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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food Tech News Roundup: GM Hops, Food Delivery Mergers & Meat MRI’s

Happy weekend. This was a big week for food tech news, with funding updates from Instacart and Impossible Foods, and big partnership announcements from Innit/Chef’d and Kenwood/Drop. But there were also a bunch of smaller stories that caught our eye, even if we didn’t have time to write a post about them. So we rounded them up in one place for you! Put an egg on something and eat it while skimming through our roundup of this week’s food tech news stories.

Report: Postmates and DoorDash mull over merger 

Sources told Recode that Postmates and DoorDash, two food delivery giants, have discussed a possible merger at least once over the past year. This move would be a bid to gain advantage over competitors like GrubHub and UberEats in the hotly-contested food delivery war.

These murmurings come only a month after DoorDash secured $535 million in funding, which they said they would use to expand operations (and maybe invest in robots?). As of now there’s no deal, but this wouldn’t be such a bad idea. The food delivery sector is just too crowded — if these competitors could pull off a merger and optimize their service, I say go for it.

Photo: Pixabay

Unilever wants to turn plastic waste into food safe packaging

Unilever announced this week that it’s starting a new initiative to recycle polyethylene terephthalate resin, which is commonly used in clothing, food and drink packaging, and engineering projects. They want to turn any of their products made with PET resin, including ones that are colored, into transparent, food safe packaging. The consumer goods giant is partnering with recycling tech startup Ioniqa and Indorama Ventures, the world’s largest producer of PET resin, on the project.

It’s an interesting time in the world of food packaging. Various groups, including NASA and the military, are trying to make it lighter, safer, and more resilient. This initiative from Unilever might make it more environmentally friendly, as well. But it’s got a long way to go; currently, 91% of plastic waste isn’t recycled. With a massive company like Unilever behind it, this project might be able to reduce that statistic significantly. 

Credit-TECAL-GIM-UEx.jpg

MRIs can qualify meat taste without touching them

Researchers at the University of Extremadura in Spain have found a way to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the same technology used in hospitals to look inside our bodies, to measure the taste properties of whole loins and hams — without touching them.

The technology uses non-invasive magnets and radio waves to take images of the meat, which is then run through a computer vision algorithm. Scientists can use the images and readings they see to make predictions on the quality of the meat, including its fat content, color, and salt content, without having to damage a pricey Iberico ham.

This research indicates another approach to food safety monitoring and quality control, which is a fast-growing market full of startups like Mimica and FoodLogiQ.

 

Would brewers replace hops with GMO yeast?

Hold on to your IPAs: A team of chemists and geneticists in California have developed a genetically modified yeast that can mimic the flavor and aroma of hops. To make it, they spliced DNA from mint and basil plants into the genes of brewing yeast, which gave the yeast a grapefruit-like flavor typical of the Cascade hop.

By swapping out hops for GM yeast, brewers could have greater control over their product, reduce the costs of beer-brewing, and reduce environmental impact. As might be expected, craft brewers aren’t eager to replace hops with GM yeast — they feel it takes some of the art out of brewing. But we’re seeing more and more intersections of beer and tech, from IoT-powered beer tracking systems to beer publishing systems for at-home brewers.

 

Photo: AgVend

AgVend raises $1.75M in seed funding

Last week ag-commerce startup AgVend raised $1.75 million in seed funding. The round was led by Drew Oetting at 8VC, with participation from Green Bay Ventures, Seahawk Capital, The House Fund, and others.

Agvend is a digital commerce platform which lets farmers compare prices and purchase ag services and inputs. With AgVend, farmers can order a specific fertilizer and have it delivered (via AgVend’s partners) the same day or take advantage of flash sales promotions, without ever leaving their farm. The startup launched at the beginning of 2018 and now covers states across the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, with plans to expand later this year.

This year has been a big one for agtech startups. In the last few months indoor farming company Agrilyst and peer-to-peer farming network WeFarm also closed fundraising rounds. Agtech is definitely a growing market, and one to keep an eye on.

Smart Kitchen News Roundup: Personalized Pints, The World’s Best Steak, & Ranch Dressing

It’s been a big week for the smart kitchen, so we’re doing a quick roundup of some of our favorite food tech news stories that we didn’t have time to turn into full pieces.

