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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Retail Apocalypse? Not If You’re A Kitchen Tech Startup

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much are live product demos or in-store education classes worth?

Apparently a lot – at least that’s the thinking of a few kitchen startups in the Bay area opening their own experiential retail storefronts where consumers can get their hands on products and try them out.

Over the past few months, I’ve spotted three new retail storefronts that have opened or are about to open in the Bay Area. If you’re like me, you might be wondering what’s going on here? After all, running a brick and mortar storefront isn’t cheap and runs counter to the current trend where, by and large, companies are going all-in on digital futures.

My guess is because these products offer new approaches to age-old activities like cooking and brewing coffee, they could benefit from a little up-front explanation. And like New York City, influencer-heavy San Francisco is often seen as a logical place to open future-forward retail concepts in order to get the word out and get feedback on new products.

So which connected kitchen brands are leaping into retail? Here is what I’ve found on each:

Fellow Store and Playground

Coffee being poured at Fellow Playground

The first of these retail spots to open is from Fellow Products, the company behind the Stagg EKG kettle. Last fall, Fellow launched a showroom in downtown San Francisco called the Fellow Store and Playground to feature their products. The space, which looks like the love child of a Starbucks and Apple store, is less about just moving kettles as it is about engaging with folks in influencer-heavy San Francisco around the company’s products.

“We didn’t open a store to sell you a kettle,” Fellow Products CEO Jake Miller told Sprudge about their new store.  “We opened a store to teach you how to use it.”

To accomplish that, Fellow is offering brew guides, classes, interactive displays and even scheduling a series of evening events in the space.

Anova Kitchen

Anova Kitchen

Last fall, a sign went up on a window located in downtown San Francisco’s Howard Street promising a new store called “Anova Kitchen”. The new storefront, which had a “Coming Soon” on the window, is located on the bottom floor of the company’s new headquarters.

The intention for the space is similar to that of Fellow Products space: demo, sell some product, etc. Last fall, an Anova spokesperson told me they not only had plans to show off their products, but they also planned to feature some from their new parent company, Electrolux (who knows – maybe they’ll even have robot vacuum cleaners).

Anova Kitchen is supposed to open some time this spring.

Brava Home

Brava Home retail store

Finally, the latest kitchen tech startup looking to open up a retail spot is the still somewhat stealth Brava Home. The smart oven startup, which we’ve covered pretty extensively at The Spoon, looks like it’s about to part the velvet curtain and tell the world a little more about itself and, apparently, part of that strategy is a retail storefront.

Spotted at the Stanford shopping mall in Palo Alto, the new store features the tagline “Make Home Your Favorite Place to Eat.” It also has a URL on the window – bravapaloalto.com – which redirects to Brava Home’s site where they describe the retail storefront as a ‘showroom.’

I’ve confirmed with Brava that the store will open this summer.

Retail Apocalypse or Connected Kitchen Revival?

While these new storefronts seem to run counter to the current line of thinking that we’re in the midst of a brick and mortar apocalypse, big tech brands like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have shown the value of physical retail as a way to showcase new technologies and approaches to old behaviors. Others, like B8ta, have found traction with their hands-on IoT-driven showroom concept.

Still, running retail stores are expensive, and as the high-profile implosion of experiential kitchen retailer Pirch has shown, often it’s hard to convert demos and in-store education to actual sales. While this batch of kitchen startups are much more modest and don’t involve ten of thousands of feet of expensive Manhattan real estate, it’s still too early to tell if the efforts will ultimately result in significant upticks for their brands.

But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase, people do love getting their hands on new cooking products and trying them out for themselves. Whether it’s a coffee robot, 3D food printer or a new type of oven, there’s nothing like actually seeing it in action.

We’ll have to see if these new retail storefronts bear fruit long term. For his part, Fellow Product’s Miller is optimistic and hasn’t ruled out expanding in the future. In an email, he told me, “We exist to help people brew great coffee through beautifully functional design, so anything we do, including retail, needs to support our mission. Although I don’t see a future where Fellow operates hundreds of stores, I can imagine extending our retail presence to select cities.”

