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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Food-X

SOSV to Retire the Food-X Food Tech Accelerator

Venture fund SOSV announced today it is retiring its Food-X accelerator program, which the company founded back in 2015. Moving forward, startups that apply with SOSV will be funneled into either its IndieBio or the HAX programs.

In a blog post on Medium, SOSV’s Shawn Broderick wrote that since starting Food-X, his company has seen “a clear pattern” for food startups emerge: “Those promising the most radical innovation landed at our ‘hard tech’ oriented accelerators, notably IndieBio but also HAX, where they benefited from the deep technical resources those programs offer.”

The IndieBio accelerator, in particular, has fostered some of the food tech world’s most notable startups over the years, including Memphis Meats, Perfect Day, and NotCo. Broderick’s Medium posts suggests accelerators like this are the best places to cultivate major innovation in the food industry. “Our decision to retire the Food-X accelerator is a recognition that IndieBio has emerged as our best setting for disruptive food startups,” he wrote.

Over a phone call today, Food-X Partner and Managing Director Peter Bodenheimer told me the massive successes of some of those cellular ag-related companies ultimately shifted SOSV’s focus more towards those areas.

Going forward, founders in the SOSV family working on biology and sustainable engineering challenges will go to IndieBio, while those working in production, automation, and consumer devices will go to HAX. SOSV will still run its Chinaccelerator and MOX programs.

Food-X was one of the first food tech accelerator programs in the U.S. and grew to become one of the country’s largest. It wasn’t unusual for the program to receive 500-plus applicants for each cohort. Over the years, the program was home to 11 cohorts and over 100 startups.

Bodenheimer said that in that time, he and his team built a strong community and network of mentors around the food space in New York, where Food-X was headquartered. The hope is that the community continues to grow and thrive even after Food-X has closed its doors for good. 

 

Food-X Gets $2.6M Grant to Build Out its E-Commerce Platform

Food-X Technologies, which creates a software platform to help retailers facilitate their online grocery shopping and delivery, announced last week that it had received a $2.6 million Canadian (~$1.95M USD) from from the Digital Technology Supercluster.

The Digital Supercluster is a collaboration between the Canadian government and private businesses including Microsoft, Adaptech and AltaML. The $2.6 million is basically like a grant and there is no equity in Food-X involved. (There is also no relation to the Food X accelerator here in the U.S.)

Food-X Technologies provides a platform that helps retailers throughout the entire e-commerce process: from the integrating with consumer-facing ordering through back-end fulfillment across all food categories (frozen, fresh, etc.), to inventory management and delivery route optimization.

The company is similar to U.K.-based Ocado, which builds out massive robot-powered warehouses. In the U.S., Ocado has partnered with Kroger to build out a number of fulfillment centers across the U.S.

Food-X has been doing online grocery since its early days as a CSA in 1997. The company has grown since then and now serves Western Canada and has a partnership with Walmart for grocery fulfillment.

The new money comes at an opportune time for Food-X. The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a boom in online grocery shopping. Here in the U.S., grocery e-commerce hit $7.2 billion in sales during the month of June. Up in Canada, the CBC recently reported that online food buying is up 107 percent since the beginning of the pandemic.

As the pandemic continues to wax and wane in different parts of the world, the question now is how much of this online shopping is the new normal for people. Food-X now has a bigger warchest to find out.

Run a Restaurant From Your Phone, Thanks to This Latin American Tech Startup

Click through any restaurant industry publication in these pandemic-stricken days and you’ll likely assume that to run an off-premises restaurant, you need to load up on as much tech as you can. But as we’re fond of saying here at The Spoon, when it comes to restaurant tech, quality matters way more than bells and whistles. For all the contactless dining kits, delivery integrators, and AI-enabled tools out there, it’s the simpler solutions often create more value for the restaurant.

A Mexico City-based startup called remotekitchen appears to be betting on that idea with its new restaurant tech platform that essentially lets restaurant operators run a business directly from their mobile phones. That includes everything from promoting their restaurant to taking orders and processing payments. And for independent restaurants in Latin America — many of whom are not even online — that’s all they need.

