Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

crowdfunding

Smart Gardens Follow a Familiar Business Path

Entrepreneurs behind the recent raft of smart indoor gardens are following the digital commerce wisdom of those who understand the value of subscription-based businesses. The old, “buy the camera for cheap and we will sell you lots of film” concept has been successful for companies such as Keurig and Nespresso in maintaining multiple revenue streams.

Ava Byte, an Indiegogo project billed as “the world’s best automated smart garden,” may be the most trouble-free indoor growing appliance on the market. The Vancouver, B.C. startup has taken many of the features of its competitors such as Aerogarden and taken them to a new level. For example, the growing pods are soil free and include the necessary nutrients for optimal growth. The kit, with the standard smart garden goodies such as a base and grow light, also has an HD camera to monitor growing and sensors for precise watering. After getting Ava Bytes gardens into the hands of consumers, the company will be able to realize money from purchases of additional pods for about $6 per unit.

AVA Byte: World's Best Automated Indoor Smart Garden. Get #AVAByte Now at AVAgrows.com

Ava Byte also jumps on the voice-based smart home assistant bandwagon by being compatible with amazon’s Echo and Apple’s HomeKit. The company is led by Valerie Song and Chase Ando, a former chef, born out of Startup Weekend Vancouver 2015. Song was frustrated by her inability to keep plants alive in her sunlight-challenged apartment. She teamed up with engineers, designers and horticulturists to develop the smart garden that brings a bit of nature indoors.

Another difference between Ava Byte and others in the market is that it claims to be able to grow more than the usual herbs, lettuces, and small tomatoes. According to the company’s crowdfunding page, it can grow peppers, berries and mushrooms in addition to the standard fare.

The company has surpassed its $30,000 goal by 125% and expects to ship in March 2018.

The smart growing pods are an interesting component of the smart garden space. Even though Aerogarden pods are affordable, there are a number of hacks that show how to inexpensively make replacements pods. Using proprietary growing pods does offer the ability for smart garden companies to license their technology to third parties, but could be a turn off to the DIY crowd.

Going from super high-tech to cool low-tech, another crowdsourced entrant in the indoor garden space is from Urban Leaf and is billed as the world’s smallest garden. The product is a growing pod insert that slips into the neck of a bottle (green or brown preferred). First, the bottle is filled up to the neck with water and the insert is popped in. The pod is filled with additional water and then placed in a sunny spot. An interesting component of this option is that it reuses bottles you already have (wine, soda, etc.) and does not require investment in additional containers.

The company founders are Nathan Littlewood and Robert Elliott. Nate worked in the finance industry before leaving to become a chef and took cooking classes around the world. Rob is a PhD whose focus is on Vegetated Infrastructure. After meeting Nate in 2016, the pair began working on urban food growing systems.

Kickstarter - The World's Smallest Garden

Urban Leaf has an all or nothing goal of $40,000. As of June 14, with less than a week to go, the offering is a little under $7,000 short of reaching its goal.

Make sure to check out the Smart Kitchen Summit, the only event about the future of food, cooking, and the kitchen. Use the discount code SPOON to get 25% off of tickets. Also, make sure to subscribe to get The Spoon in your inbox. 

Hungry for Funding? New Avenues for Food Startup Financing are Opening Up

Ask many people how to find funding for emerging food projects, and lots of them will point to crowdsourcing sites. After all, sites such as Kickstarter have driven concepts ranging from PicoBrew to the Anova Precision Cooker to levels of funding that would put a smile on any startup founder’s face. Indeed, when it comes to gadgets and devices in the food arena, the widely known crowdsourcing sites can pay off, but other kinds of concepts are finding funding through alternative routes and alternative crowdsourcers.

Where can you turn if Kickstarter or GoFundMe don’t seem right for your project? If you have a food or beverage startup concept, consider PieShell. It’s based in New York, and was founded by entrepreneur Cheryl Clements. Check out some of the concepts that PieShell is funding here.

Part of PieShell’s concept is that crowdfunding has benefits that go beyond just money. “Crowdfunding ultimately brings you closer to your customers — something that’s crucial for startup success,” notes PieSheller Caroline Halter. “Branching out beyond friends and family helps you learn what your customers like about your product, as well as what they don’t like. For instance, one of our first PieShellers, Edamam, crowdfunded to build a nutrition app. The crowdfunding experience helped them realize that their real potential was in B2B (business-to-business), rather than consumer markets.”