Electrolux Shows Anova Purchase Wasn’t Just About Precision Cooking

Just a little more than a year ago, home appliance maker Electrolux acquired sous vide startup Anova. Yesterday, we got to see some of the fruits of that acquisition as Electrolux announced it was using the Anova team to help launch the Pure i9 robotic vacuum.

At first glance, this might seem a little incongruous. The maker of a sous vide machine being used to launch a vacuum? But the press announcement shines a little more light on the subject and the reasoning becomes clear. Electrolux said it was using the Anova team in San Francisco to handle “the entire customer experience–from pre-purchase to post-purchase and everything in-between.”

The robot vacuum market has a lot of players, and Electrolux faces stiff competition here as most people probably already associate robot vacuums with the Roomba. Electrolux is going to need all the help it can get.

What this shows is that Electrolux wasn’t just buying a sous vide cooker — it was picking up a whole team with experience in breaking new products in the U.S. market. Anova has already had success launching one product in a nascent category, stands to reason they have a good shot at replicating that success. Plus, both the sous vide machine and Pure i9 are devices you program though a mobile app, so the company knows how consumers interact with phone-controlled devices.

Can Anova’s precision carryover from the kitchen into home cleaning? Stay tuned to see if their marketing savvy can make room for this robot.

Smart Kitchen News Roundup: Mellow Updates, Pico(Cold)Brews, Spinn Spins

There’s been a bunch of news about smart kitchen products lately, so I thought I’d do a quick roundup:

Mellow Updates Software To Address Cooling Concerns

Mellow, a sous vide appliance that utilizes an internal refrigeration unit to cool food until a user is ready to cook, has updated its software to address concerns about the product’s ability to cool food quickly enough. In a January review for Wired, food writer Joe Ray gave the Mellow a brutal 1/10 review because he said the Mellow couldn’t bring the food’s temperature below a USDA recommended 40 degrees Fahrenheit in two hours, meaning the product was a potential food poisoning risk. It appears Mellow was paying attention because the company just released a software update that prompts the user to add ice if it detects if the water in the reservoir is not cool enough. The company will release another update later in March that adds a pre-cool mode to help cooks start cooking the chamber earlier to keep their food out the “danger zone.”

PicoBrew Z Series Adds Cold Brew Coffee To Repertoire

A few weeks ago, PicoBrew announced their latest generation pro-grade brewing appliance, the PicoBrew Z. Not content with just brewing beer, the company announced that their new modular brewing system would also be able to brew cold brew coffee too.

According to the announcement, a standard Z will be able to brew up to two gallons of cold brew coffee or coffee concentrate in two hours, faster than traditional methods (although there seem to be lots of fast-brew methods for cold brew coffee coming to market lately). While I’m not sure it’s the most cost-effective way to make cold brew coffee (commercial systems that make up to 15 gallons cost around $450), it might be a good option for a brewpub looking add another item to the menu.

Spinn Spins Another Update

Like others who’ve backed the Spinn centrifugal coffee machine, I’ve gotten a bit restless as the company has fallen further behind its original ship date. But with the company’s management doing a good job updating backers, I’ve decided to stick it out and wait for my Spinn.

And according to the latest update, it looks like my patience may pay off. For the last few updates, the company has pointed a March ship date for first products, and the latest update indicates they’re sticking to it (but barely).

From the update:

“After Chinese New Year we’ll be assembling the machines and shipping the first units by the end of March. From there on, we’ll be ramping up production throughout the following months. This is a critical step towards bringing our machine into mass production and our teams in the U.S., Europe and China will be working around the clock to guarantee a great coffee machine that we’ll start to ship at a smaller scale at first, increasing the numbers with every batch.

Like I said, barely. For a product that could be described the Tesla of coffeemakers, it’s not all that surprising the company is taking a Tesla-like approach in its slow ramp it getting the product out the door.

Could Suvie Hit a Cool Million?

Suvie, the multizone cooker from the founder of Reviewed.com is trucking along with its Kickstarter. With just over a day and a half to go, the product has raised over $700 thousand.