Speaking of smart kitchens: we just returned from the Housewares Show in Chicago! If you want to read about some of the cool new products and trends we saw (cough, guided cooking, cough), check out this post and look out for a recap podcast coming your way soon.

Introducing Beer Ripples

Beer Ripples lets you personalize your pints

Just in time for St. Patrick’s day, latte art-printing company Coffee Ripples is bringing their technology behind the bar. Their edible 3D-printing technology allows you to print any imagine that moves you on a pint. Dubbed Beer Ripples, the machine, intended solely for commercial use, uses an edible malt-based ink to transfer designs, text, and images onto your brew’s foamy top. Imbibers can either choose from options on Ripples’ library or upload a custom image onto the Ripple app using their foam. It’s not cheap—the machine is priced at $3,000 plus an $1,500 annual subscription fee—but in a world run by Instagram, it may help give bars an extra buzz.

 

Photo: Hidden Valley website.

Hidden Valley dips into Allrecipes/Amazon Fresh partnership

This week the media and marketing company the Meredith Corporation announced that Hidden Valley will be the first advertising partner to take advantage of the Allrecipes/Amazon Fresh integration. Now when users select shoppable recipes from Allrecipes that call for bottled ranch or powdered ranch mix, a Hidden Valley product will automatically be added to their AmazonFresh shopping cart and delivered to their doorstep. In addition to geo-targeted offers and ads, users will see a “May We Suggest” native recipe integrations pushing Hidden Valley ranch as a pairing whenever they click on pizza recipes. Customers can switch out Hidden Valley for another brand if they wish, but this partnership is just a taste of how CPG’s will use shoppable recipes as a tool to take advantage of the growing egrocery market.

 

Photo: Crowd Cow website.

Crowd Cow expands to Japan

Crowd Cow, the startup which helps people directly source meat by crowdfunding a cow online, has expanded their reach into Japan. They now offer A5 Wagyu beef sourced from Kagoshima, a rare cut of meat which their website claims is “the world’s most marbled steak.” This expansion shows that Crowd Cow’s model of direct-delivering specific cuts of whole cows has some market power behind it. It also speaks to the growing demand for ethically sourced luxury beef. If you’re interested, Crowd Cow’s A5 Wagyu will go on sale on March 19th, and promises to sell out pretty quickly. Get your Béarnaise sauce ready.

 

Photo: SmartQ website.

SmartQ gets funding to facilitate food court experience

This week the Chennai-based food tech startup SmartQ raised $1 million from Dubai-based investors. Founded in 2014, SmartQ aims to eliminate cafeteria lines by “digitizing food courts.” Their suite of products includes a food ordering app, a self ordering kiosk, and a POS system to facilitate restaurant billing. While keeping all of those services straight may seem more complicated than just waiting in line, SmartQ’s products are catching on in food courts around India. The company has been growing 50% month to month, and currently has big players Shell and Epsilon as clients. SmartQ hopes to use their funding to grow their business outside of India.

 

Photo: PR Newswire Asia

2018 AWE wowed with smart kitchen appliances

Smart kitchen gadgets abounded this week at the 2018 Appliance & Electronics World Expo (AWE) in Shanghai this week. Consumer appliance manufacturer Midea showed off some pretty snazzy demos appliances like their second generation Fun oven, which uses AI and machine learning to recognize foods and calculate the perfect cooking curve. There was also a voice-controlled microwave and a range hood with steam cleaning and air purification capabilities. Also at AWE, Chinese appliance company Haier debuted their smart home solution, featuring a smart fridge with a built-in camera which can see your food and recommend recipes accordingly.

BruVue Nabs $1 Million In Seed Funding For IoT-Powered Beer Tracking System

Ask any pub owner, and they’ll tell you one of the biggest challenges of running a bar is inventory management. Between friendly pours, foaming and flat beer, approximately 20% of each keg is wasted.

So wouldn’t it be great if bar managers could track where all those lost suds are going? That’s exactly what BruVue, a startup with an IoT tracking system for beer, wants to help them do. BruVue’s beer tracking platform, which includes a sensor system installed at each tap, allows bar managers to track keg levels, foaming, and actual vs. paid pours. The system also enables bars to move to digital beer menus instead of printing them on paper.

