub-$100 Nano last year) may have started to eat into their sales.

The Joule Ready sauces are all ‘Out of Stock’ on ChefSteps website

It also looks like the company had not been able to ramp their Joule Ready sauce business to capitalize on a Joule circulator installed base that I suspect numbers in the hundreds of thousands.  At this point, it’s unclear if the company is even still in the sauce business:  a quick perusal of the company’s site today shows every sauce as being out of stock.

We’ve reached out to Young for a comment and will update this story as we get more details.

The Spoon’s 2018 Food Tech Holiday Gift Guide: Crickets, Coffee, Connected Ovens and More!

We at The Spoon write about food tech and food gadgets all year long. So when it comes time for the holidays, we want you to spend your money wisely, which is why we’ve put together our 2018 Food Tech Holiday Gift Guide. These are our staff recommendations for food tech products worth buying that people will love.

This year, we tried to break the list out in a realistic, real world manner. We’ve categorized our picks based on what you’d get for a co-worker (think: Secret Santa), a friend, a family member and finally, what you’d splurge on for a significant other/spouse/partner or even yourself.

If you wind up getting one of these items, drop us a line and let us know what you think!

Happy holidays (and holiday shopping) from all of us at The Spoon!

Co-worker


Foodie Dice
Everyone needs a little inspiration for meal planning, which makes Foodie Dice ($24) a good all-around gift most people will appreciate. The set comes with five wooden “primary” dice that have protein, grain, herb and cooking-method options, as well as a mysterious “bonus” option, engraved on their surfaces. Four more dice feature veggies. According to the product description, there are 186,000 possible combinations which, if nothing else, will give cooking dinner a little shot of excitement. -Jenn


Manatea Infuser
Do you have one co-worker who’s never without his/her steaming cup of tea? This adorable manatea (get it?) tea infuser ($8) will brighten up their day and add a little spirit to their mug. In addition to being really cute and reasonably priced (especially compared to some of the high-tech tea contraptions out there), the infuser is also reusable, which means no more throwing out tea bags on the daily. Pair with a box of high-quality loose leaf tea for a coworker gift that you’ll actually see them use around the office. -Catherine


TRUFF Hot Sauce
OK. Yes. Fine. This isn’t any “tech” in this food. But try this once and you’ll swear it was invented by alien scientists from the future who wanted to craft the perfect hot sauce. Even Oprah named it one of her favorite things (which is too bad because that will probably make it harder to get). Truff is “a curated blend of ripe chili peppers, organic agave nectar, black truffle, and savory spices” that I’ve been slathering all over my pizza, mac-n-cheese, and just about everything else I’m eating. At $15, it’s a little pricey for hot sauce, but a steal when it comes to flavor. -Chris


Chocolate Crickets
While alternameats get all the press, there’s no question that bugs are going to be a big part of our protein future. You can help your burger-loving coworker make the bugs go down a little easier by adding a little chocolate and coffee flavor. Pick up a snack bag of these crunchy insects for $17.95, or splurge on a full pound for the bug-lover for $39.95. -Mike

Friend


Sudden Coffee Subscription Pack
Think of Sudden Coffee as an instant version of pour-over craft coffee. The company uses ethically sourced, top 1 percent beans, a special freeze-drying process, and a “secret method” to place the kind of coffee you’d get in a cafe into single-serve packs with a six-month shelf life. While there are multiple product options from which to choose, an eight-pack starter kit ($20 for a one-time purchase; $16 for a subscription) is pretty much a guaranteed win for coffee-drinking friends. Even the coffee snobs can get into this one. -Jenn


Bee’s Wrap Cheese Saver
It’s no secret that cheese can cost some serious cheddar. What you might not know is that cheese breathes like a living thing, and storing it in plastic wrap not only suffocates it, it also makes it taste like, well, plastic. Ideally, cheese should be stored wrapped in breathable paper like Bee’s Wrap ($18). Made from organic cotton and beeswax, Bee’s Wrap can be used to store a lot more than just cheese, but that’s my favorite way to use it. It’s also washable, reusable and compostable, so it cuts down on both food and plastic waste. Pair a pack of Bee’s Wrap with a few local cheeses and any cheese-loving friend will be happy. -Catherine