With most successful Kickstarters going through the same three basic phases –  1) initial burst providing validation 2) a long stretch of yeoman’s work to keep story and interest alive, and 3) a final burst of folks who want in on project – they often look like this:

If Suvie’s campaign holds true to how most successful campaigns go, I would expect a last minute surge in backers and wouldn’t be surprised to see Suvie to see a get close to a million dollars.

Anova Nano On Track For May Ship

Last fall, Anova let customers know that the company’s new smaller (and cheaper) sous vide appliance – the Nano – would not be under tree come Christmas time and would instead ship in May. In an update from mid-February, Anova CEO Steve Svajian has indicated that they are holding to the May shipping window.

No official word from the company on when their Anova precision oven will ship other than a landing page on the Anova website that says “Summer 2018”. The product was unveiled at the Smart Kitchen Summit in October 2016.

Sansaire Announces It Is Shutting Down

Today Sansaire, one of the first consumer sous vide hardware startups, announced it is shutting down.

Acting company CEO Lukas Svec shared the bad news in an update on the company’s Kickstarter campaign page for the new generation product, the Delta:

“We regret to share that Sansaire will be ceasing development of the Delta and the company will ultimately be closing its doors.  In short, our relationship with the new production facility broke down and has exhausted available funding and manufacturing routes. As we wind down over the next 12 months, Sansaire will be supporting warranties and customer service issues. Kickstarter Backers will be contacted individually regarding next steps.“

Sansaire was one of a handful of companies building sous vide circulators to launch in the 2013 time frame. However, unlike Anova and Nomiku, the company struggled to build its brand in an increasingly competitive consumer sous vide market and was never able to ship its second generation product despite a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016.

The company was cofounded by Scott Heimendinger, a well known food hacker who tapped into his following to help launch company’s first Kickstarter campaign. However Heimendinger left the company before the launch of Sansaire’s second Kickstarter campaign in 2016 and the company has seen a number of executive departures ever since.

The company’s former COO Valerie Trask left in the middle of the crowdfunding campaign for the Delta. The company named a new CEO in Johnna Hobgood soon afterwards, but she soon left to go work for Amazon in their Amazon Go group. Another executive named Lilac Muller joined as acting CEO last fall, but has since departed the company.

The company raised over $250 thousand for the Delta, its second generation sous vide appliance, in fall of 2016 with a promised spring 2017 ship date. However, as time went on and the executive team turned over, it became increasingly obvious the company was having difficulties.

In one way, Sansaire’s troubles shows the perils of relying on crowdfunded money to bring a hardware product to market. Unless a campaign is wildly successful, the funds raised usually aren’t nearly enough to design, build and bring a product to manufacturing. More often than not, a company requires external investment or a really successful first-gen product (or both) to fund the development of a new product.

With today’s news, it’s apparent that Sansaire didn’t have either.

Update: I caught up with Scott Heimendinger via email to ask him for a comment. He had this to say:

“I’m disappointed, of course, but I processed my grief over Sansaire when I walked away from involvement two years ago. The saddest part is what could have been. Today, the outcomes of Sansaire vs. Anova could not be more stark.

I’m disappointed most for the people who backed the Sansaire Delta on Kickstarter. We built the company originally on the trust and generosity of the Kickstarter community and moved heaven and earth to do right by them throughout. So it’s crushing that the contributors to the Delta campaign in 2016 will be left with their promises unfulfilled.

Although founding and leaving a failed startup leaves some scars, I’m proud to have contributed in some small way to the overall movement of sous vide. I rooted for Sansaire to succeed after I departed, and I’m sure it was a difficult and humbling decision for them to announce the shutdown.”

Stasher’s Silicone Storage Bags Snap Up $400,000 from Mark Cuban

Companies like ChefSteps and Anova have pushed home sous vide more into the mainstream. One drawback to sous vide, though, is the one-time use of either a vacuum-sealed or Ziplock bag. It just feels wasteful. Which is why I’m excited to try out Stasher‘s re-useable, re-sealable silicone bags that can be used for many things including storage or sous vide.

