Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

food science

DouxMatok Raises a Sweet $22M for its Sugar Reduction Technology

Israeli startup DouxMatok announced yesterday that it has raised a $22 million Series B round of funding for its sugar reduction system. The round was led by BlueRed Partners, with strategic investments from Südzuker AG, Royal DSM and Singha Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by DouxMatok to $30.2 million.

Sugar has come under more intense scrutiny over the past few years because of the high amount we’re eating and its deleterious effects on our bodies. Rather than creating some sugar substitute, DouxMatok aims to make the sugar we already consume more efficient. As we wrote when covering the company last year:

Evidently, sugar isn’t very good at hitting our taste buds, so food makers cram products full of it to attain their desired level of sweetness. A straightforward reduction in the amount of sugar in a product, then, is difficult to do without sacrificing taste.

DouxMatok gets around this by leveraging silica, which has lots of nooks and crannies that sugar molecules can fill. The sugar-packed silica diffuses more efficiently on our tongues, so food companies can use 40 percent less sugar in their products, without sacrificing the taste.

According to the press announcement, DuoxMatok will use the new funding to scale up production and sales of its solution as it commercializes in Europe and North America. The company says it will soon complete manufacturing of its sugar in Europe, done in partnership with investor Südzucker AG. DouxMatok also says it’s in discussions with a number of food companies to reformulate their products. DouxMatok expects commercial availability of its sugar by the end of this year.

DouxMatok is not the only company looking to make sugar a little sweeter for the health conscious. Nutrition Innovation uses near-infrared technology and a different refinement process to make NuCane, which retains sugar’s minerals and has a lower glycemic index. Candy company Nestlé has experimented with its sweets by changing the structure of sugar through the addition of microscopic holes so less can be used.

As a big fan of confectionery treats, seeing all this innovation in sugar is definitely pretty sweet.

Nima Unveils Portable Peanut Sensor to Make Meals Safer

The startup behind the world’s first portable gluten sensing device is launching a peanut sensing version at CES this week. The new Nima Peanut Sensor is a handheld device designed to detect peanut particles in food by testing small samples in an insertable cartridge.

According to the Food Allergy Research & Education organization, around 15 million Americans suffer from food allergies and around 1/5 of those have some type of peanut allergy, ranging from mild to severe. The Nima Peanut Sensor aims to give people with peanut sensitivities or parents of children with peanut allergies a portable tool to test liquid or solid foods before they take a bite.

The sensor shares the same form factor as the gluten version – a compact black triangular device with room for a testing cartridge and a readable diagnostic screen. But, instead of coming with capsules that create a reaction when interacting with gluten particles, the peanut sensor ships with cartridges designed to detect 20 parts per million (ppm) of peanut protein or more in foods or drinks. Users take a portion of the item they want to test and insert a small sample into the cartridge and place both inside the sensor. After three minutes, the test gives a simple reading; if the peanut sensor detects peanut protein, the portable device will display a peanut icon. If no protein is found, a smiley face pops up letting the user know the food is safe to eat.

When Nima first launched its gluten sensor, the real excitement around the company’s innovation was around the technology – and science – inside each cartridge. What Nima’s founders have done is essentially developed a mini-laboratory in every device and a capsule with the right test materials to detect the unique proteins found in gluten. But as many pointed out, the setup Nima created could be used to detect other allergens and even beyond.

“There’s no reason it can’t be used for dairy or peanuts and there’s nothing stopping them from going to pathogens either,” food tech VC Brian Frank told the Spoon at the 2016 Smart Kitchen Summit.

While the gluten sensor goes after a growing segment of awareness of gluten intolerance in the U.S., the peanut sensor hits an even bigger market and one that’s close to the heart of many parents. Peanut allergies tend to appear in childhood and can produce a life-threatening reaction. Parents and caregivers will be able to use the Nima Peanut Sensor to test foods on the go, at birthday parties and restaurants to avoid a reaction.

Just like the gluten sensor, the peanut sensing device will connect to the Nima mobile app to share test results and build a user database of peanut-free friendly restaurants and packaged foods.