Dash Egg Cooker
Outside of the microwave, there is no kitchen device we use in our house more than this cute li’l egg cooker ($30). It’s not smart, it’s not connected, but it is a dead simple way to make half a dozen perfect hard boiled eggs, every time. No pots of water to boil. No timing to get just right. Just fill the included cup to the right level with water and pour it into the machine. Pierce your eggs, cover and 15 minutes later, voila! -Chris


“MiCURA” Craft Sake brewing kit
You know that mildly annoying (but still much-loved) friend who shows off their knowledge of sake every time you’re out for sushi? Time to show how much you appreciate them with a home sake brew kit. The “MiCURA” Craft Sake brewing kit is shipped from Japan with all the necessary ingredients to make real sake at home, including rice, yeast, and dried koji, the mold that powers the fermentation for this magical elixir.  It’s a bit on the pricey side (remember, you love this friend) at $188, but this will make the industrious sake-lover in your life very happy. -Mike

Family


Ember Coffee Mug
Ember had us all buzzing (literally and figuratively) around this time last year for their high-tech coffee mug that lets you regulate your drink’s temperature using an app. Yes, $80 and up is a lot of money to spend on a drinking vessel. But if you know someone in the habit of microwaving their drink multiple times a day to keep it warm, Ember might just be the gift for them. Plus, the company recently moved into the Apple store with an update to its app that lets users track their caffeine intake. -Jenn


Great Jones Cookware
Cookware may seem like a gift more practical than thoughtful, but I’m here to say that it can be both. If you have a family member that’s stocking a new kitchen (maybe their first?) or wants to get better at cooking, turn to Great Jones ($395). The company has been making waves lately by disrupting the cookware industry like Warby Parker disrupted glasses. Their pots and pans use high-quality materials and typically cost less than half of the cookware “royalty,” like Le Creuset. Plus they look really cool. -Catherine


Anova Nano
If you haven’t introduced your carnivorous friends to the magic of sous vide cooking — shame on you! But, all can be forgiven with the gift of the Anova Nano sous vide wand. This small but powerful device turns just about any pot of water into an elegant way to cook steaks (or almost anything, really) to a precise temperature. It talks to your phone so you can go about your business and get an alert when your food’s done. If you are cooking steak, after you’re done with the sous vide, give it a quick sear on ripping hot pan or grill, and you have tender, juicy meat that will be the star of any meal. It’s also just $75, so it won’t break the bank. -Chris


Tovala Gen 2
One of the questions asked this year at SKS was whether, in a world where great food can be ordered with a click of a button, kitchens will even be necessary in the future? While some may see this choice between a kitchen/non-kitchen future as divergent, smart kitchen startup Tovala asks why we can’t live in a world where both food delivery and good home cooking coexists? We’ve tried the Tovala Gen 2, and found that for $349 (or $249 when you order 100 meals in advance), you get both an auto-piloted cooking appliance and a powerful steam oven for aspiring chefs in one tidy little package. -Mike

SO/Yourself/Partner


NutriMill Harvest Grain Mill
Baking bread may be a known stress reliever, but those of us who do it often come up against a couple frustrations: store-bought flour sucks, but versatile grain machines are expensive and hard to find. Enter the NutriMill Harvest Grain Mill, a countertop device that will grind soft or hard wheat, oats, rice, and just about any other grains, as well ad dry beans and lentils. So you can make bread to your heart’s content but also cereals and soup ingredients. Each machine is made from sustainably sourced bamboo, which makes it a nice-looking addition to the countertop, too. And at $229, it’s relatively affordable, depending on how avid you are about baking. Sure, bread has a lousy reputation nowadays, but a device that makes it easier to get your hands on fresh flour and other grains might just help change that. -Jenn

Joule + JouleReady bags
At $179, ChefStep’s Joule is not the cheapest sous vide on the market (that honor goes to the Anova Nano). However, it recently launched Joule Ready, a line of sous vide-ready bags filled with sauces like Thai Green Curry and Salsa Chamoy. Just scan the bag with your Joule app, fill with your choice of protein and cook for a pretty-finished meal, just add starch. Together, the Joule + Joule Ready combo would enable anyone — confident home cook or no — to make top-notch meals in under an hour. -Catherine


