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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

DIY

SKS Hot Seat: CocoTerra’s CEO on Why You (Yes, You) Should Make Chocolate From Scratch At Home

When you think about things you can make at home — bread, pasta, juice — chocolate is probably not something that jumps to mind. It’s a complicated, time-intensive process that takes skill and special equipment to master.

But what if there was a machine that could do it all for you? CocoTerra is a new startup lowering the barrier to entry to home chocolate making with the world’s first countertop chocolate-making machine. The device lets even the most basic home cooks create their own bespoke chocolate in just two hours.

We were so intrigued by this idea that we chose CocoTerra as one of the finalists for the SKS 2019 Startup Showcase, which just happened this week. In between giving out (very tasty) samples of chocolate, CocoTerra CEO Nate Saal sat down in the SKS Hot Seat to answer a few rapid-fire questions on his device, the potential of personalization, and how he envisions the future of the food ecosystem.

Check out the video below! And keep your eyes peeled for more videos from SKS 2019 coming your way soon.

SKS Hot Seat Interview: Nate Saal of CocoTerra

GoSun Releases DIY Kit to Get People to “Tinker” with its Solar Oven

If making your own meals at the top of a mountain using only the power of the sun just seems too easy, then GoSun has a deal for you. With its new DIY kits, you can now construct your own solar oven as well.

GoSun builds fuel-free ovens that use a combination of parabolic reflectors and a cylindrical cooking chamber to cook food using only direct sunlight. The company makes a range of solar ovens from an ultra-portable version that weighs only two pounds ($139), to a higher-end solar + electric cooker ($399).

But all of those versions have actual designs with the components already built. With GoSun’s new DIY kit, which costs $119 or $149 depending on the size you buy, all you get is the chamber, a roll of reflector material and some cooking tins. Not only do you have to assemble it, but you have to come up with an oven design to base that assembly on.

That seems pricey, especially given the time it will take to design and build your own oven, but the cooking chambers are specific evacuated tube ovens, and not just something you’d grab at the Home Depot.

The idea of a DIY solar oven is in keeping with the ethos of a company that crowdfunds new products. But I reached out to GoSun Founder and CEO Patrick Sherwin to see if this was part of any larger initiative for the company. He emailed saying that this was “more of an experiment” and “our customers are frugal and DIY oriented. we are trying to serve more solutions to get more people tinkering with vacuum tube ovens.”

We’ve written before about how selling DIY kits could be a smart path for smaller startups. Companies can spend fewer resources on assembly, shipping parts is cheaper than shipping fully finished products, and customers are increasingly sophisticated about making things.

There are downsides however, as I’ve learned first hand. Companies need to make assembly instructions super clear, a lack of QA can lead to faulty parts being shipped, and any accompanying software in particular must be as bug-free as possible.

GoSun, however, is foregoing most of these issues by turning the entire process over to the customer. There are no instructions to follow and no software to install. Customers for the DIY kit will probably self-select, meaning that they’ll be fine with the lack of guidance, and will probably look forward to building their own oven and sharing designs with the GoSun community.

Of course, if GoSun’s DIY kit is too much work, people can always turn a Pringles can into a solar cooker.

Newsletter: Some Assembly Required, Is IKEA the Future of Food Tech?

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I spent a good chunk of the weekend building a cocktail robot. It was a kit I bought from MyBar.io, and to save $100 bucks, I opted for the DIY version ($299), all assembly required. And though it took a lot longer than the two hours the company said it requires to build (it’s still not done), I’ve actually had fun putting it together.

So much so, that when FarmBot announced yesterday it was launching an assemble-it-yourself vegetable garden robot, my first thought was “Hey, I could probably build that, too.” (SMASH CUT to my wife, just shaking her head).

But both MyBar and FarmBot got me wondering if we won’t see more DIY in our connected kitchens in the future a la IKEA. There are a few reasons why hardware food tech startups might want to borrow a page from the Swedish home furnishings giant.

First, DIY means something much different now than it did even a couple years ago. The MyBar kit I bought featured 3D printed parts, and the wiring required no soldering or crimping. Much like a piece of IKEA fürnitüre, there isn’t any real expertise needed going into the project, anyone with the set of instructions can do it.

Second, shifting the assembly labor to me is perfect for a tiny startup. Instead of spending their limited human resources on building each order, they can focus on design and product improvement.