According to Halter, another benefit to crowdfunding is that it can give you an instant hook for a pitch to the press. “Once you get a little bit of press, it’s much easier to get more,” she said.

 Credibles is another avenue to look into for funding. It was started in San Francisco in 2014 by founder Arno Hesse. The twist that Credibles provides is a way for customers to financially support their favorite food businesses. The basic concept is that customers are investors. Customers can prepay a business by starting a tab with the business, and then they draw on the tab whenever they visit.

Credibles offers food and beverage businesses financial flexibility up front. Case in point: Driver’s Market is a small grocery store that focuses on transparent, non-GMO sourcing direct from as many local producers as possible. Through Credibles, Driver’s Market has already raised over $100,000 from its customers, with the first $10,000 arriving in 10 days. You can find out how to get your business or concept funded with Credibles here.

The angel investors who provide funding for technology-focused startups have their counterparts in the food and beverage arena. Food Angels is an organization that strictly invests in early stage food and food-tech startups. The group consists of accredited angel investors who screen companies each month and select a few to consider for funding. Food Angels invests in the form of equity, royalties and more.

There are also community organizations for food startups seeking funding. The Angel Food Network is an organization of emerging food and beverage companies seeking funding. Membership is by invitation and you can apply here.  Some types of food and food tech concepts may also qualify for the IKEA Bootcamp accelerator program, which will reward startups trying to solve the world’s problems. Food tech concepts have the potential to qualify, and you can find out more here.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the world of food funding has its own dedicated conferences. Future Food-Tech is one that is typically held in North America and Europe, and the Food Investing Conference is another one to look into.

Getting a project funded can call for some creativity, but there are more options available to startups than ever before. Entrepreneurs who think outside the box will have the strongest chances to find funding.

Make sure to check out the Smart Kitchen Summit, the only event about the future of food, cooking and the kitchen. Also, make sure to subscribe to get The Spoon in your inbox. 

Kickstarter Entrepreneurs Ride the Popularity Wave of Probiotic Foods

Probiotics are a budding segment of the food part of the crowdsourcing world. While most new efforts are focused on pickles, fermented sodas and kombucha, a team of Slovenian Kickstarter veterans are showcasing the wonders of probiotic cheese.

Kefirko Cheese Maker comes on the heels of the successful 2015 launch of Kefirko, a device that makes homemade kefir. Kefir is a fermented milk drink made with special grains that act as a fermenter/starter. The process can be laborious done in a traditional manner. The kefir is extracted from the grains by hanging a cheesecloth-like bag over a shallow bowl, allowing the liquid to separate from the starter. In recent years, this fermented beverage, which originated in the Caucasus Mountains, has grown in popularity with a renewed focus on healthy eating and the role of probiotics.

The team of Marko Borko and Andrej Glažar, with backgrounds in engineering and design, have extended the value of their kefir maker with their new probiotic cheese maker. The new appliance makes probiotic cheese from the kefir created by the Kefiroko or any other store-bought or homemade kefir. Beyond probiotic cheese, consumers can use the cheese maker to create mozzarella, mascarpone other non-probiotic varieties using milk that has been which has to be curdled with rennet or lemon juice.

There is no waste in the process which starts with pouring the kefir into the cheese maker and allowing it to strain into the attached glass bowl. The company says the whey liquid that results from the kefir-to-cheese process I is very rich with proteins, primarily of α-lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin, bovine serum albumin and immunoglobine. It also contains vitamins and minerals and a very low level of fat. When whey is derived from kefir, it does not contain lactose, because it is already gone (99 %) during fermentation of kefir.

The length of the fermentation process determines the type of resulting cheese. The company says that fermenting overnight will result in a creamy style cheese while allowing the fermentation to go for one to two days will yield a semi hard cheese. When the cheese reaches the desired taste and consistency, users can flavor it with herbs, spices, oils or roasted vegetables.

The Kefirko Cheese Maker comes with a recipe book which also offers alternative uses for the device which includes tips on how to use the appliance to make tea, iced coffee and even almond milk. The company says it does not know whether the cheese maker will work to create nut-based cheeses, made with pureed soaked and peeled nuts instead of kefir.