“We are mobile and this [solution] is working for a smartphone-first operation,” David Peña, remotekitchen’s founder and CEO told me over the phone last week. With fellow cofounder and company COO Diego Vielma, he walked me through the technology and how it can get restaurants up and running with their off-premises strategies.

The company started as a delivery-only kitchen in 2019 and quickly pivoted to software in response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. As has been well-documented, worldwide shutdowns have decimated restaurants as we know them, and there’s been much ado over the prohibitive cost of doing delivery via third parties like Grubhub and Uber Eats. So it’s perhaps not surprising that when remotekitchen started tinkering with its own software, others took note.

As restaurant tech goes, the remotekitchen platform is an extremely simple setup. A Basic plan gets you a website (those already online can simply add an “order” button), an app for receiving orders, coupon/promotion management. Those who opt for the Plus plan also get their own branded iOS and Android apps and the ability to process payments online. Either takes about a day to set up, and restaurants can also sell meals via a Facebook integration.

There’s a good reason for the simplicity here. Peña says that unlike the U.S., Latin America’s restaurant tech is “far from being developed.” Tech solutions are hard to come by, and even when they’re available, they’re overly complex.

“This is an industry that is working with almost no resources, almost no labor, so the whole industry is running on the smartphone of the owner,” he explained, adding that he’s seen many restaurants simply taking orders through WhatsApp. 

On top of that, roughly 96 percent of independent restaurants in Latin America are not online at all. There are no menus to peruse via the web, and third-party services like Uber Eats are out of the question, given the high commission fees associated with those companies.

The crew at remotekitchen bundled all of these factors together and have built a solution to address them that works on any device and is most appropriately suited to mobile devices. “We believe we can unlock a new market by giving access to a technology,” said Peña.

It’s very early days for the company, which is still in testing phase. They are currently working with just 10 restaurants, though Vielma said that over 50 are on a waiting list and will be able to use the software once remotekitchen “really understands how we are adding value to this small group of restaurants.”

One thing that may help that progress along is the company’s recent participation in food business accelerator Food-X. When remotekitchen joined the cohort back in March, they had no product on the market. Without any technology to back it up, they quickly launched a landing page and started signing up restaurants and figuring out how their product could add actual value to the Latin American restaurant industry.

“They actively seek out feedback and iterate as quickly as any team we’ve worked with so the product gets better and better, not because of guessing, but because they are engaged with their customers, their advisors, and their investors to understand what works and what doesn’t,” Peter Bodenheimer, Partner and Director at Food-X, added over email.

That this past Food-X cohort was entirely remote actually helped. Vielma noted that staying in Mexico City and doing a virtual cohort let the company stay focused on their core market and in communication with the restaurants surrounding them.

At the moment, remotekitchen is developing the final part of its product before they officially go to market. From there, the company plans to start raising its seed round.

The overarching goal is to empower any restaurant to get online — no small feat when the majority of your target region is currently offline and a pandemic is currently wrecking havoc on the entire industry. A huge part of the restaurant industry’s evolution will be the shift towards more and more off-premises orders, for which an online component is pretty much mandatory these days.

Peña says that remotekitchen’s long-term goal “is to enable universal access to healthy delicious and affordable food by democratizing the marketplace.” In other words, anyone can be a restaurant, thanks to mobile-first restaurant technology. 

Food-X Announces Cohort 11, Its First-Ever Virtual Accelerator Program

Food-X, a hugely popular startup accelerator for food businesses, today announced the eight chosen companies for Cohort 11 of its program. While they vary in focus — food traceability, restaurant tech, pet food, and upcycling — the selected companies all share Food-X’s mission of solving some of the biggest challenges the global food system faces. And for Cohort 11, the companies share something else in common: They are part of Food-X’s first-ever virtual cohort.

While many food accelerator programs operate remotely or through a combination of remote and onsite work, Food-X’s NYC-based program has historically always been done onsite and in-person for its three-and-a-half-month duration. That was in a pre-pandemic world, though. With most states still locked down to stem the spread of COVID-19, and with NYC getting hit especially hard with cases, holding a program onsite is more or less impossible at the moment.

As far back as the beginning of March, the Food-X staff was preparing for this possibility. Program Director Peter Bodenheimer told me over the phone last week that they had initially considered pushing program’s start date back a couple weeks. When it became obvious that two weeks would be something of a drop in the bucket in terms of statewide shelter-in-place mandates, the program decided to pivot to an entirely virtual model for the first time ever.