You can watch the BruVue system in action below:

The company, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, announced a $1 million seed funding this week, which they plan on using to scale distribution of their product. And while BruVue’s technology is primarily targeted at the pro market, they also announced they won the Heineken Innovator’s Brewhouse Challenge, a competition by Heineken to find innovations that enhance the home draft experience.  BruVue walked away with first prize by applying their beer tracking technology to Heineken’s home pour system, the SUB.

BruVue isn’t the only startup applying IoT technology to beer. Pubbino, a startup from Istanbul, says its Taptronics automated system’s “smart foam” algorithm can create a perfect pour. Unlike the BruVue system which allows bar owners to use existing taps, the Taptronics system requires the bar to install their smart taps.

Once signed up,  BruVue customers pay a monthly subscription fee for each tap sensor, which gives them access to the company’s analytics dashboard and app.  Pricing ranges from $10-$20 per tap per month depending on the length of the contract.

Preorder Pricing For PicoBrew Z, PicoBrew’s Pro Brewing System, Starts At $1,499

Last week when the Spoon was the first to write about the PicoBrew Z,  I speculated about what the pricing would be for PicoBrew’s latest product line. I guessed the system, which is intended to fill the gap between home brew systems and commercial setups that typically start with a barrel (30 gallons) brewing capacity, would start below $10 thousand.

While I was right, I admittedly shot a bit high. The PicoBrew Z MSRP pricing ranges from $2,500 to $8,500 and is currently priced at up to a 50% discount for preorder customers.

Per the release:

  • Z1 produces up to 2.5 gallons per brew cycle (MSRP $2,500, Pre-Order for $1,499)
  • Z2 produces up to 5 gallons per brew cycle (MSRP $4,000, Pre-Order for $1,999)
  • Z3 produces up to 7.5 gallons per brew cycle (MSRP $6,000, Pre-Order for $2,999)
  • Z4 produces up to 10 gallons per brew cycle (MSRP $8,500, Pre-Order for $3,999)

Preorders can only be purchased through the PicoBrew website, which marks a departure for a company that has become something of a Kickstarter darling. According to CEO Bill Mitchell, they are modeling their latest effort after that of Glowforge, which had a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign in 2015 when it launched its 3D printer through its own website. Much like the Glowforge 3D printer, the new PicoBrew Z is a product targeted at the pro/semi-pro market.

For those who prefer buying gear through Kickstarter, don’t despair. For future consumer-centric products like that of the Pico, Mitchell said the company will continue to use Kickstarter.

PicoBrew Unveils Its ‘Beer Publishing System’ For Aspiring Beer Entrepreneurs

When Bill Mitchell spoke at last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit, he discussed his company’s vision of creating a publishing system for beer makers to allow them to monetize their creations through what he called an “app store for beer”. Today PicoBrew unveiled the platform for making this happen: the PicoBrew Network. The announcement was made in conjunction with the launch of the new PicoBrew Z modular beer brewing system I wrote about last week.

So how does PicoBrew’s new beer publishing system work?

Aspiring publishers will use the PicoBrew Z or the PicoBrew Zymatic (the first generation appliance from PicoBrew) to create beer recipes using loose grains and hops. Unlike traditional home beer brewing gear, the PicoBrew gear allows beer brewers to craft recipes using software that connects directly to the brewing appliance and allows for precise recipe tweaks.

Once a brewer fine-tunes a recipe they want to submit, they can upload it to the PicoBrew Network (PBN) portal. PicoBrew will review the recipe and if things looks good, will create a test PicoPak (the “brewing pods” used by the PicoBrew Pico, the lower-cost, more automated brewing appliances for home users) to send to the recipe creator to verify whether the PicoPak-brewed-beer tastes like they intended.

Once the brewer and PicoBrew find the right mix of grains and hops to replicate the brewer’s recipe, PicoBrew will manufacture PicoPaks with this recipe and make them available to other PicoBrew appliance owners via the company’s BrewMarketplace. For each PicoPak sold, the crafter of the recipe of gets a royalty payment.

What’s interesting about PicoBrew’s new beer publishing system is it essentially offers a new way to monetize beer brewing that separates itself from the actual physical production of beer in the long run, making them not unlike a book author publishing their creation through a publishing house or on the Kindle bookstore.

While I think it’s an interesting new way for small beer makers to make money from their creations, some brewing traditionalists may not feel this way. Over on Reddit, one commenter wrote, “Selling recipes? For real? That goes against the very spirit of our hobby but I guess making an appliance for people who can’t brew is how you capture people that are willing to pay for app storeified brewing.”

