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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

CES

The Walkaround Guide to Food Tech at CES 2023

If you’re heading to CES to check out food tech, we’ve got you covered. The Spoon team has scoured the exhibitor pages and the news releases and is keeping running track of all the companies exhibiting in the food tech category in Las Vegas this week.

You can use the handy table below to read a description of what each is showing off at CES as well as find a link that shows a map of the location of their booth.

The exhibit floor open tomorrow and we’ll be updating this throughout the show, so feel free to check back!

Yo-Kai To Debut Desktop Ramen Robot For Space-Constrained Retail Formats at CES 2023

Yo-Kai Express, a startup that makes autonomous ramen robots, will debut its latest model at CES, a desktop ramen-making machine targeted at small-format retailers such as gas stations and co-working spaces.

The new machine, called the YKE Desktop, is a semi-automatic cooking machine that makes a bowl of ramen in 90 seconds. The machine is paired with an RFID-enabled freezer that holds up to 24 bowls of ramen.

“We are pleased to debut our new product : Yo-Kai Desktop, the new terminal with a smaller form factor, which can be installed anywhere – remote office, gas station, convenience stores, co-working space,” said Andy Lin, founder and CEO of Yo-Kai Express. “It’s a semi-automated machine that provides our customers more flexibility.”

In addition to showing off its newest model at CES, the company will demo a new app that enables customers to order ramen remotely. The app, which will be released to the public in the spring, allows customers to earn loyalty points, discounts, and rewards.

The news follows a busy fall for Yo-Kai, in which they expanded throughout Japan, raised additional funding, and partnered with the Japanese robotics giant Softbank to enable an integration with server robot Pepper.

For those interested in checking out the new Yo-Kai machine, they will be in the Food Tech Pavilion at CES at booth 53114.

Here Are Some Alternative Protein & Future Food Innovations Heading to CES 2023

Ever since Impossible stole the show at CES with the debut of the Impossible Burger 2.0 in 2019, a growing number of future food startups head to Vegas each January to try to repeat the feat or, at the very least, build momentum for the coming year.

This year will be no different, and companies making everything from new types of fat to bug protein infrastructure will be on the show floor starting this Thursday.

Below are some of the alternative protein and future food startups on our radar for CES 2023:

Armored Fresh – If you’ve ever wanted to try plant-based cheese, this is your chance. Armored Fresh which launched their plant-based cheeses in the US in October, creates its cheese with almond milk and plant-based lactic acid. The company, which has a number of patents for its process, will be showcasing its cheese starting January 5th at booth 53314.

Koreasoft – If cheese isn’t your thing, how about bugs? Koreasoft showing off its 3rd generation edible insect smart farm machine and system on the bottom floor of the Venetian Expo in Eureka Park in the Korea Pavilion.

SavorEat – Israel-based SavorEat is has built a 3D-printing robot that makes plant-based meat. The company’s focus for now is food service, but they intend to create a home machine in the future. SavorEat will be in the Food Tech Pavilion in the Venetian Expo at Booth #53117.

Kwang Jin Corp – This Korean startup will be showing off its plant-based food product, ‘DNS Da Neung Sik’, which originated from Chungguk jang, a traditional Korean fermented food. DNS’s main ingredient is soybeans and the company says it is a futuristic fermented alternative milk rich in protein and probiotics. You can find DNS Da Neung in the Korea Pavilion in Eureka Park.

Lypid – Lypid makes PhytoFat, a proprietary plant-based fat line that it claims mimics the texture, mouthfeel, transfer of flavor, and cooking behavior of animal fats. The company plans to sell its product to manufacturers to add animal meat-like juiciness and mouthfeel to plant-based meats. The company will in the Taiwan Tech Arena, booth 62500, starting Thursday.

Nuldam – Nuldam makes a variety of plant-based food, including vegan macarons and vegan aquafaba. They will be in the Food Tech Pavilion at booth #52914.

Nature’s Fynd – Nature’s Fynd makes alternative meat products utilizing a hearty new microbe called Fusarium strain flavolapis, which they discovered in the remnants of acidic volcano springs of Yellowstone National Park. Nature’s Fynd will be sampling their product outside of CES in a food truck.

The Spoon will be covering all the food tech news they find at CES. Check back regularly!