As of June 9th, the Slovenian company has exceeded its “all or nothing” goal of $15,000. Some 1,740 backers have contributed more than $91,000. The company’s stretch goals include a larger jar and a spring-loaded lid to enhance the fermentation. At the same time, Borko, Glažar, and their team are introducing a new and improved version of their original kefir maker. According to their Kickstarter site, the new model has an easier-to-grip lid and improved airflow. They also added a Scrapper – a tool for mixing kefir grains during straining to make sure they easily separate from kefir drink. Also, by covering the hole on the Kefirko lid with the Scrapper the straining of kefir also becomes more practical and fast. Depending on pledge amounts backers can get the cheese maker, the newer kefir maker or both products. Delivery of the cheese maker and Kefirko 2 is Dec. 2017.

Make sure to check out the Smart Kitchen Summit, the only event about the future of food, cooking and the kitchen. Also, make sure to subscribe to get The Spoon in your inbox. 

PicoBrew Surpasses Anova To Become Top Food Kickstarter Campaign Of All Time

With just one day to go, PicoBrew’s latest Kickstarter campaign surpassed Anova to become the top campaign of all time in the food category. The company’s Pico C campaign reached $1.812 million to eclipse Anova’s $1.811 million campaign for the Anova’s 2014 Precision Cooker campaign.  The company announced the milestone in a livestream update on the campaign page.

While the Pico C reached its initial funding goal of $350 thousand within hours of launch, breaking the record was no sure thing. After an initial surge of backers who gobbled up the best backer rewards that offered a $279 price on the company’s latest model beer brewing appliance, momentum slowed. Earlier this week, the campaign still stood more than a $100 thousand away from the record.

But thanks to a last minute surge of backers in the waning hours of the campaign, the Pico C is now tops in the the food category on Kickstarter.

“We picked the Pico Model C as a Project We Love early on and are thrilled that, with the help of over 4,100 backers, it broke the record for Most Funded campaign in our vibrant Food category,” said  Clarissa Redwine, Kickstarter’s Design and Technology Outreach Lead for the West Coast in an announcement.

PicoBrew seemed to have its sights on the becoming the top food Kickstarter from the beginning. The company announced new backer rewards throughout the campaign, including some fairly surprising new hardware add-ons. First came the PicoStill, a device that can be used to make essential oils and even whiskey, and last week the company announced the PicoFerm, a fermentation monitor. The company also announced the Pico would be able to brew kombucha and offered free PicoPaks as additional incentives throughout the campaign.

Anova was unseated after holding the #1 spot in the food category for almost three years. Of course, both campaigns are a long way from the top when looking at top Kickstarter campaigns of all time, with Pebble (now owned by Fitbit) claiming two of the top three spots and the troubled Coolest Cooler claiming the #2 spot.

Podcast: Tipping Cows With Crowd Cow’s Ethan Lowry

Here’s one thing you probably haven’t tried: crowdfunding a cow.

But now you can with Seattle area startup Crowd Cow. The brainchild of former Urban Spoon cofounder Ethan Lowry, Crowd Cow lets backers buy their choice of meat by crowdfunding local farm raised cattle one cow at a time.

In this episode, I talk to Ethan about how he got the idea for Crowd Cow, how he sees the retail market for meat changing and how Crowd Cow could evolve to become a platform for products other than beef.

Have a listen:

Want to meet the leaders defining the future of food, cooking and the kitchen? Get your tickets for the Smart Kitchen Summit today.

Q&A With Crowd Cow’s Ethan Lowry

Used to be if you wanted to buy meat directly from a farmer without a middleman, you’d have to go find a farmer to sell you a side of beef.  The only problem is, not many of us have a giant freezer to hold hundred of pounds of meat let alone time to drive out and find a farmer.

Enter Crowd Cow. The company makes directly sourcing meat from a farmer much easier through crowdfunding a cow (or technically a heifer or steer) with others online.

The company was founded after former UrbanSpoon founder Ethan Lowry heard a friend rave about the beef he had bought directly from a farmer. Before long, he half-joked with his eventual co-founder Joe Heitzenberg that they should crowdfund a cow.

They eventually did just that and, when to their surprise it worked, Crowd Cow was born.

We decided to catch up with Ethan to ask him a few questions about his company that is trying to bring meat directly to the consumer through crowdsourcing.

Wolf: Grass fed beef delivery services tend to serve local geographies. How do you plan to scale Crow Cow as you go nationwide?

Lowry: Giving consumers across the country access to high-quality, sustainably and ethically-raised beef is exactly what Crowd Cow aims to do. With the rancher relationships we have today, we can reach customers in 14 states. But we’re excited to be national by the end of this summer. To make that happen we need to bring in new ranchers, which is a time-intensive process since we need to do very thorough vetting. We also need to build fulfillment centers across the US so we can efficiently reach customers in different markets.