My guess is that while some old-schoolers who paid the price and learned how to brew in their garage and embrace the DIY culture of traditional homebrewing may eschew digital approaches, others may see a new pathway to monetizing their love of beer-making. According to PicoBrew, they already have 800 home beer brewers who have applied to be a part of the PBN.

Mitchell believes the strong early interest in their beer publishing platform is partly because it allows the aspiring beer entrepreneur to sidestep the traditional costs of starting a craft beer brewery. “While we have all probably dreamed of quitting our day jobs and opening a brewery, startup costs and a competitive landscape make this option unworkable for most homebrewers,” Mitchell said in the announcement. “The PicoBrew Network (PBN) gives homebrewers the opportunity to distribute the beers they create and earn royalties, while PicoBrew does all the work of marketing, manufacturing and fulfilling the Paks.”

Part of the reason PicoBrew is launching the PBN now is they finally have the hardware for aspiring recipe creators to do both recipe crafting and PicoPak testing within one appliance. The original Zymatic allowed brewers to craft recipes, but because the appliance predates the creation of the Pico and its PicoPak brewing pods, a Zymatic owner needed to buy a separate Pico to try their creations out. The PicoBrew Z can brew beer from both PicoPaks as well as from loose grains and hops.

PicoBrew Aims To Fill Gap Between Home & Pro Market With PicoBrew Z

Today PicoBrew teased the release of a new beer brewing appliance called the PicoBrew Z.

Unlike the Seattle startup’s last two crowdfunding campaigns which offered up new appliances for home beer brewing, the PicoBrew Z looks to be designed for the pro market. While the company is keeping most of the details of the new appliance under wraps until next week, the teaser site indicates that the new device will brew up to 10 gallons and is targeted at brewpubs, restaurateurs and home brewers looking to take their hobby to the next level.

Here’s how PicoBrew CEO Bill Mitchell described the PicoBrew Z in an email to potential backers:

Today is an exciting day for us: We’re introducing the PicoBrew Z Series, our first professional-grade, all-grain brewing appliance line. While we have been very successful with 2 generations of consumer Pico machines, we have not yet addressed the needs of the prosumer and professional audience since the launch of our original Zymatic…until now! Reap the benefits of larger batch sizes from 1 to 10 gallons, rugged, maintainable, industrial grade components designed for professional use and more with the new PicoBrew Z Series.

In some ways, the Z appears to be an evolutionary step forward from PicoBrew’s first device, the Zymatic. While the Zymatic was never pitched as professional grade equipment, about half of the roughly three thousand Zymatics ended up in craft or mass market breweries.

The reason brewmasters liked the Zymatic is it gave them a way to prototype new beers without spending thousands of dollars experimenting on big batches. However, some craft brewers wanted to go beyond prototyping and use the Zymatic to create small experimental batches to serve their customers. The problem with that idea is the Zymatic only brews 2.5 gallon batches, about half the size of a soda keg (a cornelius keg) and just a fraction of the standard beer keg (15 gallons or half a barrel).  The Z fills the gap between the Zymatic and smaller pro grade brewing equipment (which often start at half a barrel to a barrel of brew capacity) by brewing up to 10 gallon batches.

While PicoBrew has yet to release pricing on the Z, my guess is it will come in below $10 thousand. With the cost of entry for traditional microbrewery equipment often reaching $100 thousand or more, the PicoBrew Z could tap into an unmet demand by filling a substantial void between consumer and pro markets. The Z also looks like it will have some headroom to grow, as Mitchell describes the new line as a “series”, which sounds to me like it will have different SKUs with potentially different capacities.

In another departure from past product introductions, it looks like this time around PicoBrew isn’t headed to Kickstarter. In one way, they look to be taking a cue from Glowforge, a company which shattered all hardware crowdfunding campaigns in 2015 with its 3D printer.

Early indications are this was a good idea. In an emailed response to my inquiry about the PicoBrew Z, an exec said the PicoBrew Z is on a ‘GlowForge-like trajectory’ since unveiling this morning with “thousands of signups” in the first hour.

You can hear about PicoBrew Z in our daily spoon podcast.  You can also subscribe in Apple podcasts or through our Amazon Alexa skill. 

Brew Cloud App Keeps Your Beer Recipes Handy

Old school homebrewing is a complicated process that involves following precise instructions. The problem with writing down recipes on paper is that you can spill beer on them and make them unreadable.