June Oven
Listen. The June Oven is big and it is not cheap ($600). But it’s actually seven appliances in one (oven, toaster oven, dehydrator, air fryer, etc.). To be honest, I don’t even use most of the functions because it’s become my primary oven. From salmon to chicken to leftover pizza, the June’s camera recognizes what you put in it and pre-set cook programs do the work for you (with no pre-heating!). It has changed my relationship to cooking, and by that I mean I actually cook now instead of ordering in. Plus, as the June becomes more of a platform (see: Whole Foods integration), it will only get smarter and more useful. -Chris


The Pizzaiolo Smart Pizza Oven
Ok, so it’s expensive ($800!). But if you really love that pizza lover (or yourself), you might want to sell that tanking Apple stock or Bitcoin and buy your loved one a Breville Pizzaiolo pizza oven. The new Breville Pizzaiolo can not only cook a pizza in as fast as 90 seconds using its three-element heating technology that can reach up to 750 degrees, but it can also emulate all your favorite pizza styles (wood-fired, Chicago style, pan and more). -Mike

Whirlpool Patents Induction-Powered Sous Vide Cooking Appliance

Whirlpool has been awarded a patent for a new sous vide appliance that utilizes an induction system to both heat and power a cooking vessel with an internal water circulator. The system described in the patent also has Wi-Fi and a microcontroller to control the cook.

While the description of the system is very detailed (you can read it in all its glory here), below is a brief summary of how it works:

The system includes an induction heating surface that both heats water as well as powers an internal circulator within the vessel. The larger vessel, which sits atop the induction surface, has an internal vessel within it. There is a gap in between the two vessels where water circulates and is heated. The heating system is powered by a magnetic coupling  of two plates.  The internal stirring plate rotates and has heated blades on it, which help circulate and heat the water.

You can see a diagram of the blade-system below:

An internal plate with blades circulates and heats water within the vessel gap

The whole system, which is controlled through a user interface on the induction hob/surface, has a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth temperature probe that sends water temperature information back to the induction surface. The system can also be controlled via Wi-Fi and an embedded microcontroller.

With this patent, it looks like Whirlpool has created an interesting induction-based sous vide system that is differentiated from the sous vide circulators from the likes of Anova and Nomiku and the water bath systems that started appearing over a dozen years ago.

As with all patents, there’s no guarantee that Whirlpool will actually productize their innovation. The company filed the patent in late 2015 and it doesn’t appear at this point that the company has brought the system to market. Personally, I think an induction cooktop with a turnkey sous vide cooking vessel is an intriguing new product, so I’ll be keeping an eye out to see what the appliance giant does with this patent.

How will sous vide fit into into the kitchen of the future? Come to the Smart Kitchen Summit to find out. 

The Weekly Spoon: Nomiku’s Food Delivery Biz, Anova Nano Review, Amazon Go Is Growing (And So Are We!)

People love our newsletters, so we thought we’d start also making them available as posts. If you want to get the Weekly Spoon in your inbox, just subscribe here. On to this week’s newsletter…

As the worlds of technology and food continue to collide, one trend gaining traction is the pairing of kitchen appliances with food subscriptions.

The idea makes sense. Hardware-only business models are nearly impossible to pull off nowadays, as the combination of ever-faster commoditization cycles, fickle consumers and Amazonification of online commerce make for rough sailing for those startups setting sail into consumer technology. Unless your product becomes a viral sensation – which does happen periodically – you’ll need to develop a sustainable long-tail revenue model (or have a plan for one), especially if you plan to raise funding for your new business.

Consumer sous vide pioneer Lisa Fetterman knows full well the difficulty of building a consumer hardware business. The author and mother of two started Nomiku back in 2012 and has been evangelizing her sous vide circulators ever since, but at a sub-$300 price point, it was hard to pencil out the P&L for a product made in the lofty-rent space of San Francisco.

Fetterman and Nomiku also had to convince consumers to use a product which, while delivering amazing results, also requires a significant behavior change on their part.  For a generation raised on frozen food, having them bag, submerge and sear to get dinner on the table is a big ask.