Nima’s peanut sensor is only available for pre-order right now in the U.S. and Canada through March 8 and starter kits are $229 during this promotional period. A starter kit will come with the sensor, a twelve pack of test capsules along with the charger and a carrying case. The sensor will ship at retail later in 2018 and regular price for the peanut sensor starter kit is $289 and additional cartridges will be $6 each and sold in twelve packs. Nima also offers an auto-delivery or membership option which lowers the price of capsules to just under $5 a piece (sold in packs of twelve.)

Interestingly, Nima also has waitlist signs up available for soy, tree nuts, dairy, shellfish and eggs. The company clearly has plans to be the go-to for the millions who suffer from all kinds of food allergies in the future.

Amazon Looks At Food Tech To Make Packaged Food Better

Amazon continues to explore ways to dominate the $700 billion grocery market, and this time the commerce giant is turning to military-grade food tech to gain an edge on competitors. Reuters is reporting on Amazon’s interest in a partnership with 915 Labs, a startup based in Denver that’s commercializing a technology known as MATS – or microwave assisted thermal sterilization. MATS is a process that takes prepared food and using a specific heating technique, eliminates food pathogens and microorganisms that cause spoilage.

According to Reuters, the process involves taking “sealed packages of food in pressurized water and heating them with microwaves for several minutes.” A sort of sous vide on steroids, the technique was developed at the University of Washington and received FDA approval in 2012 as a safe way to preserve fresh foods.

MATS replaces traditional preservation techniques which often entail heating foods at high temperatures for up to an hour, significantly damaging the quality and taste of the food. 915 Labs, the startup that’s trademarked MATS, says to solve the problem of damaged foods, companies add things like “salt, flavor, texture and color enhancers, and other unnatural ingredients” to make the foods edible again.

MATS-Made Foods and Beverages

Packaged food has to have a long shelf life in order for dry goods companies to make money – but the game changing element is taste. With MATS, companies could potentially make packaged food appealing again, in an era where the heavy consumer focus is on healthier, fresher options. Which brings us to Amazon.

With Amazon Pantry, Dash replenishment services, the purchase of Whole Foods and the use of machine learning and AI to run next-gen stores, Amazon is all in on the grocery game. And while the company is still working on ways to compete in the fresh foods game, Amazon is taking prime real estate in the middle of the grocery store with dry goods.

And besides boxed snack foods and household items, what lives in the middle of the grocery store? Prepared and packaged foods. From frozen dinners to soups, pasta mixes and “just add water” foods, the center aisles are generally filled with sodium-laden offerings that can be bought and sit in pantries for months.

As Amazon looks at building its own meal kit delivery service(see Mike’s Amazon meal kit review), there’s a clear interest in developing its own line of foods that take advantage of Amazon’s massive e-commerce infrastructure but also don’t require the large investment that fresh food transportation and storage often do, particularly in the form of refrigeration.

And without additives and sodium, MATS produced packaged foods could still stay on the shelf just as long but taste much better and be comparatively healthier than their traditionally preserved counterparts.

The research that led to the development of MATS was funded by several large food companies, including Nestle, General Mills, Delmonte and Pepsi, all of whom also play a big role in dry goods and groceries. But now 915 Labs owns the exclusive rights to MATS and its sister process, MAPS or microwave assisted pasteurization sterilization which is a faster way to pasteurize foods like dairy and baby food.

Reuters reports that consumers are unlikely to see MATS-created packaged foods from Amazon until 2018 – and maybe even later depending on how the company decides to integrate the technology with its current offerings. It’s clear that the omnichannel retailer has big plans for food domination in the future.

We Use 50 Billion Water Bottles Per Year. Here’s An Edible Container That Can Stop The Insanity

It’s hard to deny that the food industry is experiencing lots of disruption from startups around the globe who are trying to solve the market’s tough problems. Things like delivery, supply chain, sustainability, waste and sourcing are all on the minds of startups like Skipping Rocks Lab. The particular problem they’re trying to tackle? The proliferation of plastic bottles and the waste they generate.