This was (for real) one of the reasons Steven Edwards set out to make Brew Cloud, an app that lets you create, store and access your favorite beer recipes in the cloud.

Edwards is president of Avocado Toast Co., a Noblesville, Indiana-based design and development shop that created Brew Cloud. Edwards is one of the 1.1 million homebrewers in the U.S., and noticed a lack of full featured apps that would help him create his beer.

Released at the tail end of this past summer, Brew Cloud lets you identify the style of beer you want to make, list the ingredients, figure out your gravity, calculate your alcohol percentage and more from your phone. You can also play around with the recipe to see different outcomes from various tweaks.

Right now the app is limited to creating and saving your own recipes. There are no pre-set recipes baked into the app, and there are no ways to share recipes with other app users. Edwards said that their plan is to release a sharing feature sometime next year.

Brew Cloud isn’t the only app to help hop-heads with their homebrewing. BeerSmith is, according to Edwards, the de facto homebrewing app. While they are full featured, BeerSmith charges $7.99 in the app store and Edwards believes that the Brew Cloud offers a fresher user experience. That said, there are other competitors such as Fermenticus Brew Log and Brew Pal.

Brew Cloud is bootstrapped and currently available for free for iOS and Android devices. Edwards says they have roughly 300 users and 80 monthly active users. While Edwards has big plans for the app including an advertising option, he’s not in any hurry to scale too quickly and wants to grow organically.

Hopefully Edwards isn’t jotting his Brew Cloud plans down on paper where beer could spill all over them.

Brew-IT’s Beer Cube Hopes to Bring Luxury Brewing to Your Home

You might think the words “beer cube” refer to some new exotic, angular packaging for your favorite brew. But the Beer Cube is instead a home beer making machine currently in development that aims to take all the work out of letting you recreate your favorite craft beers from around the world in the comfort of your own home.

The Beer Cube is a product in the works from Brew-IT, a Québec-based startup, which the company hopes to debut in March of next year. The device, as explained to me over the phone by co-founder David Brouillette is a modular, stackable system of cubes, measuring 13 inches by 13 inches by 13 inches.

You add a can of beer “concentrate” (roughly the size of a can of Coke) and water to the machine and Beer Cube takes care of the rest. A few days of fermentation and a notification from your smart phone later and you have five liters of your freshly made beer on tap. The Beer Cube takes care of everything from heating to chilling to sanitization and recipe maintenance.

All this beer goodness won’t come cheap. Brew-IT is aiming for this to be a luxury item with a $1,000 price tag for two cubes and a docking station, and is targeting people who want to make craft beer at home — but don’t want to bother with any of the complicated work involved.

The other part of the Beer Cube system is the cans of concentrate that goes with it. Brouillette says the company uses a patented process to extract water from the wort made by breweries to make this concentrate that does not involve standard evaporation methods.

The company’s goal is to partner with breweries so people could buy concentrates of their favorite beer from anywhere in the world for about $20 a can. Since the concentrate is non-alcoholic, it can be exported more easily.

Given the complexities involved with the creation of such a magical machine, it’s natural to be skeptical. The company is bootstrapped, only has a prototype at this point, and the actual production of homebrewing machines has befuddled others in the marketplace such as Brewbot and iGulu.

Additionally, the Beer Cube seems to offer much of the same functionality as the Hopii home brewing system that was showcased at our recent Smart Kitchen Summit.

Brouillette says that the competitive landscape is why Brew-IT is taking its time. The company had a previous homebrew device that people could pre-order, but it ran into development issues and was dropped (that product is still listed on the company’s site as available for pre-order, though Brouillette says it will be taken down soon). Brouillette says that his product differs from Hopii because Beer Cube will let you have multiple beers brewing so you never run out, and its concentrate will be more lightweight and easier to ship.

Another way the company hopes to avoid the pitfalls of its competitors is with real world access. In addition to selling cans of concentrate online, the company hopes to have them for sale in brick and mortar craft beer stores as well, so they are easier for people to access.

While Brew-IT is certainly aiming high with its product, the company still has a long way to go to prove itself. Brouillette wants to have the prototype done in time for SXSW and launch it on Kickstarter in March of next year.