Samsung to Debut Bespoke AI Oven at CES as Family Hub Fades Into Supporting Role

Every year, Samsung takes up more square footage on the exhibition floor than perhaps any other company at CES. Among all that booth space, the Korean consumer electronics giant usually allocates some footage to their kitchen products and, for much of the past decade, a good chunk of its kitchen product focus was on the company’s Family Hub smart fridge line.

But over the past year, Samsung has been pushing its Bespoke family into the limelight while quietly pulling back the Family Hub into more of a supporting rule. And this week at CES 2023 in Las Vegas, Bespoke is not only getting top billing again, but it will also include some product categories beyond the fridge such as its new AI-enabled smart oven.

Starting Thursday, Samsung will showcase the Bespoke AI Oven, a built-in wall oven features a ‘Sense Inside’ feature that uses AI-powered image recognition to recognize up 80 different dishes and ingredients and help avoid overcooking. Samsung claims the new feature is the first food recognition and burn detection AI algorithm to receive an AI cooking appliance verification by UL Solutions. The AI Oven also works with SmartThings Cooking and Samsung Health, which allows it to recommend meal ideas based on the user’s workout stats, diet goals, and the ingredients they have on hand.

As for why Samsung is starting to emphasize the Bespoke brand over Family Hub, my guess is they’ve had more success selling the design-forward Bespoke lineup over the tech-heavy marketing lift required for when Family Hub got top billing. While certainly open to new technology in the kitchen, a consumer’s primary focus with kitchen design and significant appliance purchases is to build an attractive and functional space. Bepoke’s mix and match design concept serves those needs well.

As for Family Hub’s future, signs are pointing to the platform following the same path as the Samsung SmartThings platform, which transitioned over time from a discrete product line to an enabling feature integrated into other products.

Did you know The Spoon is producing CES’s Food Tech Conference? Find out more here.

The Smart Cutting Board is the Latest Kitchen Gadget to Make Its Way to CES

Over the years, there’s been no shortage of kitchen gadgets at CES. But next week, a new category will join the smart ovens, connected thermometers, and AI-powered fridges on the floor of the world’s biggest tech conference: the smart cutting board.

Yep, there will be not one but two on display in Vegas next week, each with a very different focus. First is Versaware, a company that makes a connected cutting board that works in tandem with a bowl as part of a system that helps users calculate and track calories and nutrition. According to Versaware, when a user prepares a meal, they scan the ingredient barcodes (for packaged food) or query an item (for fresh produce) on the touchscreen display before they drop it onto the cutting board. Then, the app takes the weight of the added ingredient and calculates the incremental calorie count and macronutrients (protein, carbs, fat) as you build your meal.

The other smart cutting board on display next week is BLOK, which its creators bill as a ‘Peleton for the kitchen.’ The idea with BLOK is users will learn to be better cooks through access to live and on-demand cooking classes viewable through the device’s video screen. When the cutting’s all done, the BLOK’s wooden cutting board detaches from the video screen and is washed. The assembled BLOK (wooden cutting board and video screen) is stored in a wireless charging station that fits on the countertop. The company will monetize through – what else – a subscription service for access to cooking videos.

Both devices beg the question of whether consumers will embrace technology being inserted into the most basic of kitchen mainstays, a category that – at least up to this point – has excelled in being nothing more than a reliable surface on which to slice and dice our food. While I think both companies will have an uphill battle selling the idea to consumers, I am more skeptical about the BLOK, primarily because I’m not convinced of any Peleton-for-kitchen business model. I’m also not sure the cutting board is the most logical place to put video playback, especially with most consumers’ easy access to smartphones, Alexa video screens, and tablets.

I plan to swing by and see both products next week. If you’re at CES and want to see a smart cutting board up close, you can find Versaware at booth 53414 and BLOK at booth 61706.

Meet Joe, The Oven-Shaped Brother of Bob the Dishwasher

Remember Bob the Dishwasher? He has a brother that likes to cook.

Daan Tech, the French-based startup behind Bob the Dishwasher, has created a small form-factor countertop oven called Joe. Joe is a multifunction oven with a steam/combi oven, convection heating/air-frying, and a microwave. As far as I know, this oven is the first countertop appliance with all three of these capabilities in one box.