That’s included using video chat in place of the standard office drop-ins, doing virtual “coffee breaks” with the participants, and finding alternative ways for companies to meet with potential investors in place of the usual “demo day” event.

The results, it turns out, have been a pleasant surprise. “It’s been even better than I hoped it would be in terms of engagement,” Bodenheimer said. “It feels like it’s been one of the most engaged cohorts we’ve had ever.”

That’s significant, considering this particular cohort is also Food-X’s most diverse ever in terms of where companies are located. Milk Moovement, which makes supply chain software for the dairy industry, is headquartered in Canada. Health supplement maker Rambuhealth hails from Costa Rica. Latin American restaurant tech company remotekitchen works out of Mexico City, while ingredients marketplace Fieldcraft is from Austin, TX. 

Normally these companies would all converge at the Food-X offices in Manhattan. Now, like the rest of us, they are being forced to carry out normal business in abnormal circumstances. And, as Bodenheimer sees it, they’ve more than stepped up to the task: “The companies have been incredibly active and incredibly engaged. They’ve rolled with the punches, and that’s a great signal from an investment standpoint. We’ve made a good investment because on some level these companies have barely skipped a beat.”

Food-X hasn’t yet decided if the success so far of this virtual accelerator will permanently change the program’s format moving forward. “I could see something where we do a hybrid where there’s a portion that’ sin person, a portion that’s remote,” says Bodenheimer.

In the meantime, here’s the full Cohort 11 roster, as outlined in a press release from Food-X:

  • Bramble: A fresh, 100% plant-based pet food company that aims to consciously boost your pet’s diet.
  • Ester: A startup harnessing science and AI to develop hyper-personalized customer flavor profiles for retailers of beer and wine.
  • Fieldcraft: The first B2B marketplace for commodities and ingredients built to simplify sourcing from growers to manufacturers.
  • Living Food Company: A managed consumer marketplace offering access to fresh, clean and delicious food made by world-class farmers, bakers, brewers and other food artisans.
  • Milk Moovement: A startup that is providing actionable intelligence across the dairy supply chain through its cloud-based software.
  • Nature Preserve: A sustainable food tech brand that is upcycling produce to minimize waste and maximize health via a proprietary food preservation process. First up: Lovi Smoothies, a natural plantbased mix packed with nutrients for use in smoothies, shakes, baking, and beyond.
  • Rambuhealth: A venture leveraging the antioxidant-dense shell of Rambutan for heightened health benefits, which can be found in their food bars, supplements and ingredient offerings.
  • remotekitchen: A single unified platform to empower restaurants to run, manage and grow their business effectively.

Bodenheimer suggests a point I’ve heard mentioned frequently over the last few weeks — that the pandemic’s complete disruption of day-to-day business is forcing most to rethink norms and experiment more. Startups, too, are inherently more open to taking risks typically, and those that do may actually find some upsides to this situation. “Downturns tend to be a great time for companies to start because there’s less noise, less frothy money being flopped around to companies that may not be as great,” he says.

Food-X is currently four weeks into Cohort 11, and already taking applications for Cohort 12, which will kick off in the fall of 2020. Whether that will be an in-person or virtual affair is anyone’s guess right now.

Here’s How Coronavirus Could Change Food Tech Accelerators in the Future

For the last couple weeks, I’ve been working out of the Food-X office, one of the most well-known food tech accelerators in the world. And amid news of state-wide restaurant closures, events getting postponed or cancelled, and other ways coronavirus has set the food industry reeling, I found myself wondering what happens to startup accelerator programs as the pandemic whips its way around the globe altering both daily life and day-to-day business operations?

Startup accelerators exist to foster and invest in the development and growth of young companies. Multi-month-long programs often involve startups working together, or at least out of the same shared office space, face-to-face meetings with mentors and potential investors, and demo days, where founders pitch their products and services to crowds of people. But at a time when public spaces are being shut down and companies are mandating employees to work from home, startup accelerators may also have to change they way they run their programs.