CEO of Crowdfunded iGulu Apologizes to Backers, Raises VC Funds

Creating a self-contained home brewing system is evidently harder than it looks. iGulu, the crowdfunded, countertop beer making machine had initially promised delivery to backers in Q3 of 2016. But an update posted by the company on its Indiegogo page indicates that mass production to fulfill all backers won’t happen until July 2018.

Just a few days ago, on November 27, the company provided a lengthy breakdown of reasons for the latest delays, and included the following bit:

Based on the recent exchange rate (CNY: USD = 6.6:1), we have spent $1.45M on this project. We have raised about $1.1M from two platforms and received a net fund of $910,000 after all agent fee, and the platform fee, have been deducted. We are operating on our new investor’s money now and are very confident to carry on the project since we just made solid progress in the past six months.

To its credit, iGulu has posted 34 updates, and has seemingly been transparent about the troubles it encountered. But some backers are understandably upset, having shelled out at least $489 dollars to back the project. But a refund doesn’t seem like it will happen anytime soon, as the company posted on Indiegogo yesterday:

For those of you who asked for a refund, we deeply apologize again that your investment didn’t work out. We just don’t have the negotiating power with our venture capital investors to be able to use their funds for refunding rather than investing in working capital which is critical to generating future cash flow. As our CEO stated, we have recorded all of your requests and will refund you when we have the cash-flow.

We reached out to iGulu via email with questions, and CEO Shu Zhang replied saying iGulu has received funding from three venture capital firms in China, but the names of the firms and the amount raised was not disclosed. He also provided with the following statement:

This fund can cover the full mass production and delivery for our first-generation machine. Then it also can support us to jumpstart development of our second-generation machine.

The causes of our numerous delays were several design and supplier issues. We encountered all kinds of difficulties that startups frequently face, but we have improved our processes and are steadfast in our commitment to release a safe and reliable unit.

Regardless, I am deeply sorry for the delays to all of our backers, but we are on the right track now. It is evident at this point that we were overly optimistic. Building a workable prototype in a living room is one thing, but mass production of a commercially ready product is entirely different.

Finally, I’d like to apologize again to all of our backers for missing our original date by so wide a margin. I’d like to have all of our backers know that we are hanging there and that all of your voices have been heard.

iGulu isn’t the only crowdfunded homebrew system to hit hard times. Last month, Brewbot narrowly avoided being shut down completely after only delivering a few of its promised units.

It’s not all bad news for for budding home beermakers though. The grandaddy of crowdfunded homebrew, Picobrew, continues to deliver its products. And Hopii, which crowdfunded $386,401 was a hit at our recent Smart Kitchen Summit.

Blockchain Beer Delivers Ingredient Transparency

Can the technology behind Bitcoin build a better beer experience? Ireland Craft Beers thinks so, and has launched Downstream, the world’s first brew placed on the blockchain platform.

As Food Ingredients First reports, Ireland Craft Beers use of blockchain technology will provide more transparency into how their beer is made, allowing consumers to see exactly what they are consuming.

For those new to blockchain, CB Insights has a nice, lengthy primer, but for our purposes, think of blockchain as a ledger. In the case of Downstream beer, users can scan a QR code on the bottle and go to an online resource that identifies every unique bottle that comes off the line, including its ingredients and brewing methods.

Ireland Craft Beers is betting that the blockchained Downstream will quench consumers’ increased thirst for knowledge about exactly what they are eating and drinking.

Whether or not a blockchain hook will be enough to move the needle on a particular beer’s sales remains to be seen. But as we’ve written before, blockchain technology is poised to disrupt the entire food scene, with giants like Walmart getting into blockchain to improve food safety.

Hopefully the price of Downstream won’t reach the highs of the blockchain-based Bitcoin, unless you like the thought of paying nearly $10,000 for bottle of meticulously tracked beer.

Will Artificial Intelligence Brew a Better Beer?

Global beer maker Carlsberg is using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the business of making its product.

The “Beer Fingerprinting Project” is a new initiative the Copenhagen-based brewery launched with Aarhus University’s Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center, Microsoft, and the Technical University of Denmark.

Using a taste-sensor platform, the team can analyze different yeasts and identify subtle nuances in them, making it possible to quickly distinguish between the different flavors developed each day in the Carlsberg Laboratory. That’s a process that’s long been done by humans, with little to no tech involved. Having sensors identify the flavors means getting products to market much faster than ever before. Using AI will also help the company ensure higher-quality products that meet all food-safety regulations.