Wolf: Why use a crowdfund mechanism for each cow? Does it lead to more engagement? 

Lowry: One thing that makes Crowd Cow unique is that we sell the entire animal from a ranch. By crowdfunding each cow, we’re giving consumers exactly what they want, and doing it in a way that doesn’t waste any part of the beef. It’s a nose-to-tail selling experience that you won’t find elsewhere. Some people just love strip steaks and tenderloins, other people just want roasts, and others are really excited to get harder-to-find cuts like oxtail, heart, kidney and tongue.

It gives our customers a sense of community too. It’s not just a one-off purchase they’re making. They, along with their friends and family, can get together and support a particular farmer with a particular story. Also, it’s a bit of a game to watch a cow move towards tipping, the term we use when an entire animal has been purchased. It encourages people to rally their friends and family, buy up shares, and make sure the cow tips.

It’s also important to point out that the small, independent farms we work with can only sell an entire animal. Industrial farms producing thousands and thousands of animals can have them slaughtered and then distribute all the tenderloins to one place and then all the hanger steaks to another. Our farmers don’t work with massive wholesale buyers who do this type of piece-by-piece distribution. They rely on buyers like us, or local butchers and restaurants that can really use all the parts of the animal. We respect this process. We know our ranchers are great at raising delicious beef and we enjoy the challenge of buying the whole animals and finding innovative ways to sell them to consumers.

Wolf: As you go national, do you see regional or even local crowdfund campaigns? (and does that mean the consumer in a specific geography only sees cows that are being crowdfunded in their local geography?)

Lowry: We can’t wait to have partners across the country so we can offer customers locally-raised beef. We’d love to offer California customers California beef and Chicago customers Midwestern beef.

But beyond that, we want customers to experience beef in the same way that you would a fine wine. Beef raised on one ranch actually tastes different from beef raised on another ranch. The flavor comes from what it grazed on during its life, the particular breed it came from (like Angus or Hereford or Wagyu), and importantly the care and treatment it received. It’s exciting to sample beef from different ranchers and find the one you absolutely love.

Crowd Cow is about great-quality beef from the best farmers, but it’s also about experiencing different types of beef and finding your favorites. Featuring regional farms will help us achieve this.

Wolf: Grass fed beef is around 2% nationally, but growing fast. Is your growth a result of this trend as well as the movement towards newer ways to buy food more locally (the Portlandia consumer as you define it)

Lowry: There’s certainly growing interest in understanding how our food is produced. Part of that is consumers being better educated about the downsides to both the animals and ranchers that comes with industrial farming practices. Another part of that is understanding how the food we eat truly impacts our health. When you realize that much of the meat you find at your local supermarket has been pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics, most people would think twice about eating it.

We’re definitely benefiting from this overall food supply chain awareness. Because we partner with farmers that follow ethical and sustainable practices, customers can have confidence in what they’re eating, and it’s a primary reason our customers are telling us that they shop from us. Now, the reason they keep coming back is because this beef happens to be delicious.

I should also note that not all of our beef is exclusively grass fed. We’re certainly open to working with farmers that grain-finish their beef — which means they feed their cattle grain to fatten them up before slaughter. Provided they aren’t using hormones or antibiotics, crowding their animals into pens, or otherwise acting in ways they would ashamed to admit to customers. In fact, we work with some amazing wagyu beef farmers that grain-finish their cattle because it results in a beautifully marbled beef.

What we focus on is transparency. We think people want and deserve to know where their food is coming from, and that supermarket labels are misleading and insufficient. When we ask our customers what really gets them excited about beef from Crowd Cow, it has much more to do with this aspect of our business. Customers care where their food comes from, and we can give them that insight.

Wolf: As consumers move towards local food purchasing enabled through technology-driven marketplaces, how does this look in the future?

Lowry: As consumers, we’ve gotten used to having more and more information about the products we buy, so we can make more knowledgeable decisions and tradeoffs. Digital marketplaces are a fantastic way to get that information. A two-inch label on a grocery store shelf just can’t offer that kind of help.

Wolf: Part of the charm of buying local is getting out and talking to local producers at farmer’s markets, local butchers, etc. Have you thought about ways to keep that alive since you are moving this process online?

Lowry: Absolutely! When you come to our site one of the very first things you’ll see is a complete feature on the farmer whose beef we’re selling that day. You get a video tour of the ranch so you can see their pasture and their grazing herd. We present detailed background about the farmer, their practices and the beef itself.