Stasher founder and CEO, Kat Nouri, dove into ABC’s Shark Tank earlier this month to pitch her wares. After some serious back and forth about product positioning, Mark Cuban bit, and put $400,000 into Stasher for 15 percent of the company as well as a $400,000 line of credit. You can watch Nouri’s episode here (Stasher’s pitch is at the 32-minute mark).

According to Stasher’s FAQ, it’s bags are made from sand (silica), oxygen and “natural resources” that the company claims make it “safer, more flexible and more sustainable than plastic.” The Stasher FAQ goes on to say that “there are no fillers or petroleum-based products” in its bags as well as no BPA, BPS, lead, latex or phthalates.

I’m not enough of scientist to confirm the claims, and it looks like the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t studied silicone since 1979. But the Canadian government says “There are no known health hazards associated with use of silicone cookware”

Providing a safer sous vide experience is definitely a selling point. I’m not thrilled with the idea of wrapping my steak in a cheap plastic bag and bathing it in 130-degree water for an hour. Plus, the Stasher bag is re-usable, so there’s less waste, and dishwasher safe, so its easy to clean. And, of course, when not being used to cook, the bags would be a great alternative for general food storage and packing kids’ lunches.

All those benefits don’t come cheap, though. Stashers range in price and from $9.99 for a snack size, to $11.99 for a sandwich bag and $19.99 for a half gallon. On Shark Tank, Nouri said that Stasher did $1.6 million in sales last year.

With a shark like Mark on board, it will be interesting to see if Stasher can now move the needle and people off of plastic and into a new silicone-based solution for sous vide and storage.

A Smart Kitchen Gift Guide for Last-Minute Shoppers

Well, you’ve done it. You’ve waited until the last minute to do your Christmas shopping and now it’s here. But don’t worry! Your friends at The Spoon have you covered. Here’s a Smart Kitchen Gift Guide for your favorite cooking companions packed with items you can still get before the big day.

Sous Vide Wand: The Joule was on our 2016 gift guide, but really either it or the Anova is a wonderful addition to your kitchen cabinets. Sous vide elevates cooking proteins like steak to another level, yet is versatile enough to make a range of foods including pies and cookies.

Hestan Cue System: If you’re like me, you enjoy deliciousness, but aren’t that great a cook. Enter the Hestan Cue system. It’s a combination of induction burner, pan and smartphone app that work together to provide you with guided cooking, so you can turn from average Joe Cook into Julia Child.

Nutribullet Balance: Smoothies are a delectable treat, but they aren’t always as *nutritious* as we’d like to believe. Give the gift of a healthy 2018 with the Nutribullet Balance, a Bluetooth smart blender with companion app that calculates the nutritional value of your smoothie as you add ingredients.

Ember Mug: Disclaimer, we have not tried this $80 coffee mug, but we loved it’s $150 traveling counterpart. The idea of keeping our hot coffee or tea at the perfect temperature is way too tempting. It’s too late to order online, but you can check your local Starbucks to see if it’s in stock.

PicoBrew PICO Model C: Is there a hop head homebrewer in your family? It’s not cheap, but PicoBrew makes it easy to brew beer from the comfort of your own kitchen. The Pico C is available via Amazon and in brick and mortar retailers.

Amazon Key Kit: For the adventurous early adopter, give them the gift of Amazon delivery people entering their unattended home! Snark aside, Amazon Key’s kit includes a cloud connected security camera and lock (hopefully they’ve patched the security hole) and gives users (in select areas) the ability to accept grocery and other Amazon deliveries when they’re away from home.

Dash Egg Cooker: Okay, so this device isn’t “connected,” but it is a smart idea for anyone who likes hard boiled eggs. Forget waiting for a pot of water to boil and timing when the eggs are done. The Dash Egg Cooker has been a game changer in my house, cooking up six hard boiled eggs in around 20 minutes.

Whatever you decide to get friends and family this year, everyone at The Spoon wishes all of you the happiest of holiday seasons.

Enjoy the podcast and make sure to subscribe in Apple podcasts if you haven’t already.