To get a hint of what’s to come, I sat down with Food-X’s Program Director Peter Boddenheimer last week to chat about how the startup accelerator format will likely change in response to all this, and what that means for participating companies.

1. Prepare for remote work and weird hours.

Accelerator programs vary widely in terms of how long they require participants to actually be onsite. Some, like The Yield Lab or Chipotle’s accelerator, only require companies to be at HQ for certain weeks. Others, like Food-X, are conducted in-person for the duration of the program.

That’s under normal circumstances, though. In the wake of a pandemic, in-person programs can almost certainly expect to change their format, something Food-X itself is already doing. Boddenheimer said that while the program will start as planned this week, it will be conducted virtually for the time being. “We’re preparing in terms of the tools that we’re going to use for remote sessions, recording everything and having high-quality recordings so that people can get value out of it,” he noted, adding that now was an “interesting opportunity” for alternative models like this.

Food-X is, of course, in New York City, one of the hardest hit areas in the U.S. in terms of coronavirus right now. But with more cities and states closing gyms, cinemas, restaurants, wineries, and other businesses, more programs around the world might want to consider virtual programming for cohorts that kick off soon. For those that continue to meet in person, they may also want to adjust office hours so that attendees are arriving and leaving during non-peak hours, when elevators, stairwells, and trains will be less crowded.

2. There may not be demo days.

The culmination of many accelerator programs is a demo day where startups pitch to potential investors and other industry figures. But given that the process involves lots of people crammed into a room together, and in light of the CDC is advising against groups of 50 or more meeting for the next eight weeks, we can expect that many demo days scheduled for the next few months will either move online or not happen at all. 

Boddenheimer said the prospect of not having one presents challenges — and that may not be a bad thing. Citing his own love/hate relationship with demo days, he noted that he actually looks forward to this challenge of having to find an alternative to the traditional format. “I think it puts the onus on us to do more in terms of preparing people. Not necessarily pitch videos but maybe higher production value videos that would help people communicate with investors.” While he added that any kind of community building was “going to be tough” right now, the glass-half-full view of the situation is that not being able to do in-person demo days and meetings with potential investors will force everyone in the startup community to look outside comfortable norms and run better processes when it comes to fundraising.

“And if we find some things that work, maybe they start to become the norm,” he said.

3. There will be lots of questions and uncertainties.

As of this writing, Food-X’s latest cohort is happening, though with modifications like remote sessions. Many more accelerator programs will have to grapple with whether or not to do the same with their formats, and in some cases whether to hold a cohort at all.

Startups, meanwhile, will have to decide if they are willing to relocate to participate.

“Everybody’s had questions,” Boddenheimer said of the chosen participants for Food-X’s upcoming cohort, which starts tomorrow. So far, only one of those has expressed major concerns and, after much discussion with Food-X, has ultimately decided to attend anyway.

“We’re checking in [with companies] daily and reading up on things and we’re trying to make the best decisions we can based on the information we have, but it’s kind of something nobody’s really dealt with before.” He added that Food-X employees have gone to great lengths to “make sure the office is as safe an environment as possible.”

Of course, that’s if and when companies can actually show up to work onsite. And with the situation around COVID-19 changing hourly and more cities mandating closures, it’s anyone’s guess what accelerator programs and their participants will face in a week’s time, let alone a couple months.

But before we all head down the doom-and-gloom rabbit hole, consider this: successful startups and their founders tend to be far more flexible and adaptable by nature than, say, a 20,000-person corporation. As Boddenheimer says, “The best founders learn to take the ups and downs in stride. So I think those people thrive in this type of environment.”

That doesn’t mean the next few months will be easy or even pleasant for young startups and the organizations that foster them. But it does suggest that new and better norms, not to mention companies, can and will come out of this time.

“There’s a theory in general that the best time to start a startup is during downturns, when it’s the hardest,” says Boddenheimer. “It may end up being that the next year or two years are are really tough time but some great companies are going to be started in these next 12 to 24 months.”

The Biggest Hurdle for Personalized Food? Consistency.

When it comes to food, I suffer from a devastating condition called choice paralysis. What do I want for dinner? Kale or spinach salad for lunch today? This ice cream shop has how many flavors?