The digital space is an amazing place to engage with people just like you who may live thousands of miles away. You don’t usually see customers talking to each other at a farmer’s market about favorite recipes, grilling techniques, or even the tastiness of different cattle breeds. But with an online community, we can create this one-to-one experience.

Wolf: One of your local Seattle startup peers, ChefSteps, is looking to build a direct-to-consumer steak marketplace.  Is the market still nascent and big enough to lift all boats, or do you see competition rising?

Lowry: Getting the best quality, sustainably and ethically raised beef delivered to a consumer’s door is quite a bit easier said than done. We let you order just the cuts and quantity you are looking for, from the farm you choose, delivered to you. We have to be unbelievably diligent about who we work with and how we assess their practices, we have to efficiently package and deliver each custom order, and fuel a growing community. That’s no easy task.

Right now we’re not seeing anyone offering what we are, and we know (from hard experience) that it will be difficult for anyone else to do this.

That said, I think other companies talking about the importance of high-quality meat is great for us, and consumers, by simply raising awareness. Our biggest challenge is to get the word out so people realize they have a choice.

Wolf: We focus a lot on the future of the kitchen. Have you thought about ways to leverage growing interest in cooking tech and new technology in the kitchen for your business of crowdfunding cows?

Lowry: Each and every Crowd Cow beef cut is vacuum-sealed in a food safe pouch and then flash frozen. At a very basic level, this makes it easy to keep fresh in your freezer until you’re ready to cook it up. But, this is also really great for sous vide cooking. Customers are always sending us pictures of their sous-vide-prepared meat and it looks amazing.

As the cost of sous vide devices comes down and the features and quality get better and better, I’m sure more customers will want to try it out. At this point an Anova is less than $150, and it’s an amazing little machine. We’re definitely excited to help people learn more about sous vide and how it can help them prepare restaurant-quality beef at home.

I also think new food tech innovations like June, the “smart” oven, align beautifully with what we’re about. This is a device that’s designed to give you high-quality food, coupled with convenience and simplicity. That’s almost exactly what we’re trying to do with Crowd Cow — bring you the best quality beef, with the convenience of ordering online and home delivery.

Wolf: Can you see extending Crowd Cow into other forms of locally produced food?

Lowry: Definitely. There’s a ton of demand for ethically and sustainably raised meat. Almost since day one we’ve had customers asking us for pork, chicken, lamb, fish and other more exotic meats.

Right now however, we’re hyper-focused on finding fantastic beef farmers across the US. Once we’ve nailed that, we’ll work with farmers to offer other great products.

Inirv Retrofit Kitchen Kickstarter Surpasses Goal

The 2016 Smart Kitchen Summit’s startup showcase was home to many exciting new companies showing off connected and high-tech devices for kitchens of the future.

One of those companies, Inirv, had a safety system designed for stoves that highlighted the importance of retrofit solutions in the smart home. While many are building connectivity and smarts into their ovens, stoves and fridges, the team at Inirv is tackling a common problem with an add-on system. With a wireless sensor that can detect the presence of gas, the absence of motion for prolonged periods of times and smoke coupled with retrofit stove knobs that can control your stove’s burners, Inirv is designed to prevent overcooking and fires from unattended food.

Credit: Inirv

The Inirv knobs give you remote control of your burners via the smartphone app so you’ll never burn your food – but the sensor will actually remind you if it senses a lack of motion around the stove for too long and left your food unattended. The product is designed to be less of a reactive solution (aka smoke alarm goes off because something is burning) and more proactive to prevent your food from turning into a house fire.

Inirv’s Kickstarter ends on Wednesday and backers can be pretty confident they’ll get a product as the campaign is fully-funded and already passed a few of its stretch goals, including adding Amazon Echo functionality. Alexa, turn off the stove! At $229 for four knobs and a sensor, it’s not the cheapest smoke alarm solution on the market, but it is much smarter than most.

The Inirv team plans to ship the product in December, hopefully in time for the holidays.

IoT Innovator Smallhold Sees Minifarms as Big Business

Believe it or not, those mushrooms you had in your go-to restaurant’s nightly pasta special were grown in the back, between the walk-in fridge and the spice cabinet.

Home grow systems are the buzz, keeping in mind that not everyone is blessed with a green thumb or the time and energy to maintain an indoor herb garden or heirloom tomato plants. Sensing an opportunity that could be solved using IoT technology and a dose of innovation, Brooklyn-based Smallhold has brought remote-maintained minifarms to the food industry.