Like Bob, Joe the Oven comes in a Smeg-ish design that looks cool on the countertop. Daan isn’t planning on releasing Joe until 2024, and, at this point, they haven’t revealed pricing, but since they are showing up at CES in about a week, we may know more soon.

We’ll be covering CES and what’s happening in food tech all the next week, so if you have a tip or story about a product you see or will be bringing to CES, drop us a line.

We’ll Be Talking Lab-Grown Meat & More at CES 2023, And You Won’t Want To Miss It

2022 has been a big year for the world of lab-grown meat. Not only did we see it begin to show up at fine dining locations in Singapore and see hundreds of millions of venture funding poured into the sector, but this year also marked the first time the US FDA sent out a “No Questions” letter to a cultivated meat company, signaling that it believes that UPSIDE’s cultivate chicken is safe for consumers.

And while 2022 was full of momentous news for alt-meat, 2023 is guaranteed to be even more action-packed. Numerous cultivated meat companies are beginning to scale up the production of their products, big food companies are evaluating how to fit cultivated meat into their product portfolios, and innovators continue to find breakthrough ideas that will help cellular agriculture make a dent in traditional animal agriculture.

To help 2023 get kicked off, we’ll be bringing the conversation about how to scale cultivated meat and other alternative protein to the big stage of the Consumer Electronics Show at the CES Food Tech Conference this coming January. I will be taking the stage to interview some of the biggest names in the future of protein in a session called “Scaling Towards a Trillion Dollar Alternative Protein Industry,” including the CEO of UPSIDE Foods Uma Valeti, Head of Operations for Perfect Day, Shayri RoyChoudhury, and the CEO of SuperMeat, Ido Savir.

This session is just one of a full day of programming on food tech at the world’s biggest technology conference. On January 5th at the CES Food Tech Conference, we’ll also be talking about the tech-powered restaurant, how the consumer kitchen will change in the future, the future of farming, and even how we will grow food in space!

If you are an entrepreneur interested in the opportunities presented by the future of food, you won’t want to miss it. You can find out more and buy tickets to the CES Food Tech conference here.

We’ll see you in Vegas.

If you’re interested in sponsoring our CES food tech conference or the Food Tech Happy Hour, drop us a line.

Announcing The Spoon Fall Event Series

We are very excited to be announcing The Spoon’s slate of events for 2022 (and January 2023).

The Spoon’s event series in 2022 includes the new innovator and startup-focused SKS Invent, our first in-person event exclusively for leaders & changemakers called The Spoon Food Tech Leader’s Forum, and finally, the CES’s Food Tech Conference & Exhibition powered by the Spoon in January 2023.

With this new series, we are focused on discovering and celebrating innovation across the series, which is interconnected from beginning to end.

Read below to find out about each and how the series interconnects.

Smart Kitchen Summit Invent

Over the past decade, there has been great innovation in food and cooking. We saw the arrival of precision heating and modernist cuisine cooking techniques. Smart connectivity and audio assistants enabled us to interact with our appliances in new ways. Robotics and AI were layered onto cooking. New combination cooking appliances that use steam or precision RF heating made their way into the kitchen.

But there is so much more that can be done and we want to help accelerate progress towards this future. In particular, we think there are five areas of innovation in which we’d love to see more innovation: Core Culinary, Sustainability, Delivery & Commerce, and Places & Spaces.

We’ll be writing more about SKS Invent and our call to action for the future of food and cooking innovators in the coming days, but you can learn more about each and apply to showcase your innovation at SKS Invent here. You can also inquire about sponsorship and purchase early bird tickets.

The Spoon’s Food Tech Leader’s Forum

One of the things that excite me most about events is the energy and creativity that comes from bringing together leaders from diverse but related industry backgrounds together. New ideas and collaborations always follow these exciting events that spark conversation, learning, and laughter when new perspectives and approaches collide.

The Food Tech Leader’s Forum will feature an exclusive event bringing together visionaries, inventors, entrepreneurs, and executives to map the future of food tech. It will include discussions about some of the industry’s most pressing topics, strategy whiteboard workshops, curated networking opportunities, and product demos and tastings designed to show you what the future of food will look like.

The event will also feature the finalists from the SKS Invent to showcase their vision and demo their products live and in-person.