Which is why Fetterman decided to incorporate the entire meal journey – meal planning, food, and cooking – into the Nomiku experience.  The company introduced their Nomiku Meals last year, a food delivery service that allows consumers to mix and match sides and entrees in prepackaged portions and prepare them in 30 minutes. After starting with a 300 person pilot last May, today Nomiku Meals is available in eight states and makes up the majority of the company’s revenue.

It’s too soon to tell whether Nomiku will ultimately succeed in the face of competition from meal kits companies and Amazon, but from the looks of it, things are off to a good start.

You can read my full piece about how Fetterman is transforming Nomiku into a sous vide powered food delivery company here.

Nomiku isn’t the only company making news in the world of sous vide. Anova started selling their latest-generation circulator to the general public the past week on Amazon, and after picking up a Nano last week at the Anova Kitchen, i put together an appropriately-sized review of the diminutive device. And finally, the Spoon’s Jenn Marston visited a new food hall that uses sous vide to cook everything on the menu.

With the July 4th holiday, it was a light work week for many in the States. To celebrate America’s independence in proper Spoon fashion, Chris Albrecht put together some ideas for a food tech Fourth. Catherine catches us up on efforts by Suggestic to incorporate AR into your diet planning.

If you’re on the east coast, be forewarned: The Spoon in headed your way. We’ll be hosting our first Spoon Food Tech meetup on the future of sustainable seafood in beautiful Providence, RI.  Ashley tells me the summers in Rhode Island are the best in the whole US, and while this Pacific Northwest resident is skeptical, I’m eager to eat some lobster and meet some of you at Providence Pilotworks on the 17th.

As you may have noticed, we’ve been growing here at The Spoon. We’ve added both Chris and Catherine as full-time writers this year, and have my old Gigaom friend Jenn Marston giving us lots of great insights every week.  It’s a great crew, and I’m very thankful to be working with them every day, and I hope you are enjoying their writing and insights into the fast-changing world of food tech.

With so much content, we’ve decided to start publishing the Spoon newsletter twice a week. I know it may not seem like that big of news, but for me, it’s yet another small sign of the exciting growth we’ve been experiencing.

It’s also been extremely gratifying to see what started out as a small idea to bring together the leaders across food, appliances, and tech to map the future of food at an event in 2015 grow into a company. It’s hard to believe that in the short time since we launched SKS in 2015, it now takes place on three continents; we just finished the inaugural SKS Europe, and I’m headed back to Tokyo for our second SKS Japan in August. And of course, we’re busy ramping up for the big show in Seattle in October.

I’m thankful to the sponsors who support us, and all the speakers who share insights about their businesses and where this exciting market is going. And of course, we’re thankful to all those who come to our events and participate in our growing community. We couldn’t do it without you.

Mike

P.S. Looking to get smart on food tech and meet industry insiders? Join our food tech Slack already

In the 07/06/2018 edition of the Weekly Spoon:

Suggestic Experiments with Augmented Reality to Help You Stick to Your Diet Plan

By Catherine Lamb on Jul 06, 2018 09:38 am
What if you could wave your phone over a restaurant menu and see “through” the descriptions, instantly assessing which dishes are best (and worst) for you to eat? That’s exactly what Bay Area startup Suggestic is working on. When users first open the free app, they set up their goals (lose weight, have more energy) and dietary […]
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Lisa Fetterman Is Reinventing Nomiku As a Sous Vide Powered Food Delivery Business

By Michael Wolf on Jul 05, 2018 02:00 pm
When Lisa Fetterman started Nomiku, all she wanted to do was get the word out about sous vide cooking. “When I first saw these machines in Michelin-starred restaurants,” said the CEO, book author, and mother of two, “I was like ‘Woah, this is it.’” By ‘it,’ Fetterman is referring to the technique employed by the […]
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Video: For Big Food, ‘We’re Past Innovation and Onto Disruption’

By Catherine Lamb on Jul 05, 2018 12:30 pm
Tyson Foods produces a massive one out of five pounds of protein consumed in the United States. Barilla isn’t any slouch either, with its 30% dry pasta market share in the US and 10% worldwide. That’s a whole lotta chicken and pasta, so when execs for the investment arms of these two food giants took the […]
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The Spoon Meetup in Providence: Blue Tech + Sustainable Seafood