Carlsberg is not the first to try this. IntelligentX Brewing Co. has launched a beer brewed entirely by machine learning and algorithms. Drinkers taste the beer and report feedback to the company’s AI. That data is used to make changes and improvements as it brews the next batch of beer.

But wait. Isn’t beer-making supposed to be a kind of art form? Wouldn’t replacing human taste buds with sensors diminish that artistic side and stifle creativity in the process?

To some degree, yes. The flavor of a beer depends on how brewers choose to combine the drink’s four ingredients—water, yeast, barley, and hops. As anyone who’s ever been to a craft beer bar knows, those combinations often turn out pretty wacky results, depending on the group doing the brewing. Doughnut-bacon-maple beer, anyone?

Of course, like any other major brand, Carlsberg’s main business is to move product. But that doesn’t mean the company can’t experiment. And while we probably won’t see beer made from Hawaiian pizza anytime soon, Carlsberg has said it wants to develop “novel flavors” across all its lines, from its mainstream products to specialty and non-alcoholic beers.

Likewise, the IntelligentX founders told The Financial Times that AI is “an enabler but not a replacement for humans” when it comes to making brews. Technology, in this case, is just a means of enhancing what’s already there.

Not everyone is so excited, though. The same FT article quoted Yeastie Boys founder Stu McKinley as saying he would expect beers made with AI “to be pretty middle of the road.” And my former colleague Derrick Harris recently noted that, “For some reason, adding AI into the mix cheapens the process to me,” adding that, “this isn’t pharmaceutical research, where the right or wrong chemistry has life-or-death consequences. It’s just beer.”

Harris has a perfectly valid point, and sure, there is always a possibility that machine-made beer will turn out middle of the road. That said, a larger beer-maker experimenting with AI will give the market more insight into what you can do with technology-based food and beverage in general, and on a global scale. Whether that’s middle-of-the-road or pizza-flavored remains to be seen.

Brewbot or Not: A Kickstarted Home Beer Maker Falls Flat?

Here at The Spoon, we love combing through Kickstarter to discover innovative kitchen ideas at their very earliest stage. This love of the crowdfunding platform is seasoned with a dollop of skepticism, however, as many hardware projects that reach their goals never actually see the light of day.

Judging from this article over on Belfast Telegraph, Brewbot may be yet another cautionary Kickstarter tale. It looks as though the Belfast-based Brewbot narrowly avoided being shut down by tax officials entirely and has instead “entered into an agreement to pay creditors.”

Brewbot had raised £114,368 (~$150,000 in today’s USD) through 381 backers on Kickstarter back in October 2013, and went on to receive more than £1 million in additional funding. For a time, Brewbot also owned and operated a bar in Belfast.

An Irish Times article last December reported that some of Brewbot’s suppliers cut off the companies credit line and that Brewbot had liabilities of more than £1 million. The Telegraph article says the company had cut staff to only the bar workers and only “a small number” of Brewbots were ever produced.

We reached out to Brewbot for comment, and did not hear back as of this writing. The company’s Twitter feed has not been active since July 2016. Founder Chris McClelland has been quiet on Twitter since May, popping up only in October to retweet the sale announcement of Brewbot’s bar. “Team” and “Our Story” pages on the Brewbot website now return 403 errors.

The apparently sad saga of the Brewbot has been chronicled over on the blog Brewbot Answers. Whomever is behind that site has posted news updates about Brewbot as well as their own personal experiences with the project and attempts to get a refund. We posted a comment on the Brewbot Answers page in an attempt to find out more, but have not heard back yet.

According to Brewbot Answers, there will be a Brewbot Town Hall on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 from 5pm – 6pm (BST). This invitation was reportedly sent to just 23 recipients.

From the looks of it, Brewbot appears to be yet another example of the harsh realities that go along with bringing hardware to market. Wide-eyed optimism has a tendency to turn a blind eye to the complexities of machining and manufacturing. This is made all the more easy as there are no real repercussions for failure on a platform like Kickstarter, and there is little recourse for hopeful backers. Caveat Emptor and all.

That’s not to say that all Kickstarted hardware projects are doomed. PicoBrew, another home beer making system was and continues to deliver on its promises. And the homebrewing space continues to see new entrants such as the Hopii, which made a splash at our recent Smart Kitchen Summit.