Going Beyond The Stick: New Options Emerge For Sous Vide In 2018

While the ultra-early sous vide enthusiasts among us started their precision cooking journeys with water ovens like the Sous Vide Supreme, the last few years in home sous vide have been all about “the stick.”

That’s right, as sous vide enters the zeitgeist, immersion circulators from the likes of from Anova, Nomiku, and ChefSteps are the default option for everyone from Modernist Cuisine types to those dipping their toe into the precision heated water for the very first time.

But, as 2017 draws to a close, there are some new sous vide products coming to market that gives consumers an option beyond ‘the stick.’

Here’s my look at some of these new products:

Mellow Smart Sous Vide

After a long delay, the Mellow smart sous vide machine is shipping. This unique-looking cooking machine, which features a cooling system that allows you put your bag inside throughout the day, is now available for general purchase on the company’s website for $399 ($299 through cyber Monday!).

I’ve been testing the Mellow for the last few weeks, and I must say this: If anything, the Mellow is by far the most interesting looking sous vide appliance. That’s because unlike sous vide immersion circulators, with the Mellow you drop your plastic bag into the large transparent tank which allows you to watch your food suspended in water while it cooks. While it may seem strange to say it, watching a ribeye cook in a water bath can be surprisingly mesmerizing.

Here’s a video I took of the Mellow cooking a ribeye:

Like the immersion circulators mentioned above, the Mellow has an app that serves as the primary control interface for the device. The app is pretty solid, with a decent support/FAQ section, a limited selection of cooking guides and a good looking design.

And of course, the built-in chiller for sous vide is a nice benefit for those who want to program a cook for a specific time such as when they get home from work.

All this said, the Mellow has one downside: It’s fairly big. Not only does it have a large footprint, but it’s tall. Really tall. Like most, my storage space is at a premium, and I don’t have the space to store a device with the dimensions of the Mellow.

The Mellow is also a bit more expensive than immersion circulators (again, the company is selling it for $299 through Cyber Monday), but if you’re looking for the latest in sous vide gadgets, you might find the regular price of $399 well worth it.

The Cinder Grill

Want to move beyond the bag? The Cinder Grill might be for you.

The Cinder Grill allows you to cook sous vide without the water or the bags. The device, which looks like the love child of Tesla and the George Foreman Grill, has two precision heating surfaces that allow you to precision cook meat, vegetables or other food and also lets you finish the food with searing functionality.

The two-in-one sous vide and sear capability is an obvious benefit of the Cinder. I also like the idea of cooking without plastic, not so much because I am afraid of toxins within the plastic, but I feel bad about throwing away plastic after every cook.

Like the Mellow, the biggest downside of the Cinder is its size. I’ve been testing it out for a few months, and while it’s become probably one of my favorite ways to cook meat, the device has a really big footprint. And while it does have the benefit of being a dual-tasker (cook and sear), even with multifunction capability I would find it a struggle to stash the Cinder on one of my shelves.

You can see how the Cinder looks in action here:

Like the Mellow, the Cinder also has an app, which allowed me to set time and temperature and also notified me when a cook is finished. But unlike the Mellow (or even more so with sous vide immersion circulators like the ChefSteps), the Cinder app doesn’t go very deep with the cooking content itself, something I am sure the company plans to build out over time.

If you want to get a Cinder Grill, you can order one on their website, but it might take a little while before you see your Cinder. The company has started shipping to some of its backers, but is still in the process of ironing out some production kinks, and likely won’t reach wide availability until early next year.

Still, if you like the idea of precision cooking without the water and plastic, you might want to put in an order. The Cinder costs $499.

Sous Vide Supreme Touch+

And any mention of home sous vide appliances should include the new Sous Vide Supreme Touch+, the latest generation Sous Vide Supreme water bath. And while the idea of precision water baths are hardly new, with this product the company has completely remade their flagship product complete with a touchscreen, a see-through lid, Wi-Fi, an app (of course) and Alexa voice integration.

If you want to get in on the new Sous Vide Supreme Touch+ at a significant discount, you can buy it for $200 off the retail price at $399 on Indiegogo.