Skipping Rocks Lab isn’t just minimizing plastic production or coming up with new ways to recycle water bottles – they’ve created a product that basically redefines the way water can be delivered and consumed. Meet Ooho, the water “bottle” that delivers single serve gulps of water and can actually be eaten.

Ooho Short Web from Skipping Rocks Lab on Vimeo

The Ooho balls look like a cross between a gross Jello-based dessert and one of those plastic stress balls you can squeeze to get out frustration. But the balls are in fact edible – made by dipping frozen balls of ice into an algae concoction – and biodegradable, meaning they won’t sit in the ocean somewhere for eternity but rather disintegrate after about 4-6 weeks. Given that 50 billion plastic bottles are used by humans every year (EVERY. YEAR.), it stands to reason that this type of innovation would attract lots of interest.

And so far, it’s working. Skipping Rocks has successfully funded their first campaign on CrowdCube and the videos of people popping spherical water into their mouths have gone viral. The company is mainly serving Ooho at events and festivals – and you can see why. They are small and are perfect for quick hydration where storage isn’t a factor. The product is great for things like marathons and sporting events as well.

But Skipping Rocks vision is to become THE go-to seaweed-based packaging company in the world; they clearly have plans to move beyond water and adapt this packaging to all types of beverages that might be served in plastic. How they move the concept from small balls of water to actual practical implementation remains to be seen. For one, people generally like to consume more than one sip of a beverage in any given setting, and the packaging as it stands cannot be resealed. Once you’ve bitten into it, you’ve committed to consuming whatever is inside in one shot.

The other issue is distribution – the idea that they could be sold widely to consumers in stores means the balls themselves will likely need some type of packaging around them. The membranes are edible and therefore can’t just be left to sit out in the open on shelves. The retail model definitely leaves some questions around sustainability and the impact of the product as a whole.

But for now, it will be interesting to see how the startup uses the investment money and what types of unique implementations they come up with next. And of course, we’ll keep our eyes out for any Ooho balls in the wild – and be sure to document the experience.

6 Food Science Books That Will Change the Way You Look at Food

In Austin, where I’m from, barbecue pitmasters debate the Maillard reaction as often as they tuck into a plate of brisket and ribs. In other words, the best chefs have long known that science is the secret to their success, but over the past few years, science has become sexy to regular folks too.

Now you don’t have to go to the Institute of Culinary Education or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to understand all of those chemical reactions that make food taste a certain way, or to learn how to make it taste even better. There are cookbooks for that. Here are a few of my favorites.

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, by Harold McGee

Written back in 1984, this is a serious food science bible. Every professional chef has a dog-eared copy and can probably recite word for word sections about her favorite ingredient, cooking technique, and science behind why it works. Get ready for an intense discussion at the molecular level, including a chemistry primer.

The Science of Good Cooking, by Cook’s Illustrated

Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen pioneered the idea of cooking with the scientific method in order to develop foolproof recipes (they totally changed the way I make baked potatoes, for example). This easy-to-read book walks you through 50 experiments and more than 400 recipes that will soon become your new favorites.

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

Harold McGee has some competition, as J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s new book might just be the bible for a new generation, especially the home cook. His accessible tone, funny anecdotes, and step-by-step photos are the icing on the cake of delicious recipes, developed with the exhaustive scientific method seen in The Science of Good Cooking. I pretty much made all of his Thanksgiving meal suggestions and couldn’t have been happier.

Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters, by Gordon M. Shepherd

If you want to know not only how to make that stuffing for Thanksgiving but also why it tastes so good, this is your jam. Be prepared for a super nerdy analysis of the mechanics of smell as well as how the brain processes flavor in terms of emotion, food preferences, cravings, and memory.

Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson, by IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education

In the 21st century, cooking isn’t limited to humans. A few years ago, IBM teamed up with the Institute of Culinary Education to create a cognitive cooking technology called Chef Watson that could discover new ingredient combinations and recipes that humans would never think of. This book details those recipes (think Hoof-and-Honey Ale), as well as how they did it.

Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail, by Dave Arnold

And where would the best meal be without a good drink to go with it? Dave Arnold has put together more than 120 cocktail recipes using the most cutting-edge techniques and hard-core science, guaranteeing you the knowledge you need to make the most amazing milk-washed vodka cocktail of your life.

Virtual Eating: How Virtual Reality Can Make You Think You’re Eating Pizza When You’re Not

The rise of virtual and augmented reality systems have only just begun; we’re almost positive we’ll see even more VR demos at CES this year, and the convergence of smart home technology and VR/AR has only just begun. But what about virtual eating? Virtual reality is designed to simulate sounds and sights of an environment – but could it simulate taste and smell too?

That’s the premise of a project from researchers in Japan and Singapore who have been testing out electrical and thermal probs that can stimulate muscles and trick the human brain to believe it was tasting food that wasn’t really there. In one experiment, scientists focused on the neurons that are sensitive to hot and cold temperature changes that also play a role in how we taste things. By rapidly heating or cooling a square of thermoelectric elements on the tip of someone’s tongue, the user experiences a sweet taste. The thermal experiment also produced some strange results, with some participants reporting a spicy flavor when the probs were heated up and a minty flavor when they were cooled down.

In another experiment, electrical currents were used instead of heat to enhance or create a salty, sour or bitter taste in someone’s mouth.

The last experiment used electrode’s attached to the masseter muscle, one of four muscles in the jaw used for mastication (chewing), to simulate biting through actual food. The strength of the electric impulse controlled the texture, or hardness of the simulated food and the duration of the impulse controlled the elasticity sensation of the jaw opening and closing during chewing. By varying the strength and duration, researchers were able to more realistically produce the sensation of biting into real food.

Study on Control Method of Virtual Food Texture by Electrical Muscle Stimulation

The role of heat as it relates to taste isn’t a new concept, it’s one chefs have been using to transform dishes and create unique flavors. But using solely heat or electricity to mimic a specific taste or sensation So it turns out, your taste buds, and even jaw muscles can be hacked – making it possible to have a virtual reality dining experience without having to suffer the calories.

America’s Test Kitchen Explores Food Science With New Publication

America’s Test Kitchen, a popular cooking show turned publication house, has launched a new brand called Cook’s Science. Led by food journalist Molly Birnbaum and America’s Test Kitchen host Dan Souza, Cook’s Science will report on stories that delve into the science behind food, experimentations in the kitchen and publish unique recipes for consumers.

Our take: As the food industry diversifies and expands, there are more opportunities for publications to expand their coverage. From consumer-driven content like recipe videos and guided cooking to examining the ways that technology is changing the way we eat, buy and prepare our food (see – The Spoon!), there’s a lot to talk about. And the industries that are involved and interested in these topics span a huge range: food, commerce, technology, AI, Big Data, design, retail and more.

We look forward to reading Cook’s Science take on the science behind the things we eat and getting our food nerd on.

Read the full press release. 

America’s Test Kitchen Wants To Bring Science To Cooking

Launched over two decades ago, America’s Test Kitchen has become the go-to resource for kitchen cooking instruction for home chefs. Now the group is looking to help take cooking to the next level and bring new cooks into the mix, with the launch of the Cook’s Science website. The group recently announced its launch, led by executive editors Molly Birnbaum and Dan Souza and aim to add an element of narrative in order to tell stories about the intersection of science and food.

Our Take: This initiative to look at science and technology and examine how they are changing how we cook is part of a growing trend. With the emergence of Guiding Cooking Systems, meal delivery services, app-based cooking gadgets and hands-off appliance functionality, we continue to see efforts to reinvent the core concepts in cooking and appeal to the next generation of cooks in the kitchen. There is a gap in concentrated reporting around this and other related subjects, including food technology, smart kitchen, the convergence of science and tech with food and more. We hope this and other similar efforts (like The Spoon!) will help tell interesting stories and spark a movement that drives the kitchen of the future.