By Catherine Lamb on Jul 05, 2018 08:17 am
This month we’re taking our food tech meetups on the road — to Providence, RI! We’re teaming up with SeaAhead and the City of Providence for this event, all about blue tech and sustainable seafood. Through panels and a town hall meeting, we’ll explore how innovation and technology can improve sustainability while still meeting the rising global […]
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Second Seattle Amazon Go Store is Bigger, How Long Until Cashierless Whole Foods?

By Chris Albrecht on Jul 04, 2018 06:00 am
In addition to expanding the number of locations of its Go stores, Amazon is also working on making them bigger. According to a story in Geekwire, Amazon is prepping a second Amazon Go location in Seattle opening in the Fall of this year, and this one will be 3,000 square feet, compared with the 1,800 […]
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A Nano Review Of The Anova Nano

By Michael Wolf on Jul 03, 2018 05:00 pm
When Anova named their newest product the Nano, there was no mistaking the message they were trying to get across: that this, the latest in their lineup of sous vide circulators, is their smallest yet. And so in the spirit of the Anova Nano, I present to you what is an appropriately small review of […]
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Celebrate a FoodTech Fourth of July

By Chris Albrecht on Jul 03, 2018 02:00 pm
It’s weird when a major holiday falls on a Wenesday, right? Do you take just the day off? The first half of the week? The last half? The whole week? Regardless of how much time you take off, we can help make your time at the grill a great one with these FoodTech finds. FOOD […]
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Video: Regional Perspectives on the Connected Kitchen Market

By Catherine Lamb on Jul 03, 2018 01:00 pm
At Smart Kitchen Summit Europe last month, a topic on everyone’s mind was the future of the connected kitchen market. In fact, we had a whole panel devoted to analyzing the regional perspectives of the smart kitchen marketplace: Chris Albrecht of The Spoon moderated the conversation between Holger Henke of Cuicinale, Robin Liss of Suvie, […]
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Impossible Burgers Take to the Skies in L.A. – N.Z. Flight

By Catherine Lamb on Jul 03, 2018 12:00 pm
Airplane food gets an (admittedly deserved) bad rap, but airlines are working to change all that with fresh, vertically-grown lettuce, local craft beers, and, now, plant-based burgers. Yesterday, Air New Zealand sent out a tweet announcing that the buzzed-about Impossible Burger will be available to Business Premier passengers on their Los Angeles to Auckland flight […]
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Is NYC’s Sous Vide Kitchen the Future of Food Halls?

By Jennifer Marston on Jul 03, 2018 11:00 am
Last week, Sous Vide Kitchen (SVK) joined NYC’s sprawling food hall scene, where associations with celebrity chefs are the norm and $300 caviar is a thing. Comparatively, SVK’s take on the food hall concept is far more down to earth, focused mostly around technology and how it can streamline and improve the process of ordering […]
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Celebrate a FoodTech Fourth of July

It’s weird when a major holiday falls on a Wenesday, right? Do you take just the day off? The first half of the week? The last half? The whole week? Regardless of how much time you take off, we can help make your time at the grill a great one with these FoodTech finds.

FOOD
The Fourth–and most summertime grillin’–is all about the meat. Normally, we’d suggest you purchase your steaks and burgers through CrowdCow, which meticulously sources all of its meat from small ranches. But your guests will be hungry tomorrow, so here’s a twist, maybe try a meatless option this year?

I know! I know! “Heresy!” you cry! But really, we love the Beyond Meat burger patties available at many local grocers. The company says it wants their plant-based meat that “bleeds” in the supermarket butcher section, but I’ve only ever found it frozen with the other alterna-meats.

Personally, I think the Beyond Meat patty is a delicious replacement for the traditional meat burger, so much so that I stock up on extra when I’m at the store just to have it around when I crave it. Beyond Meat won’t fool any carnivores, but it’s a tasty substitute and perfect if you’re trying to cut back on your red meat intake.