Anova Precision Oven

While 2017 has been an interesting year for the oven, 2018 is likely to be even better. One of the products I’m most intrigued about is the Anova Precision Oven. The device, which includes a steam oven, convection, and connectivity, also allow you to sous vide. The device, which was originally slated to ship in 2017, now looks on track for a mid-2018 ship date.

There’s no doubt that immersion circulators are easy to use, but by giving consumers more options to cook sous vide, will open it up to a wider audience.

In short, nowadays sous vide is more than the stick.

You can hear an audio version of this post here on our Daily Spoon podcast (add the Daily Spoon Alexa Skill here to get this podcast on your Echo device):

Smart Kitchen Curious? Here Are Some Black Friday & Cyber Monday Deals For You

Want some new smart kitchen gear? Now might be a good time to pick up a new gadget or two given, well, BLACK FRIDAY.

Below is a quick list of some Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals we’ve spotted for smart kitchen gear from around the web. (If you see any other screaming deals for smart kitchen gear, let me know via Twitter and I’ll keep this list updated):

Mellow 

The Mellow smart sous vide appliance just started shipping and is getting some decent early buzz. The good news is you can pick up this sous vide appliance with built-in refrigeration for $299, a hundred bucks off the list price. Better hurry, the deal expires after Monday.

PicoBrew

If you or one of your loved ones has made a new year’s resolution to become a home brewer, now might be a good time to pick up a PicoBrew brewing appliance. You can get the Pico C right now for $399, a hefty $150 off of the list price of $549.

Hestan Cue

Want to cook like a chef? Try a Hestan Cue guided cooking system. The device, which was just named one of the best tech gifts of 2017 by the Wall Street Journal, is available now through December 3rd for a hundred bucks off. Use the discount code “blackfriday” at checkout.

Instant Pot

If you haven’t become part of Instant Pot community, what are you waiting for? With the 5 quart Instant Pot available right now for only $50 right now over at Walmart, you really have no excuse.

Anova

The leader in home sous vide circulators has dropped the price on their flagship product ofr Cyber Monday week. If you want to pick up a circulator, you can do so now for $99 over at Anova.com.

ChefSteps

If you’re reading this on Thanksgiving, you might want to give thanks for a true Black Friday deal coming your way. ChefSteps will be selling both models of the Joule for $30 off, with the Joule Stainless on sale for $169 and the Joule White for $149. Just head over to the ChefSteps Joule page and use the code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout.

HOPii

If you’re willing to wait and want to try out the HOPii home fermentation system, the HOPii folks are offering a “secret perk” right now through Indiegogo which allows you to have a HOPii system for 50% off. Go here to get access to the deal.

Nomiku

Nomiku has a bunch of deals on its sous vide gear and meal delivery service for Black Friday and cyber Monday. The company’s 2nd generation circulator, the Wi-Fi Nomiku, is on sale for $99 and their newest appliance, the Nomiku WiFi Smart Cooker, is available with $50 worth of meals for $179.

Two New Thanksgiving Uses for that Sous Vide Circulator

I don’t need to tell you about the benefits of sous vide immersion circulators. Devices like the Anova, Joule or Nomiku transform just about any pot of water in a temperature controlled, water circulating, precision cooking machine.

I mainly use my Anova for meats – it’s a fantastic way to bring up the internal temperature evenly without under or over cooking. But given that it’s Thanksgiving, it’s unlikely (and perhaps impossible?) that you’ll sous vide an entire turkey.

However, I came across two other unique uses uses for your sous vide wand that can help make your Thanksgiving even more awesome.

Mashed potatoes
First, if you are hosting, what are you doing reading this? Go prepare, you’ve got people coming over! But wait! Before you do, cook your mashed potatoes today. That’s right, get all that mashing and mixing and mess out of the way before the big day. Here’s a trick to re-heating the potatoes without scorching or ruining them.

On a recent episode of the Milk Street radio podcast, J. Kenji Alt-Lopez explained how you can keep your cooked and mashed potatoes in a ziplock bag, store them overnight in the fridge, and then place them in a sous vide machine at something like 150 degrees for an hour to re-heat them without scorching or drying the potatoes out.