First world problems, I know. But choice paralysis is one thing that personalization could help: by looking at data from past purchases and nutritional predispositions, we can more easily get high-quality recommendations for what to cook and eat, both in and out of our home.

In search of this type of future-focused perspective, we asked Peter Bodenheimer, partner at food business accelerator Food-X, to share his thoughts onstage at Customize. He’ll join us on February 27th to give a birds-eye view of the personalization trend, share how startups are trying to tap into the trend, and give a vision for the future of individualized dining. He’ll also give some insight into what challenges are ahead for companies trying to make personalized food (cough, consistency, cough).

Check out the Q&A below to get an idea of what Bodenheimer will be talking about at Customize — then get your tickets to hear him live in NYC! (Use code SPOON15 for that sweet 15 percent off).

Food-X is an accelerator for cutting-edge food tech startups. Have you seen an increase in interest in food personalization recently?
Absolutely. The number of companies that we see who are making personalization a core part of their business differentiation is through the roof. Of course, that makes it harder to lean on it as a key point of differentiation, but at the same time, there are so many different ways to approach it that every time I look at a new company there seem to be unique wrinkles to their specific product. 

What are some interesting approaches you’ve observed companies taking to capitalize off this trend?
We’ve seen people using big data, personal preference, genetic data, the latest medical literature combined with personal data, and so many other ways to provide product offerings that are designed to give each user their own optimal experience. In my opinion, the most interesting ones are those that are combining different sources of data to provide better context and products that match better with consumer demands. For example, we’ve seen products where the end goal is to layer genetic data, with specific types of consumer preference data to provide highly tailored recommendations that are focused on both health and taste.  

What do you foresee as some of the main challenges for companies looking to capitalize on food personalization and/or food as medicine?
There is a fine line between saying you are going to deliver something, whether that is an experience or a health benefit, and being able to deliver it consistently. The challenge with keeping every unique consumer happy is just that — they are all unique. What works well for me, may or may not work well for you. This coupled with the ever changing scientific literature can be more challenging as companies scale and need to have a supply chain that is reliable and flexible.

How do you envision the future of personalized dining evolving over the next five years?
More choices around both the food products and the delivery mechanism for those products. This means more services that allow people to better understand their unique physiology, genetic predisposition, and then for companies to provide more products that help them easily optimize their nutrition. What forms that will take is going to be interesting to guess at, but I’m confident that in 5 years we’ll have more choices while at the same time having to make fewer choices without data. 

Use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off your tickets for Customize — they’re going fast! We’ll see you in NYC.

3 Food Tech Accelerators Taking Applications Right Now

Thinking of joining a food accelerator? While they’re not for everyone, these programs offer a growing number of startups access to things like mentors and potential investors, as well as assistance in taking a business to its next phase of growth. Yes, there’s some money involved in many cases, though experts will tell you that shouldn’t be the prime motivator for joining an accelerator or incubator.

Applications for many of these programs will open in early 2020. In the meantime, here are a few early opportunities for startups both in the U.S. and overseas.

Chobani Incubator
New York City & Remote

Taking applications for Spring 2020 is the Chobani Incubator, one of the most well-known programs to be run by a major CPG company. According to the program FAQs, Chobani looks for early-stage food and beverage companies who are already producing and selling their products “with some early traction” to join the four-month-long program, which will kick off in March of 2020.

Chosen companies — usually six or seven — spend roughly one week per month onsite at the Incubator HQ in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood and visiting Chobani manufacturing sites. Other program work can be done remotely, though participants should expect to travel during their time in the program. Chosen startups also each receive a $25,000 equity-free grant, a stipend for travel expenses, mentorship opportunities, and access to potential investors.

Applications close December 1, 2019.

Food-X Food Innovation Accelerator
New York City

It feels like Food-X just started working with Cohort 10, but already the NYC-based accelerator is looking for startups to join Cohort 11, which will kick off in March of 2020 and run until June.

Food-X works with companies up and down the food innovation stack, with sustainability, health, supply chain efficiency, and food traceability being just a few areas of focus. Chosen participants relocate to NYC to work out of the Food-X offices in Manhattan. In exchange for 8 percent equity, companies also receive $70,000 in cash, mentorship, access to the larger Food-X community, and potential investment opportunity. Food-X normally takes about eight companies per cohort — from an applicant pool that’s in the hundreds at this point.