Smallhold was among the 17 featured finalists at the recent Food + City competition in Austin. Recently, Smallhold was also one of four companies selected for a new program, Techstars Anywhere, a virtual accelerator program that is an offshoot of its prestigious brick and mortar origins.

“We believe minifarm technology and distributed agriculture is the future of farming,” says Smallhold co-founder and COO Adam DeMartino. “We see fresh and nutritious produce as the new norm no matter where you are – be it in midtown Manhattan or in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Smallhold Networked Minifarms employ the concept of vertical farming. The units fit in small spaces and are outfitted with Wi-Fi, which are monitored at company headquarters. The service starts with the company shipping its clients produce that is 75% grown, to be housed in a self-contained chamber, equipped with advanced lighting and water recirculation. With this approach, deployed at two restaurants and a Brooklyn produce hub, Smallhold is able to achieve 40 times the output per square foot of a traditional farm with 96% less water usage. The produce hub also supplies area restaurants and stores with gourmet mushrooms.

Adam and co-founder/CEO Andrew Carter met as roommates at the University of Vermont and became best friends. Andrew was heavily involved in the urban agriculture scene in New York, and started developing technology around mushroom production. Carter went on to work with startups in ag/tech space while DeMartino’s entrepreneurial spirit took him to startups Ghostery, Datorama and Futureclaw where he developed marketing and sales strategies.

While its IoT technology allows scale, Smallhold is patient in its approach with a vision of moving beyond servicing restaurants and grocery stores and making a mark in the consumer space. “We are very selective with our initial customers,” says DeMartino. “We want restaurateurs that will appreciate the produce and give us valuable feedback in how to improve our service, system, and produce.  This information is almost worth more than the revenue.”

Smallhold is not alone in the home grow/IoT farming market. Farmbot is offering an Arduino powered, open-source robo-farmer that can completely automate the growth of enough vegetables for one adult in a year; Sprouts I/O has an app-driven personal produce system in the works; Edyn can track growth conditions with its remote sensor and Gro.Io has an end-to-end smart hydroponic system including lighting, grow pockets and sensors.

Portable Cooling Technology Takes the Gold at Food + City Competition

In keeping with the theme of supply chain innovation, Evaptainers, a company that offers low-cost, mobile, electricity-free units, took home the top prize at the 2017 Food + City Challenge.  The third annual event highlighting startups and innovation in food technology was held at McCombs School of Business, on the campus of the University of Texas, Austin.

Evaptainers started as part of a class project at MIT where students were asked to create something that would change the lives of one billion people. The company, which has field-tested its cooling device in Morocco, is headed by co-founder CEO Scott Taylor, cofounder/COO Quang Truong, and co-founder/CTO Jeremy Fryer-Biggs. In addition to the $30,000 grand prize, Evanptainers has received grants from the United States Agency for International Development, National Geographic, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy center.

Rise, based in Brooklyn, won the Silver Award for $10,000. The company is a startup that upcycles spent barley from microbreweries into organic, high-protein flour for bakers. Nuwiel, a Hamburg-based company that has developed an intelligent e-powered bicycle to facilitate more efficient delivery, won the Bronze Award for $5,000.

The People’s Choice Award, chosen using internet voting by engaged citizens, was given to Origintrail. Based in Slovenia, the company provides detailed information about a food product’s roots which allows marketers the ability to create differentiation.

Food + City Challenge Becomes Springboard for Awareness and Future Success

While most startup showcases are hardcore “show and tell” with a single purpose, the Food + City Challenge prize is as much about raising awareness as it is about attracting financing.

“I have done startup meetings,” says Tom Schultz, President, and CEO of Fresh Surety, one of the 17 companies that made the finals in the 2017 competition. “If I find two or three people in the crowd of more than a thousand who say this is something I can use, it is a success. This is a disruptive technology that will have an impact effect over the next 20-to 30 years.”

Fresh Surety will be demonstrating its technology, which utilizes sensors that are able to determine the freshness of produce from farm to table. This is achieved by measuring the ambient temperature of a specific compound in the fruits or vegetables. With this new application, Fresh Surety can create an economic efficiency in the value chain. As Schultz explains, 30% of the $600 billion fresh produce market is lost to spoilage. For example, by tracking the freshness of a palette of strawberries, with all parties in the value chain—the farmer, wholesaler, and market—approximately 10% of the fresh fruit can be saved from spoilage en route to its final destination.

