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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Delta Faucet

Food Tech News Roundup: Voice-Enabled Faucets, Food Incubators, and No More Meat

Happy weekend! We’re going to make this short and sweet, since there’s plenty of food tech news to read and (hopefully) a lot of sunshine to enjoy.

Without further ado, here are the stories in food and smart kitchen innovation that caught our eye this week.

New reach in food delivery
Food delivery creeps ever further and further into our lives. This week, delivery startup Postmates expanded to 100 new cities, adding 50 million potential new customers. They also deepened their partnership with DIY burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill, adding 300 new stores to their delivery route.

Postmates wasn’t the only food delivery startup with an announcement this week. Uber Eats teamed up with payment app Venmo to let people easily split the cost of rides and food orders. So if your friend eats half of your Pad Thai, you can make her pay you the $6 you deserve.

 

Target rolls out more Midwestern curbside pickup
Shoppers at over 200 Target stores throughout the Midwest can now take advantage of curbside pickup. This brings the total number of stores with the Drive Up feature to over 800, spread throughout 25 states — with more to be announced over the coming months. Which means Target is halfway to national curbside pickup retail domination and has no plans to slow down.

 

Photo: Budweiser.

Drizly brings the Happy Hour to your office
This week online liquor store Drizly partnered with Anheuser-Busch to debut something that every workplace needs: an Office Bud-e fridge. The fridges have smart sensors that sync up to WiFi to automatically re-order beer (Anheuser-Busch, of course) through Drizly when stock is running low. According to a press release shared with the Spoon, the fridge can hold up to 180 cold ones at a time, and is set to rendering “classic ‘beer runs’ obsolete.”

 

Delta touch faucet with Alexa

A sneak peek at the new Delta faucet
Our friend Stacey Higginbotham of Stacey on IoT gave a video review of the new voice-enabled Delta faucet this week. In the video, she asks Alexa to “please turn on her Delta faucet” to let the water go. But things get a lot more specific; she asks Alexa to dispense “one cup” of water, and also to fill a vase that she places in the sink. Both times, success! These may seem like small victories, but it’s an indication of voice assistants connecting even further into smart home gadgets.

We the first to scoop the faucet, which lets you turn on the water with your voice, last year. The product isn’t actually for sale yet, but when it is — we’re interested.

 

Photo: Pepsico.

PepsiCo unveils plans for new food incubator
PepsiCo has become the latest mega CPG company to launch its own food-centric incubator, following in the footsteps of General Mills, Campbell’s, and others. This week on an investor call they announced plans to launch a new food innovation center called “The Hive,” which is intended to refine and grow their niche brands, and seek out new startups for investment. This comes just a few months after PepsiCo partnered with The Hatchery Chicago, a non-profit food and beverage incubator, to help beef up their business.

 

Photo: WeWork.

Meat is off the WeWork menu
This week coworking space giant WeWork made some serious strides to cut their meat consumption. Its 6,000 employees were told that they could no longer get reimbursed for meals including meat, which includes poultry, red meat, and pork. WeWork co-founder also told staff that they were nixing meat options from the startup’s internal “Summer Camp” retreat. No mention was made of fish, so I guess pescetarianism is still kosher?

Kohler and Delta Debut Voice Controlled Faucets

Filling a measuring cup to the right level with water can sometimes require ninja-like dexterity. Water shoots out of the faucet too fast, you have to pour some out, then pour out a little more. Whoops, too much, have to add some back. Then you hold it up to eye level to make sure the the bottom of the meniscus is on the right line.

New faucets from Kohler and Delta announced at CES this week are poised to eliminate that hassle by giving you voice control over your water. You can tell both the Kohler Sensate and the Delta Touch20 faucets to turn water on and off as well as dispense a precise amount of water. Ask for 8 oz of water and the faucets will dispense 8 oz.!

Both the Kohler and Delta faucets work with Alexa, and Kohler also supports Google Home and Apple HomeKit. Mike Wolf here at The Spoon actually uncovered the Delta Alexa skill last month, and now we can see it in action.

No word on pricing or when they will be available. For those of us with plain ole dumb faucets, both Kohler and Delta are looking at ways to provide the voice activation retrofits without needing to buy a whole new product.

As we’ve noted before, voice command is actually a perfect interface for the kitchen faucet. Turning the kitchen sink on and off with your voice is super helpful when your hands are messy, or contaminated by something like raw meat. And, filling up a measuring cup won’t require ninja-like skills anymore.

Delta Faucet Will Soon Let You Pour Water With Your Voice (Exclusive)

Want to pour yourself a glass of water with your voice? It looks like you soon can with a Delta Faucet.

The Spoon recently discovered a new Alexa skill from Delta Faucet company that will allow you to do such things are pour a glass of water or fill your coffee machine simply by asking Alexa. The skill looks like it will work with forthcoming voice-enabled Delta Faucet product or products enabled by what the faucet maker is calling its “voice module” and the Delta voice web app.

The only problem is if you want to buy the Delta voice module or register for your Delta voice account with the web app, neither of those exist today. In fact, the only clue to Delta’s voice-enabled faucet – at least as of now – is the Alexa skill called Delta. My guess is the company is preparing to launch a new voice-enabled line of faucets in a few weeks at CES or the upcoming Kitchen and Bath Show.

There’s also a good chance these faucets will connect to Wi-Fi. As far as I can tell, Delta doesn’t seem to have any Wi-Fi enabled faucets on the market today (but they do have a Wi-Fi leak detector), so it’s quite possible the mysterious ‘voice module’ is also a ‘Wi-Fi module’.

So far the Delta Alexa skill has one review, which again is strange because Delta hasn’t yet released its voice module or voice web app. Chances are the review, which calls the Delta skill “Easy Peasy”, was written by a Delta employee familiar with the initiative.

I don’t know about you, but I think using my voice to pour water is one of the cooler and more practical uses for Alexa in the home. I could imagine scenarios where my hands are full or simply messy, and using my voice to turn the water on or off with my voice just makes sense. I guess I’ll just have to wait until Delta actually releases the product that works with the skill before I get my hands on one.