Pumpkin pie
And while we are making things in advance, if you are more adventurous and willing to think outside the box and perhaps get a little more deconstructionist with your holiday meal, ChefSteps (maker of the Joule) recently included a recipe for sous vide personal pumpkin pies.

No, it doesn’t involve placing an entire pie in ziplock bag and submerging it. It does involve placing the pie filling in small, individual mason jars and sous vide-ing those. After they are done cooking and chilling, top them off with crumbled graham cracker streusel and some whipped cream. This way everyone gets their own individual dessert.

With a little bit of creativity the sous vide wand can help make your Thanksgiving easier and open up new avenues of creativity. And we’d love to hear about your creativity! How do you use the sous vide for holiday meals? Leave a comment and let us know.

Company Which First Made Sous Vide Affordable Reinvents Flagship Product With Wi-Fi & Alexa

Long before there were low-cost sous vide immersion circulators from companies like Anova, ChefSteps and Nomiku, there was the SousVide Supreme.

The SousVide Supreme, first available in 2009, was arguably the first consumer-priced sous vide appliance on the market.  And unlike today’s popular sous vide immersion circulators that are essentially long cylinders that combine with a pot full of water to create a sous vide water bath, the original SousVide Supreme “water oven” is a fully contained sous vide machine not unlike the expensive commercial water ovens first used by professional chefs

It’s easy to forget how instrumental this product was in its early days of sous vide, but consider what Kenji Lopez-Alt wrote after attending an early demonstration of the Sous Vide Supreme by Heston Blumenthal back in 2009:

“I’ll be getting one of these puppies in my kitchen some time in the next couple weeks, and I plan on putting it through some serious paces, so stay tuned to find out what it can do. If the Showtime Rotisserie taught us anything, it’s that kitchen appliances come and go. The difference here is that the Sous-Vide Supreme is more than just another well-marketed appliance. If it really does what it claims to do, it offers home cooks something that has never been offered before: the opportunity to cook their food in exactly the same way that every three-Michelin starred restaurant cooks. Not just a pale imitation of how they cook, but exactly how they cook.”

And while since the SousVide Supreme has seen companies like Anova since steal much of their early sous vide thunder, the company is hoping to steal some back with a complete revamp of their water oven. The company’s new product, the SousVide Supreme Touch+, launched this past week on Kickstarter and surpassed its funding target of $250 thousand in just four days.

So what features does the Sous Vide Supreme Touch+ have that earlier generations of the product does not?

Quite a few:

Touch screen.The old SousVide Supreme control screen, which had buttons similar to those of an Instant Pot or Crockpot, will give way to a new touch screen on the front of the Touch+ (though the video of the touch screen makes it seem the screen requires pressure similar to that of the old buttons)

Wi-Fi

This is the first Sous Vide Supreme model with Wi-Fi, which allows for remote cook enablement, alerts and app based control.

Speaking of app…

App

With Wi-Fi on board, the SousVide Supreme finally enters the app-control age. The app includes the usual remote on-off control features, but what is most intriguing is the new app will include the ability to program recipes.

Clear lid

This is the first Sous Vide Supreme model with a clear lid. A fairly obvious improvement, but a welcome one since who doesn’t want to see what they’re cooking?

Alexa

Finally, the new SousVide Supreme Touch+ will have Alexa. While voice control almost seems like a requirement for those of us who buy connected kitchen products, the company could have easily just added Wi-Fi and app control and called it a day. Kudos to the creators for future proofing their newest version with Alexa compatibility.

Overall, this new generation of the SousVide Supreme looks to be a major step forward for a company founded by Drs. Patrick and Mary Dan Eades, a married couple that first cobbled together their own DIY sous vide bath after tasting a room service pork chop that was cooked sous vide. The new machine, which is available for $349 on Kickstarter (early bird pricing of $249 and $299 have already sold out) will be available to backers in March of next year and will retail for $599.