The ASIC device was invented by career technologist John W. Hodges. He grew up on a tomato farm and immediately saw the application of his work. But, as with many cutting-edge discoveries, the marriage of technology and business was needed to apply Fresh Surety to a broader market opportunity. That’s where Schultz –who has a long track record of bringing innovative tech products to market — comes in. “(Fresh Surety) was missing a businessman who turns great technology into a successful idea,” Schultz says.

Fresh Surety has worked with three development partners—Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, and Watsonville, Calif.,-based berry producer Driscoll’s—to prove the sensor-based solution’s viability, Schultz adds. At the Feb. 4th Food +City challenge event, the company will show in real time how it can track the changing freshness of produce. Win, lose or draw, based on past challenge prize winners, Fresh Surely likely will be in an even larger spotlight.

The 2016 challenge prize winner, True Made Foods, a New York-based manufacturer of high-quality vegetable-based condiments, received a $415,000 investment from Black Jays Investments two months after the competition. Colorado-based The Food Corridor, a 2016 Silver Prize winner, used the exposure to its concept to move forward in a big way.

“I got paired up with Trish Wesevich, who owns Capital Kitchens, a shared-use kitchen in Austin,” Food Corridor CEO Ashley Colpaart said in an interview in late 2016. “I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor match….One of the biggest things she helped me understand is that each region — and each public health department — has its own rules and regulations. Some cities are more willing to try a new idea than others. So for us to grow, we’d need to move into cities that want to support food entrepreneurs and are willing to work with you, instead of the more stringent ones that tend to have more barriers to entry.”

Other 2016 Silver Prize Winners were Garbage to Garden, Agruppa and Real Food Solutions.

Food + City’s Third Challenge Competition Aims to Empower Changes in Food Ecosystems

Food + City is an emerging voice to be reckoned with in the world of food tech. The organizations calls itself a “catalyst for supply chain innovation to improve how we feed cities.”  The process brings together visionary entrepreneurs to showcase their impactful ideas for creative solutions to the myriad issues facing the future of food.

As part of its work, Food + City holds an annual challenge prize that brings together the best of the best of emerging food tech from around the globe to compete for $50,000. The third annual event will be held 11 am to 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2017, at the McCombs School of Business at  The University of Texas at Austin. This year, the 17 finalists range from a logistics-based alternative to landfills to an innovation in portable refrigeration.

As Curt Nelson, an investor in food tech and new judge for Food + City’s third challenge prize puts it, “We seek the enablement of for-profit entrepreneurs to solve some of the world’s biggest problems in the food space. Our focus is on people, the planet, and profits.” The group’s mission takes on even greater meaning, considering many business-to-business food tech startups don’t have the sex appeal or lucrative investor exit strategy that most venture capitalists require for investment.

Nelson will be challenged as he examines this year’s finalists. They include:

Bucketload: High-tech harvesting using the cloud

Eat Pakd: Delivering healthy lunches directly to homes

Epicure: Health vending machines

Evaptainers: Portable, electricity-free refrigeration

Farm Fare: Mobile, logistics for expedient buying and selling of local food

Fresh Surety: Technology to improve tracking of produce shelf life

Hazel Technologies: Products that extend the shelf life of fruits, vegetables, flowers and plants

Joe’s Organics: Food recycling that turns food waste into compost to grow specialty produce

Local Libations: Barfly system for tracking location and volume of kegs

Nuweil: E-powered bikes for improving city travel logistics

Open Data Nation: Database of public health inspections of restaurants

Phenix: Waste reduction services

Origintrail: Facilitates product differentiation based on food origins

Rise: Turning spent barley into flour for bakers

Rust Belt Riders: Food waste logistics

Science for Society: Solar-powered food dehydration

Smallhold: Delivering partially grown mushrooms and leafy greens to farms for completion and harvesting.

Yarok: Microbiological testing to avoid bacteria-based recalls

What will Nelson look for as he works through the array of worth finalists for the challenge prize?

“It will be really important that the company has the possibility of fundamentally changing the way of delivering (products) through the value chain,” says Nelson. “It needs to be something that has the potential to crack open the nut or seed of an idea that can grow from there.”

The Spoon will be at Food + City this week so stay tuned for more updates.