The final application deadline is January 12, 2020.

FoodStars
Den Haag, Netherlands

Netherlands-based program FoodStars looks for agtech startups to join its community on an ongoing basis. Companies can be developing new technologies, production methods, and business models that improve food production and prioritize things like health and sustainability. Some areas of focus include food waste, horticulture, and control farming.

Those chosen to join the community/program get a minimum 12 months of mentorship, training programs, access to FoodStars events, a startup visa (for international companies), and office space in The Hague. In exchange, FoodStars takes 2 percent equity.

Applications are taken on a rolling basis.

YourLocal’s App Sells Super-Discounted Surplus Food from Local Restaurants

At the end of the day, the majority of restaurants end up having to toss whatever pre-prepared meals are left unsold. When foodservice establishments have razor-thin margins to begin with, any level of waste can seriously hurt their bottom line.

YourLocal is trying to help restaurants cut waste and pocket more money with an app that lets consumers purchase extremely discounted surplus food from local eateries. Users download the app, put in their location, and can browse a list of discounted meals from nearby restaurants. All selections are marked down by at least 50 percent. Users can select and pay for their food online, but have to go to the actual restaurant to pick up their selection within a given time frame.

Sounds like a smart idea, right? Restaurants get to make more money off of food that would be headed for the trash, and people get to eat their favorite foods for less. That’s probably why YourLocal isn’t the first to offer this kind of service.

In Europe, there are already several startups peddling reduced-price surplus food. The largest one, TooGoodToGo, is based in Copenhagen and serves nine countries in Europe. Karma, which started in Sweden but has spread into the U.K., is another service selling marked-down food from restaurants and grocery stores.

YourLocal was actually founded three years ago in Copenhagen, right around the corner from TooGoodToGo. However, while TooGoodToGo is expanding across Europe, YourLocal recently opened up a New York office to attend the Food-X accelerator program and launch in the U.S. — where they’re planning to grow next.

The main reason is that, in America, the market is far less saturated. The closest competitor, FoodForAll, started in Boston and just launched in the New York market last year. However, YourLocal hopes that it can leverage its experience in Europe to grow faster and cement itself as a market leader. But the bigger question is are U.S. consumers ready to embrace the concept of buying extra food from restaurants?

“In Europe, the idea of surplus food isn’t hard to grasp,” YourLocal’s Head of Growth, Daniel Ratner, told me during a visit to the Food-X headquarters last week. Here in the U.S., however, people might envision sad soggy sandwiches or questionable sushi when they think about leftover restaurant offerings. Ratner and his team are trying to shift the idea of what “surplus” means by selling only high-quality foods, showing consumers that extra doesn’t necessarily mean second-rate.

YourLocal’s other emphasis is simplicity. Ratner said they want to make the purchasing experience as frictionless as possible, so consumers genuinely consider YourLocal an easy alternative to ordering takeout or swinging by a local restaurant for takeaway food. “People want to be socially responsible and thrifty, but it has to be simple,” he told me.

YourLocal currently has a team of 6 and has raised an undisclosed amount of funds from Danish investors. As of now it works with hundreds of restaurants in Denmark and around 100 shops in New York City, where it’s focusing its expansion efforts, and is about to cross the 10,000 meal mark there. The app is free to use for consumers, and the company takes a cut from its retail partners for each transaction.

Some have argued that resale services like YourLocal take food away from services that feed the truly hungry, like soup kitchens or shelters. However, Ratner told me that smaller local restaurants often don’t have enough surplus to actually donate to relief organizations. He gave the example of City Harvest, a NYC-based food rescue organization which can only accept food donations weighing over 100 pounds. Smaller restaurants also likely can’t pay an employee to go drop off leftovers at a local shelter, which means that their extras just end up in a landfill. For these smaller restaurants, additional sales channels like YourLocal could be a way to cut down on waste while making a few extra bucks.

We at The Spoon are big fans of simple strategies to cut down on food waste. While YourLocal’s concept isn’t original, it would be the first to really bring the surplus restaurant food resale business to the U.S. in a meaningful way. If successful, it’ll be a win for restaurants — and hungry folks who love a good deal.