If you want to hear about the future of precision cooking and the connected kitchen, make sure to come to the Smart Kitchen Summit. Just use the discount code SPOON to get 25% off of tickets.

Anova Opens Pre-Orders For The Sub-$100 Nano

This week, Anova opened up pre-orders for their Nano, the company’s first sub-$100 sous vide circulator.

The device, which ships in October, is 25% smaller and a full pound lighter than the company’s Wi-Fi Precision Cooker. Perhaps more importantly, the Nano comes in about $70 less than the company’s flagship product. The full price for the Nano is $99, (if you move fast, you can preorder the Nano for $69), marking the first time Anova has dropped below the $100 mark.

The new lower-priced machine comes at a time when the sous vide market is getting more competitive. ChefSteps has been doing well with the Joule (and recently released a lower-cost version of their own), and low priced competitors like Gourmia have attracted budget conscious consumers. With the Nano and its $99 price tag, Anova hopes it can attract value customers looking for a low-priced sous vide circulator.

Later this year the company will ship its second generation Pro circulator for $299.  The company’s Precision Oven, a combi-oven that the company announced last year at the Smart Kitchen Summit, was originally expected to ship this summer, but the ship date has been bumped back to summer 2018.

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ChefSteps Expands Further Into Food With Launch Of Pre-Cooked Meals

Back in February, I  wrote about ChefSteps’ plan to create a meat ‘marketplace’ that would connect “independent ranchers with ChefSteps users, offering them direct access to high-quality meat and ingredients at great prices.”

As it turns out, this effort was part of a larger initiative to expand into food sales that is starting to come into fuller focus. The most visible part of this foray into food sales is the company’s growing business selling meat and fish sourced from local food providers in the Seattle and Portland markets. In the Seattle market, the company offers fresh meat and fish from four local providers (three for meats, one provider of fresh fish). The kits for sale on the company’s website range in price from $79 to $239. And yes – one package, the ‘Mountain of Meat,’ includes 30 pounds of steaks. (Holy meat sweats).

And now, the company has started selling pre-cooked, frozen meals.The pre-cooked meals are sold as what ChefSteps is calling, ‘Joule On-Demand BBQ.’ The meals are all single-serve portions and range in price from $7 to $12. Unlike the fresh meat and seafood, the pre-cooked meals from ChefSteps offer local shipping as a fulfillment option.  Deliveries are fulfilled by PostMates.

The Mountain of Meat meal kit from ChefSteps

These pre-cooked meals appear similar to those announced by Nomiku in April. As with Nomiku’s new meal kits, the BBQ meals are intended to be prepared in a shorter amount of time than traditional sous vide, usually less than an hour.

This move into pre-cooked meals by both ChefSteps and Nomiku shows the growing effort by both companies to expand the appeal of sous video to a broader audience.  Sous vide has traditionally appealed to foodies who are willing to invest more time in preparing chef-like meals, but with pre-cooked meal offerings, the companies believe sous vide becomes more appealing to those home cooks who prioritize convenience.

Of course, pre-cooked meals aren’t the only way to make cooking with sous vide easier for the home cook. ChefSteps and Anova have both been busy launching hands-free voice interface integrations this year, and in February ChefSteps became the first cooking appliance company to launch a chatbot for cooking with their Facebook Messenger bot.

So what became of the meat marketplace teased by the company’s February job listing? According to ChefSteps CEO Chris Young, the idea was to create a nationwide marketplace for “sous vide ready ingredients during the holiday season last year in partnership with the Snake River Farms brand.” As part of the effort, they sell meats nationwide to help ChefSteps customers get, as Young put it, a “center-piece protein for their holiday meal.”

As they worked on the plan, ChefSteps realized that costs of setting up a nationwide delivery system would be too high at this time, so for now the company is content to work out the kinks while selling meat and delivering pre-cooked meals in the Seattle and Portland markets.

“We’re continuing to experiment based on the positive feedback we’re getting from our Seattle and Portland customers, and we’re very aware that we have customers across the United States,’ said Young. “We definitely want to be able to serve those customers asap, but only when we think our service will deliver the experience and value our customers expect from us.”

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