BRING THE (CONTROLLED) HEAT
Everyone has an opinion about the best way to grill, we won’t waste your time with some obscure technique. We will however, recommend a pair of devices that can help make your steaks and other proteins turn out great.

Photo: Anova

Sous vide-ing your steak is a fantastic way to get juicy meat with no overcooking. There are a ton of sous vide wands out there that will turn any pot of water into a precision-heated circulating bath. We like the ChefSteps Joule and the new Anova Nano (review forthcoming). They are small, well built, and work with an accompanying mobile phone app to bring your meat to a desired internal temperature. Sure it takes a little longer, but it also helps remove the risks of over- or undercooking your precious steaks.

Stylish holder/charger.

Regardless of whether you sous vide or not, you can use the Meater thermometer to get just about any type of meat to the proper temperature. The Meater is kinda big (like a beefy nail) that sits in your protein while you cook it. Using the Meater app on your phone, you can keep track of both ambient and internal temperatures, and Meater will even tell you when to pull out and rest your meat to achieve optimal results.

If you’re going camping and want a greener experience, you could grab a GoSun portable grill that cooks food by simply harnessing the power of the sun.

BEER
The good news is, if you live in the right location, you can still run out and buy your own PicoBrew to make homebrewing much easier. The bad news is that even if you bought one today, there isn’t enough time to brew and ferment your beer before tomorrow. (Maybe just pop by Spoon founder Mike Wolf’s house for a bottle of his.)

PLAN FOR NEXT YEAR
It’s never too early to start planning for an epic Independence Day celebration next year. Here are some items to put a pin in and revisit next summer:

  • If it makes its crowdfunding goal, the Ambassador 5-in-1 grill features rotating cooktop that spins through flattop and grate surfaces.
  • The Bartesian cocktail robot (due out by the end of this year) can whip up delicious boozy concoctions on demand.
  • And for the truly adventurous, you can throw a slice of ketchup, yes, a “slice” of ketchup on next year’s burger.

No matter how much time you’re taking off, have a Happy Fourth of July, everybody! Be safe.

Food Tech News Roundup: Ben & Jerry’s, Food Waste Snacks, and Target Takeovers

It may have been a short week (at least for some of us), but it still feels good to reach the weekend finish line. Let’s celebrate with some food tech news, shall we?

We’re still riding a high from the announcement of the FoodTech 25: twenty five companies we think are changing the way we grow, source, cook, eat, and think about food. But lots of other food innovation news popped up around the web as well! Here are a few of our favorite stories, from Ben & Jerry’s new sustainability initiative to BYO homebrewing packs.

Chobani incubator to focus on food tech
Lately, quite a few CPG brands have been launching food-related incubators — including Greek yogurt darling Chobani. This week Chobani announced new incubator program which will revolve around our favorite subject: foodtech. The Food Tech Residency will be the company’s fourth incubator initiative, and will run parallel to their original incubator class. They’re currently searching for startups involved in agtech, food safety, innovative packaging, and other areas to improve the food system. Once selected, participating companies will have access to all Chobani Incubator programming, including factory visits, mentorship, opportunities to pilot new products, and a chance to pitch for funding. They have three spots open, so if you’re an emerging food tech or agtech startup, get on it!

 

Tyson Foods rolls out snacks made of food waste
Poultry giant Tyson Foods has created a snack brand which makes “Protein Crisps” out of food waste such as chicken breast trim, spent grain from beer brewing, and excess vegetable purée from juicing. Dubbed “¡Yappah!,” the brand will be used as an umbrella under which Tyson will release other sustainable food products. Each individual 1.25-oz serving has 8+ grams of protein and is packaged in a recyclable aluminum can. The crisps launched on IndieGoGo on May 31st, and are available to back now with a projected ship date of July 2018. Clean meat, food delivery startups, and now food waste snacks? Tyson Foods continues to work to be on the cutting-edge of all emerging food innovation trends.