If you would like to learn more about how to apply for a ticket, become an FTLF patron or more, you can do so here.

Food Tech at CES 2023

Food tech is heading back to the big stage at CES 2023!

Last January The Spoon powered the first-ever dedicated food tech conference and exhibition at the world’s biggest tech conference, and in 2023 we’ll be teaming up with the Consumer Technology Association to bring food tech back in a big way.

We’ll be programming an all-new conference full of exciting topics and working hand in hand with the CTA to find the most interesting companies to showcase what they’re building on the show floor. We are also planning a special Spoon evening event to highlight the winners of the SKS Invent innovation awards.

If you would like to sponsor The Food Tech conference at CES or exhibit in the designated Food Tech Exhibition at CES, you can head to this page and fill out the contact form and we will be in touch!

As you can see, all of these events are interconnect and there is a throughline that brings together new innovators, groundbreaking concepts and more as we journey from online to Seattle to Vegas in January 2023.

I look forward to seeing you on this year’s food tech journey!

Are We Ready for Humanoid Robots Like Ameca to Take Our Food Order?

If you watched the news coming out of CES, you probably saw a robot named Ameca talking to attendees on the trade show floor.

The robot, whose human(ish) eyes and facial expressions had Elon Musk freaked out when it showed up on Twitter last December, went viral during CES in January as press and attendees tweeted out videos of the humanoid interacting with attendees.

Ever since CES, I haven’t been able to shake the image of Ameca and wonder when we might see a robot like her at my corner restaurant. And, once humanoid robots start to show up in our restaurants, I can’t help but wonder how exactly consumers will feel about it? After all, it’s one thing to show off futuristic technology at a geek-filled conference like CES. It’s another to see it in your local restaurant.

Why wonder, you ask? After all, aren’t today’s front-of-house robots more R2D2 than C3PO, and didn’t a spokesperson for the company behind Ameca say it’s probably a decade before a robot like her is walking on the streets amongst us.

Because it’s only a matter of time. My guess is we’ll start to see humanoids like Ameca in customer service roles within five years, first in scenarios where interactions are limited to a focused topic (like ordering food) and the robot is either immobile (standing behind a register) or where mobility is limited to a small spacial terrain.

So if I am right and that’s the case, it’s worth asking: will consumers embrace or run away from humanoid robots working at their local restaurant?

Industry research would suggest it depends. In a research paper published in 2018 entitled “Human Or Robot? the Uncanny Valley in Consumer Robots”, researchers describe a test in which they showed participants images of three different customer service workers – a highly but imperfectly human-like robot, a human, and a human posing as a perfectly human-like robot – and told them a chain of stores is considering employing them.

The results showed people felt most comfortable with humans and least comfortable with almost-human robots. Interestingly, while respondents weren’t as comfortable with the perfectly human-like robot as they were humans, they did feel slightly more comfortable with perfectly human-like robots than ones that were slightly off. This suggested to the researchers that once consumers can no longer discern small differences that make a humanoid seem slightly uncanny, they become more comfortable.

The receptivity of humanoids might also depend on where people live. The same researchers conducted a test in the US and Japan where they showed survey respondents pictures of robots with moderate or high human likeness and also photos of humans. Japanese respondents tended to see the robots as significantly less uncanny than Americans and were more likely to see the robots as having more “human nature.”

Researchers theorized these differences in reactions between Japanese and US respondents might be cultural. They suggest that in countries like Japan where religions like Confucianism and Shinto teach that spirits live in both animate and inanimate objects, consumers may be more likely to grant human nature onto robots. They contrast this with the US, where Christianity, a religion that believes only humans have souls, is dominant.

While consumer perceptions tied to religious or local value systems are important, it’s also worth recognizing that collective perceptions in society do change over time. As robotics become more commonplace, everyday consumers may just become less freaked out about them. Today’s novelty could become tomorrow’s everyday reality, if you will.

And while only time will tell, my guess is operators might opt to be more conservative, at least in the near term, when deploying humanoid robots. After all, if almost-human robots freak out consumers, restaurant owners might be safer installing something closer to Chuck E. Cheese than some real-world version of the kid from Polar Express.