How The Smart Kitchen May Help Induction Cooking Finally Heat Up In The US

In the world of food tech, induction burners and cooktops have an uncertain future, despite some of their obvious benefits. Known for their ability to save energy and offer precise cooking temperatures, the market is poorly differentiated and highly segmented.  This has confused consumers and led to slow growth and adoption in the home kitchen. For those looking to optimize their smart kitchen design, it’s difficult to determine whether an induction surface aims to be a platform for other devices or an intelligent loner. And for masses, the induction burner may be a costly, unnecessary luxury.

Induction cooking uses magnetic induction as opposed to the more common thermal induction used in gas and electric cooktops. Magnetic induction rapidly generates heat and is safer and more efficient than other heat sources. Restaurant and commercial kitchens have recognized the value of the burners, adding capacity when needed in peak order times.  Kitchen in revolving restaurants 50 stories up discovered the value of these burners, as have RV-ers and boaters.

It is important to note that not all cookware can be used with induction cooktops. The easiest way to determine if your pots and pans are suitable is to test them with a magnet. Many manufacturers of induction burners sell specially designed cookware to complement the overall purchase.

At issue is the confusing array of choices available, with variations coming among the options accompanying the burner itself. The entry level segment is those single burners that look to be fancy hotplates, often showcased on infomercials and home shopping shows. They frequently are on television cooking shows in food trucks or small kitchen operations. Because of general consumer unfamiliarity, a well-designed TV commercial can illustrate the benefits and versatility of the appliance.

The next segment is the market for standalone induction burners with some degree of IoT smarts. Offerings in this area are quickly “heating up” with products from established manufacturers (Salton and Hamilton Beach) to crowdsourced-based hopefuls and newcomers such as FirstBuid’s Paragon and the Oliso Smarthub. Cookware giant Meyer has bet on the pairing of induction heating with Bluetooth pan and app control and guidance to present a “guided cooking” system in the Hestan Cue, which the company plans to finally roll out to customers in the spring. Using Bluetooth or WiFi, a sensing probe and in some cases proprietary pots and pans, these induction burners can be controlled using apps on your smartphone tailored to individual recipes.

The move from standalone burner where the home chef provides the smarts to those controlled by sensors and apps adds cost. Entry level units, such as the NuWave (the one As Seen on TV), are priced as low as $70, but the addition of IoT features takes the price up to $500. For those on an unlimited budget, there is the Breville PolyScience model (with the apt name Control Freak) with a special probe and precise temperature control for $1,800.

Moving up in price, but down in intelligence, are the induction burner cooktops that are sold either separately or along with a stove. Whirlpool and General Electric, along with other major appliance manufacturers, are in on this part of the market with prices ranging from $600 up to $7,000 (for the Wolf induction cooktop and stove) and beyond. Many induction cooktops offer timers and precise heat controls but little more in additional functionality. The exception is the Samsung version which projects an artificial flame to show consumers the level of heat being generated. Samsung does have a few induction models that can be controlled with a smartphone app, but that functionality is limited to such features as a virtual on/off switch.

At CES 2014, Whirlpool showcased an interactive cooktop that functions as a platform similar to Samsung’s Family Hub which currently is baked into their newer refrigerator lines. The vision for the interactive cooktops is one in which the home chef can find recipes on a stove-top screen and use built-in heat-controlling sensors to facilitate culinary greatness.  The induction range in this scenario becomes an IoT platform to control and interact with other smart appliances. That was three years ago and now, with the fridge a more popular choice as an IoT hub, the cooktop may be reduced to a lesser role in the smart kitchen.

And finally, at this year’s CES Panasonic introduced a unique spin on induction with a countertop induction oven. Unlike other induction heating products, Panasonic’s Countertop Induction Oven (CIO) is a fully enclosed cooking unit that is the size of a microwave oven. According to Digital Trends Jenny McGrath, the CIO was able to cook a full meal of chicken cutlets in about 23 minutes.

There have been past concerns about adoption of induction cooking in the U.S., compared to its popularity in the European market with smaller kitchen spaces. That appears to be changing.  Poor uptake was based on the limited consumer choices and consumers figuring out how the burners fit into their personal culinary style. The smart induction cooktop will have a challenge finding its market niche, most likely needing to capture the imagination of architects and designers seeking low energy, smart kitchen functionality. The fastest growing segment, souped-up induction hotplates (with or without IoT functionality) appeals to the niche of those in search of nice-to-have gadgets like sous vide machines. For the massive Blue Apron recipe-in-a-box crowd, however, it’s a bright shiny object that looks cooler in a YouTube video than on a ceramic countertop. The most obvious appeal is to provide an extra burner when you have your friends and family over to cook together.