• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Skip to navigation
Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Connect
    • Custom Events
    • Slack
    • RSS
    • Send us a Tip
  • Advertise
  • Consulting
  • About
The Spoon
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Advertise
  • About

CPG

July 2, 2018

CrowdFooding Rebrands, Launches Food Tech Innovation Hub

When I was in London after SKS Europe a few weeks ago I got to take a sneak peek inside CrowdFooding’s new food innovation hub. Housed in trendy coworking space HuckleTree West in White City, the hub is meant to be an incubator for food tech and food CPG startups. It officially launched on June 28th, the same day it rebranded as Forward Fooding.

Essentially, Forward Fooding will act as a middle man between (relatively) new CPG companies and large corporations. “We want to be a bridge for smaller companies to sell to large food manufacturers,” explained Alessio D’Antino, co-founder and managing director of Forward Fooding.

So if Nestlé approaches Forward Fooding to find a new snack producer making use of trendy ingredients, Forward Fooding would put together a pitch series with relevant CPG companies in their innovation hub. If Nestlé selects any of the companies to work with, either through investment or acquisition, then Forward Fooding will charge the corporations what D’Antino calls a “success fee.” They don’t take any equity in the incubator companies.

D’Antino expects the hub startup members to consist of 80 percent CPG companies and 20 percent tech-related companies. Forward Fooding has received around 60 applications so far and will select 4-5 businesses to join the hub by September, rounding it out to 10-12 by the end of the year.

Companies that make the cut will get a reduced rate for membership to the Huckletree West space (and access to its amenities), attend events and bootcamps taught by Forward Fooding staff and its food partners, and get a foot in the door to pitch to large food companies.

A look inside the Huckletree West coworking space.
A look inside the Huckletree West coworking space.
forwardfooding_3

D’Antino was clear that they are only looking for food startups with the capacity for high-volume production, preferably ones with a brand and marketing strategy already in place.  “We want someone who already established, who just needs a way to connect to large corporates,” specified D’Antino. Their target CPG startup is one with some name recognition that’s looking to shift from B2C to B2B. As an example, he named chickpea-snack company Hippeas and gourmet popcorn producer Proper Corn.

On the corporate side, his “ideal partner” would be “a large, family-owned corporation that’s entrepreneur-led.” D’Antino listed companies Barilla, Nestlé, and Mondelez as potential partners that have expressed interest in their hub; Forward Fooding also recently put together a pitch evening at Google featuring emerging food CPG companies.

They also want to make technology integration a key aspect of their incubator. In addition to Tech Bootcamps focused on digital marketing and upping online sales, D’Antino also named improved ecommerce websites, referral programs, digital marketing, and even VR integration as potential tech aspects. (Yes, the coworking space has a specialized VR studio.)

Some corporations, such as General Mills or Kraft, are trying to find innovative food startups on their own through accelerator programs. However, creating accelerator programs requires a lot of work: there’s R&D investment, startup handholding, and the risk that, at the end of the day, companies’ products just won’t be a good fit.

Forward Fooding hopes to provide the same level of discovery for big corporate players — without the work. “It’s a win-win,” said D’Antino. “This model takes some risk out of big companies’ investments, and helps startups get into bigger distribution channels.” He predicts that the incubation hub will act as a compliment to those big CPG accelerator programs.

Founded in 2014, Forward Fooding has 5 full-time employees and has a satellite office in San Francisco. They have plans to expand into Spain and other European countries, hoping to take advantage of its myriad of tech-enabled CPG startups.

February 23, 2018

Big Food Invests In The Future: A Talk With Tyson Ventures’ Tom Mastrobuoni

If you’ve listened to an investor conference call for a big food company lately, there’s a good chance you know the following:

  • Consumers are asking for healthier options and want to understand better where their food comes from.
  • The world’s population continues to grow in the face of an increasingly stressed food ecosystem.
  • Food brands are increasingly establishing direct relationships with consumers and exploring new business models that represent big departures from traditional food retail.

In short, big food is being forced to think about the future.

Some of the ways they are doing this are through partnerships, incubation and accelerator initiatives and establishing direct investment arms. Tyson Foods is doing all of the above, and one of the people at the heart of the company’s investment efforts is Tom Mastrobuoni, the CFO for Tyson Ventures, our guest for this week’s episode of the Smart Kitchen Show podcast.

One of the things I talk to Tom about Tyson’s recent investment in Tovala. The deal was interesting to me because it was Tyson’s first investment in a connected kitchen and food delivery startup, joining the group’s other investments in clean meat startups Beyond Meat and Memphis Meats.

Tom and I also talk about how Tyson and other companies are thinking about technologies such as AI, Blockchain and much more.

Have a listen below, download here or subscribe on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen).

March 28, 2017

Amazon Go Delays Public Opening Due To Tech Challenges

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Amazon is delaying the public opening of its first fully automated grocery store known as Amazon Go. The store, which has only been open in beta to Amazon employees in the Seattle location, was supposed open at the end of this month. This is being pushed back, due to a few glitches involving tracking items and processing payments.

Amazon reported that it was experiencing technical problems with two key areas of its “Just Walk Out” technology – the company’s payment system was unable to handle or process payments when more than 20 people were in the store at a time. The system also struggled when an item was moved from its specific location on a shelf.

The traditional grocery store has been experiencing disruption for the last several years, with the rise of e-commerce giants like Amazon and Jet.com taking aim at consumer packaged goods (CPGs). Other rising stars like meal kit delivery subscriptions and grocery store delivery give consumers more options for fresh foods like produce and meat that don’t involve setting foot in a brick and mortar store.

But Amazon’s vision for the more convenient food store utilizes existing and emerging tech like connected sensors, machine learning, RFID tags and mobile payments to implement a cashier and checkout line-free experience for consumers. Not only does it create a streamlined door-to-door shopping event for the customer, but it cuts costs for the grocer – who in this case is Amazon – and could help impact the bottom line in a field where margins are shrinking.

And it’s clear why Amazon wants to build physical stores – as much as e-commerce is making grocers in North America rethink ways to attract customers with sales, fresh foods and produce and upgraded natural food and organic offerings, Nielsen’s 2017 research shows only 10% of consumers are currently shopping online for groceries. Amazon will need a multi-prong approach to remain competitive in grocery, especially when it comes to fresh foods and non-CPG items.

Amazon Go’s tech issues don’t seem major – but they are a good reminder that full-on grocery automation is hard. There are a lot of variables to consider, especially in a busy store, where customers are moving around, bumping into each other, moving merchandise without putting it back but not actually buying it. As a reminder to automation enthusiasts, earlier versions of what Amazon is trying to accomplish – self check-out kiosks – are still widely underused in grocery stores. And those of us who have used them know all too well that often, the light above the conveyer belt will inevitably blink when a customer has a problem, beckoning a store employee over.

So the future may be automated – but it’s not clear how seamless those shopping experiences will be, at least not yet. Amazon Go’s public opening and subsequent operations will certainly be telling.

Previous

Primary Sidebar

Footer

  • About
  • Sponsor the Spoon
  • The Spoon Events
  • Spoon Plus

© 2016–2025 The Spoon. All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
 

Loading Comments...