The Kitchen 2030: How Food & Cooking Will Change in the Future (Video)

If you’ve been following The Spoon since the early days of 2015, you might remember that our flagship event that started it all was the Smart Kitchen Summit. Dedicated to the quiet revolution that was happening in the consumer kitchen, SKS became the event to examine the tech disruption upending business models and changing the way we source, cook and eat our food forever.

So it was fitting that our opening panel at the first CES Food Tech Conference was “The Kitchen 2030: How Food & Cooking Will Change in the Future,” featuring some of the leading companies in the kitchen and appliance industries. The panel discussion was hosted by Michael Wolf, CEO and founder of The Spoon and included Khalid Aboujassoum, Founder & CEO of Else Labs, Dochul Choi, Senior Vice President at Samsung, Robin Liss, CEO at Suvie and Kai Schaeffner, executive at Vorwerk (Thermomix).

The panel talked about where and how cooking, storing and even shopping for foods has shifted in the last several years; with more transparency and information about the foods we eat, the digitization of the recipe, guided cooking features and a whole new wave of kitchen appliances that may change the entire layout and function of the consumer kitchen.

“The Kitchen 2030” panel can be viewed in its entirety below — leave a comment with your predictions for the next decade of innovation in the connected kitchen.

CES: Tackling Food Waste With Technology (Video)

The topic of food waste and innovation is so important — in the US alone, $408 billion worth of food is wasted each year. But the topic is too often overlooked when it comes to food tech conversations.

That’s why we invited experts to join us at the CES Food Tech Conference last month to talk about waste at different points in the food supply chain as well as the systemic issues plaguing the global food system.

We welcomed Vonnie Estes, Vice President of Innovation with the International Fresh Produce Association to moderate this panel with participants including Spencer Martin, CEO of Clew, Adian Mouat, Co-Founder & CEO of Hazel Technologies and Tim West, President of True West Ventures LLC.

The full panel — “Tackling Food Waste With Technology” is ready for viewing below.

Former US Defense Official: Cell-Cultured Meat & Other Future Food Technology is Critical For US National Security

Last week, the future food industry was abuzz with the news that China had put cell-cultured meat and other future food technologies in its five-year plan.

According to Matt Spence, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy under the Obama administration, this type of move shouldn’t be all that surprising given how critical many leaders in emerging economies view food innovation to their national security.

“What what used to keep me up at night when I was at the Defense Department running Middle East policy was what type of attack is ISIS is going to launch?” said Spence last month, speaking on a panel (moderated by yours truly) at the Consumer Electronics Show. “How to plan for war with Iran? How are we thinking about going after Osama bin Laden?”

According to Spence, who is now managing director for investment and advisory firm Guggenheim Partners, what worried leaders around the region was very different.

“When I talked to leaders in the region, what kept them up at night was ‘do I have enough food and water to feed my population?’. They are realizing they have a way of producing meat that people want more of as they get wealthier, and others are appetites and demand for luxury change. And the equation doesn’t add up unless we do something new.”

While Spence himself may have come away from these conversations with a greater conviction that food technology is an essential part of a national security framework, the US still has no comprehensive plan around building a food future nearly seven years after he left the State Department. That’s not to say some parts of the US government responsible for food regulation and policy haven’t been slowly progressing on regulatory frameworks for some future food. Still, like with many things driven by US agencies, it’s all relatively piecemeal, and there’s no real cohesive strategy to it.

Maybe that will change. There are signs, after all, that the US government sees this as important, such as the recent grant given to Tufts to create an alt-protein center of excellence. But again, these are small gestures compared to the all-in approach we’ve seen from China, Israel, Taiwan, and other countries.

But who knows? As the Biden administration takes another swing at a slimmed-down Build Back Better bill in 2022 and works on other spending priorities in the second half of his term, let’s hope he and others in his administration begin to work on developing a more comprehensive, forward-looking plan to build a more sustainable food future. I’ve even written down a few ideas he could use to get started.

According to Spence, the timing is good for cell-cultivated meat and other future food technologies to begin making a difference.

“There’s a technology and a change we can make every day by what we eat, and I’m hard-pressed to find other areas of national security that there is that type of ready solution available.”

Just click play below if you want to watch the Future of Meat panel from CES 2022 to hear Matt Spence and others.