PicoBrew now offers DIY PicoPaks
Countertop homebrewing startup PicoBrew rolled out DIY PicoPaks this week via Kickstarter, an option that lets Pico users load up their own ingredients to make beer and fusion drinks. The new bring-your-own ingredients option – which will work with the new Pico U as well as the existing Pico Cs and Pico Pros – provides an option for those in the Pico community who have wanted brewing flexibility beyond want preconfigured PicoPaks allow. The reward bundle includes containers for both beer brewing and PicoPak minis to create “fusion drinks” at home such as kombucha or goldenmilk. Post-Kickstarter, it will be interesting to see if PicoBrew offers brewers a variety of DIY container bundles depending on their preferences and brewing frequency.

Three new Targets to open up in Seattle area in 2019 & 2020
Target will add three smaller, grocery-sized stores in the Seattle area over the next two years, according to the Seattle Times. These are in addition to their original urban format store, which opened in Seattle in 2012. Their new stores are designed to fit into dense cityscapes and will stock products tailored to the surrounding neighborhood. This, as well as their recent expansion into same-day delivery, smart home-powered replenishment service, and acquisition of Shipt, is another way that Target is trying to keep up with the shifting grocery game and fight against Amazon.

 

Photo: Ben & Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s works to offset their ice cream’s carbon footprint
Customers at Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop in London’s Soho neighborhood now have an opportunity to counterbalance the carbon footprint of their waffle cone of Cherry Garcia or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. For each purchase, Ben & Jerry’s will pay a penny to offset the carbon used to raise the cows, produce the ice cream, and ship it to the shop. Customers then have the option to donate a cent of their own and double the impact.

According to Forbes, the ice cream company is partnering with a not-for-profit who is helping them use blockchain to divide carbon credits — which are typically quite large — into smaller transactions which can link up to each ice cream purchase. They’re even developing an app to help customers keep track of their person carbon offsets.

 

Photo: Anova

Anova finally opens new Anova Kitchen
We’ve been monitoring the retail ambitions of sous vide specialist Anova closely, so we were intrigued to learn this past week that the company will finally open the Anova Kitchen for a sneak peek on June 6th. A company spokesperson told The Spoon that the new space will be used for events and will have some public-facing retail space, but that we shouldn’t expect the Anova Kitchen to be open to the public every day.  This contrasts with Brava, who plan to open a full time retail space early this summer.  Either way, we’re intrigued to check out the Anova’s new retail/event space. If you are too, make sure to RSVP for next week’s event and report back to us!

Did we miss anything? Tweet us @TheSpoonTech to let us know the best food tech news of the week!

Smart Kitchen Startup SideChef Plucks Execs From Anova & Vitamix

SideChef, a smart kitchen app and software platform startup, is growing its executive ranks.

I learned this week that the company is adding execs from both Anova and Vitamix in an expansion of its core team. The company, which is based in Shanghai, China, recently added Anova’s former head of retail, Michael Tankenoff, as head of a new west coast US office focused on business development and strategic partnerships. The company has also hired Ken Zhang, an engineer that had previously worked on Vitamix’s smart kitchen initiatives, to help lead its product management efforts.

I caught up with Tankenoff and SideChef CEO Kevin Yu this week. They explained that the executive expansion is part of a bigger push by SideChef to position the company as a smart kitchen platform and compete with the likes of Innit and Drop.

“I will be focused on continuing to build out [SideChef’s] portfolio of hardware, content, and other partners — as well as help build and scale the marketing arm of the organization,” said Tankenoff. “This comes in conjunction with opening up an office here in San Francisco, which will be the hub for all business development and marketing moving forward.”

These types of moves in a nascent market like the smart kitchen platform space — where everyone knows everyone — are hardly unusual. We saw it with Orange Chef, Whirlpool and Innit, and now we’re seeing with SideChef. While Tankenoff’s departure from Anova is not surprising given the company was acquired last year by Electrolux, the move by Zhang is a bit more intriguing. Zhang worked on the smart kitchen initiative that was led by Vitamix COO Tony Ciepiele, who I also recently learned has left Vitamix as of March to become CEO of toy company Step2 Discovery.

The executive shuffle also comes at a time of increased competition between software startups like SideChef and Innit to provide foundational software platforms for appliance makers to create connected kitchen products, as well as increased focus by big players like Google and Amazon to hook their natural language smart home platforms into the appliance market.

Should be an interesting rest of 2018 in the smart kitchen market.