And then there is the shipping. IKEA saves a ton of money in shipping because everything arrives in flat boxes. So too can cash-strapped startups save money by skipping the centralized assembly. The MyBar arrived at my door in a regular rectangular box. Inside there was no need for custom-fitting styrofoam to protect a put-together MyBar, as each separate flat piece was wrapped in plain ol’ bubble wrap. And, like IKEA, it even came with an allen wrench!

Obviously not every kitchen device will become DIY. I can’t imagine trying to put together a June oven or a Samsung smart fridge on my dining room table. But for small startups getting into the hardware game, DIY may be the best path to $$$.

Here’s a Tip: Learn How Your DoorDash Driver Gets Paid
If DIY isn’t your thing, especially when it comes to making a meal (no judgment), just about every restaurant does delivery now, and the biggest third-party delivery service of them all is DoorDash (raising $2 billion helps you build marketshare).

However, if you’re using DoorDash, you should know what is actually happening when you tip through its app. Jenn Martson broke down the controversy over DoorDash using tips to cover a “Dasher’s” base pay, and bottom line: The tips you’re leaving don’t necessarily translate into more dollars for your driver. In our consumer quest for convenience, we need to stop and see who’s paying who and how much.

We too, Have the Meats
Chances are good that if you are reading this, you’re doing so quickly, so you can get back to and finish up your work faster, so you can get out and celebrate the 4th of July holiday (and we don’t blame you).

If you’re grilling this Fourth, or at all over the summer, there are two things we wanted you to know about.

MEATER, which makes a wireless, connected meat thermometer, launched its new MEATER Block yesterday. It comes with four probes, all of which can be used to monitor four separate pieces of meat at once. Perfect for guests who prefer their steaks done differently, or for when you’re cooking different types of meat at once.

If you’re more of a plant-based meat eater, we celebrate you as well, and my colleague, Catherine came up with this handy guide for grilling Beyond Meat’s burgers and sausages (they’re both delicious), which you can wash down with a tasty cold brew.

Have a great and safe holiday!

Build Your Own Home Robot Bartender for Under $300 with MyBar.io

We’re in the midst of planning a summer party at our house (the theme is yacht rock), and while I love throwing parties, I’m not a fan of the mess left after an evening of making cocktails. Between people sloppily pouring booze and mixers, it’s a sticky pain to clean up.

Which is why I’m tempted by Mybar.io DIY robot bartender. It’s basically a box that houses up to 9 pumps and tubes as well as some circuitry. You can order one for $299 if you build it yourself, or $399 if you order it fully assembled.

If you buy the kit, there’s an online guide to walk you through how to build it. Once set up, you download the app (Android only, because those tablets are cheaper), place the tubes in your selected bottles, and assign them to a pump via the app (e.g. vodka is pump one, orange juice is pump 2, etc.). Once you have all of your pumps labeled, the app takes stock of what booze and mixers you have and automatically generates a list of drinks you can make. Pick a drink and tap the button and the DIY Bar dispenses your cocktail.

I spoke with Mybar.io Founder Juan Pablo Risso, who told me that he is decidedly going after the DIY market right now. The company debuted the robot bartender at the Maker Faire last month in Portland, OR, and in keeping with that DIY spirit, everything about DIY Bar is open source. You can download the plans for the hardware and the circuit board, as well as the software and firmware from the company’s Github repository.

Right now, Mybar is a side gig for Risso, whose day job is working on IoT for Samsung. Mybar is bootstrapped and Risso said that he’s sold about 50 units since so far.

Risso and Co. are facing some stiff (drinks) competition in the home bartending appliance space. Bartesian (manufactured by Hamilton-Beach) is a Keurig-like countertop cocktail device that also sells for $299 (no assembly required). And on the higher end, Barsys offers a sleek drink making machine, but it will set you back more than $1,000. Which particular cocktail robot you want to buy probably depends on how much work you want to put into your machine, and how much flexibility you want in your mixology.

I just don’t want to spend all my time at my next party making drinks. Perhaps Mybar’s DIY robot is in my future.

Shojinmeat Scores Grant for Open Source Clean Meat Initiative

Last week Shojinmeat announced on Twitter that it had received a flash grant from the Shuttleworth Foundation. Shojinmeat was nominated for the $5,000 grant by Isha Datar, a Shuttleworth Fellow and the Executive Director of cellular agriculture non-profit New Harvest.

