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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

cold chain

Ember Shuffles CEOs, Jim Rowan Takes Over Consumer Division, Clay Alexander Becomes Group CEO

Precision heating tech company Ember announced today that it has tapped Jim Rowan to be the new CEO of Ember’s consumer division. At the same time, the company announced that Ember Founder and CEO Clay Alexander will transition to being Group CEO of Ember in addition to holding the newly created role of CEO of Ember’s healthcare division.

Prior to joining Ember, Rowan was formerly CEO of consumer electronics company Dyson.

Ember makes high-end consumer goods — the Ember Mug and Travel Mug — equipped with precision-temperature controls that keep a coffee or tea beverage at a precise, heated temperature. The mugs are certainly not cheap (the 10 oz mug is $100), but their premium pricing and high-tech nature make them similar to Dyson products, so the addition of Rowan makes a lot of sense.

Perhaps more interesting is Alexander’s new role heading up Ember’s healthcare division. During our Food Tech Live event in January of this year, Alexander talked about a cold-chain shipping product Ember is working on. As we wrote at the time:

Alexander didn’t provide many details around the forthcoming product. He said only that the cloud-connected boxes could be used to ship items at a cold temperature in a way that could be monitored and audited. He said Ember is also working on technology that makes the containers reusable.

The first application for this chilly packaging is, obviously, COVID-19 vaccines, some of which must be constantly kept at ultracold temperatures. But as Alexander explained, this technology could be used to ship anything, including fresh food, meal kits, and more. As a bonus, if the containers are reusable, that could help alleviate big waste issues (packaging, dry ice, gelpacks, etc.) in the direct to consumer market.

With Rowan taking over the consumer division and Alexander’s new focus on this healthcare division, that could indicate that the company’s cold packaging product is ramping up to go commercial, which means that it could be applied to the food world in the not too distant future.

Ember to Bring its Temperature Tech to Reusable Cold Chain Packaging

Ember, which is best known for making precision-controlled heated mugs, will be expanding into reusable packaging that can be employed for a variety of purposes, including food in the cold chain. Ember Founder and CEO, Clay Alexander spoke about the packaging plans during a brief talk at The Spoon’s Food Tech Live virtual event today.

Alexander didn’t provide many details around the forthcoming product. He said only that the cloud-connected boxes could be used to ship items at a cold temperature in a way that could be monitored and audited. He said Ember is also working on technology that makes the containers reusable.

Obviously, in this pandemic world, an immediate use case for this technology is shipping COVID vaccines, which must be kept cold. (Alexander didn’t say if his boxes could reach the super cold depths the vaccines require.) But there are actually a lot of uses for this packaging in the food world.

The cold chain is a big deal in the fresh and frozen food world for suppliers, distributors, and retailers. Ensuring food is kept at the proper temperature helps prevent spoilage and waste. Companies like Varcode, which uses IoT, blockchain and temperature sensors, currently provide monitoring and auditing technology for the cold chain.

But if they work as promised, another important aspect of Ember’s containers is that they would be reusable. Current cold and frozen shipping methods use a lot of dry ice or frozen gel packs and generate a lot of waste. The ability to keep contents cold in a package that is sent back for more use could be a game changer in the direct-to-consumer retail business.

Cool Idea: Varcode Uses Blockchain and Barcodes to Monitor the Food Supply Cold Chain

We often talk about the supply chain when it comes to groceries, but equally as important is the subset known as the cold chain. The cold chain is pretty much what it sounds like: the system in place to ensure food is kept at its proper temperature so it doesn’t spoil as it travels from farm to processing facility to your grocery store.

The problem though, is that food doesn’t always stay cold in the cold chain, whether through refrigeration breaking down or handlers being inattentive. Distributors and buyers want to make sure the food they purchase has stayed at the proper temperature, but it’s hard for them to know it’s been kept cold prior to taking ownership.

That type of automatic auditing is where Varcode comes in. Varcode creates barcode stickers that have a built-in temperature sensors that continuously keep track of the ambient temperature those goods are stored in. The stickers automatically record if there are variations in temperatures outside a certain range (e.g., too warm). When the barcode is scanned that data is transmitted to the cloud where it is kept as a permanent blockchain-enabled record in a database.

Varcodes can be scanned with a regular handheld scanner or a mobile phone, and each link (distributor, transporation, etc.) in the cold chain scans the Varcode when they receive a box and when they hand it off. Each tag is uniquely serialized, with a unique record created for each tag in Varcode’s cloud using the IBM Food Trust Blockchain. This then provides an audit trail that shows what temperature food was kept at at each step along the way. If food gets too warm at any point, Varcode’s system will show exactly when it happened.

It’s costs $2 per tag for the Varcode system, which includes access to the software and cloud. There are a number of preset tags for food like seafood and berries, or customers can create their own customized tags around more specific temperature criteria.

Monitoring food as it travels through the supply chain is becoming more of a focus for startups looking to fight food waste. Other players include Telesense, which acquired Webstech earlier this year. Both of those companies make sensors that monitor the temperature and humidity of grains in storage.

Based in Chicago, Varcode is privately funded and is currently running a number of pilots with different food companies like premium chocolate and ice cream makers. As the company looks to expand, we’ll see if their solution is cool enough to catch on and help prevent food waste.