If you’re not familiar, Chris Albrecht covered Tokyo-based Shojinmeat a few months ago for the Spoon:

“Shojinmeat is now an active Slack channel that connects roughly 30 DIY citizen scientists from across Japan. They gather to talk about their homegrown meat experiments and related topics such as tissue engineering, animal welfare, and regenerative medicine. Shojinmeat has also put out ‘zines with articles and pictures about their work, and recently made a move to the West by creating an English-speaking Slack channel.”

Essentially, Shojinmeat is an informational platform for DIY clean meat enthusiasts — more like a club than an actual company. So it’s easy to see why the Shuttleworth Foundation, who supports open knowledge resources, would want to support them.

Shojinmeat isn’t founder Yuki Hanyu’s only project. He also created Integriculture; a startup which is making clean meat infrastructure for B2B sale. On our call Hanyu said that Integriculture is gearing up for their first product launch this fall: a food-grade culture media, which is the “food” which clean meat needs to grow. This plant-based media is composed of sugars, amino acids, and vitamins, and Hanyu said he anticipates customers will range from companies to biohackers.

Clearly, Hanyu and his team have their fingers in quite a few pies. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (Apologies for the mixed metaphors.) Shojinmeat is also developing incubators for their members to “grow” their own cultured meats. He’s planning to launch these incubators, which will market for roughly $100, at COMITIA125, a manga event in Tokyo, on August 18th. (See top image for a look at the incubator, which will be distributed with a clean meat ‘zine detailing how it can be used to grow animal tissue.) Afterwards, he’ll make them available online and put the blueprint on open source development platform GitHub.

Hanyu told me that they would use the money to buy new equipment for DIY clean meat research and fund travel to biohacking conferences, so they could share their message to a wider audience.

Interestingly, he also mentioned that Shojinmeat would also use the grant to support a project they’re working on with local high schools. Hanyu is collaborating with a group of government officials (among others) to launch a high school class focused entirely on cell cultures.

Clean meat has sparked quite a bit of controversy as of late. With the government and groups like the National Beef Cattleman’s Association attempting to exert influence over and regulate the clean meat space, a virtual army of people working on affordable, attainable solutions around the world (or at least in Japan) is pretty cool. It’s also a sign that the steady march towards cultured meat can’t be stopped.

The Shuttleworth Foundation website says it awards Flash Grants to companies that are “social change agents.” There’s no question that Shojinmeat — with its mission to make cultured meat open and accessible — is exactly that.

DIY Food Kits Bringing Fundamentals Back To The Kitchen

A good deal of technology we see entering the kitchen involves helping us to be better at preparing food. Whether it’s guided cooking systems or pro-level tools that help average chefs make higher quality meals, the focus seems to be on helping people cook more, and more easily. But there’s another movement quietly taking shape – one we’ve talked about in the create your own beverage space, with products like PicoBrew’s at home brewing system – that involves DIYing food itself.

DIY food creation isn’t exactly a new concept; from things like cheese to yogurt and pasta to bread, purists and hobbyists alike have been making their own foods from raw ingredients since, well, the beginning of time. In fact, before the term DIY acronym existed, before we used artisanal to mean anything not made by a machine, there were people, without modern technology, churning butter and fermenting milk and rolling wheat and oil and water into dough.

But DIY food kits – easy-to-use and prepackaged kits that allow someone with little experience to create food from raw ingredients – are on the rise. Julie Feickert, CEO of DIY food kit company Cultures for Health, attributes the growth of mainstream attention on their products to the growing awareness and concern for healthy living. In an interview with Food Navigator, Feickert explained,

“More and more people have diet related conditions, gut health conditions that are pushing them to step back and say, ‘i need to control my food…I need to ultimately have a real handle on what my food is.”

The nostalgia for purer foods, ones that are less processed and locally sourced are often more appealing and the rise of things like farmer’s markets going digital with Amazon Fresh delivery and sales growth of DIY food kits are just a few examples that point to this growing consumer preference.

But raw materials, even when packaged together neatly with instructions to remove the guesswork, aren’t alone going to change consumer behavior when it comes to making foods from scratch. Today people are busier than ever and put a heavy value on convenience in addition to health and wellbeing. So while the DIY food kit market is experiencing a rise, the real magic will come when there’s technology to support it.

Read more about DIY food kits at Food Navigator.