A Few Summer Deadlines for NYC Food Tech Accelerators

You can count on a few things for any summer in New York: the hum of thousands of air conditioning units, lengthy sessions in the park, the unmistakable smell of garbage on the curb. And nowadays, you can also count on a few lingering applications deadlines still open for the city’s fast-growing tech accelerator scene.

While many programs have already wrapped their application process, we dug up a few more NYC-specific ones that are still taking applications, with cohorts slated to start around fall 2019.

If you want the lowdown on food tech accelerators and whether your company would benefit from one, check out The Spoon’s recent Food Tech Fireside chat.

Future Food Co
FutureFoodCo helps companies grow from early-product-market phase to having at least some mainstream appeal (a category often called “early majority”). The program looks for food projects and entrepreneurs ready to scale up on a proof of concept. It counts Zoni Foods, Shroom Snacks, and Ozuké among its alumni.

Four to eight participants are selected for each five-month-long cohort. FutureFoodCo looks for small companies on track to gross more than $1 million in annual sales. While the program is based in NYC, participants do not have to relocate full time in order to take part in the program.

All participants receive $10,000 (4–8 percent equity) along with mentorship and advising opportunities, as well as the usual access to networking and potential investment.

Applications for cohort 6 are open now.

Food-X
Food-X kind of doesn’t need an introduction to Spoon readers at this point. The 14-week program — one of the most well-known in the food tech sector — works with early-stage companies from across the food system, though Program Director Peter Bodenheimer noted earlier this year that ingredient tech and “advanced technology” are two ares of focus for Food-X.

For the Fall 2019 cohort, Food-X offers $65,000 in cash (for 8 percent equity) upon a participant starting the program, office space (participants must relocate to NYC), mentorship, access to the Food-X community, including alumni, and access to potential investment opportunities.

Food-X typically takes eight companies per cohort. Applications are open until July 14.

Accel Foods
While it’s more of a venture fund than traditional accelerator, Accel Foods works with up-and-coming CPG companies to scale their businesses and get products to market. Specifically, the fund looks for brands that already have some loyal customer base and are on track to grow to $250 million and above. The fund started in 2013 and since then has grown to managing three separate funds that equal $85 million.

Current members of the Accel portfolio include Alpha (Plant-Based) Foods, Soozy’s, who makes grain-free baked goods, and Wandering Bear Coffee.

Accel takes applications on a rolling basis, and participation is determined case by case. Interested companies can drop the fund a line to kickstart the process.

Should You Join a Food Tech Accelerator for the Money?

Here’s a question for you food tech startup CEOs out there: should you join a food tech accelerator just for the money?

Definitely not, at least according to Tessa Price of WeWork Food Labs and Peter Bodenheimer of Food-X.

Of course, funding is funding and can be hugely important for any startup’s growth, but there are more important reasons to join an accelerator say Price and Bodenheimer, both of whom joined me for a live conversation this week in what was our first Foodtech Fireside chat.

One of the main reasons a startup shouldn’t make funding the one and only reason to join an accelerator is the equity ask is going to be bigger than with other forms of funding.

“There’s cheaper money out on the street than accelerator money,” said Bodenheimer. “The deal structures in accelerators for investment typically are different from what you’ll see from just an investor not running an accelerator.”

And while it may seem obvious on its face, another important reason, quite simply, is in the name.

“They have potential to accelerate the growth of a startup in a very compact period of time,” said Price. “The value in the ecosystem is that accelerators provide a fairly safe environment to come together and access resources in a way they aren’t able to when they are dealing with a more traditional VC or angel investor.”

Then there’s also community and connections to the food tech ecosystem that come from spending two to three months in an accelerator.

“Having a density of entrepreneurs working in similar types of businesses, that leads to good things,” said Bodenheimer. “Having a support community is really important, and so is being able to leverage the network an accelerator can bring.”

Finally, food tech accelerators give startup CEOs a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to step outside of the business and look at what they are doing through fresh eyes.

“There’s a saying: sometimes you’re too busy working in your business to work on your business,” said Bodenheimer. “An accelerator gives you an opportunity to work on your business with focused effort.”

We’ve turned the fireside into a podcast you can listen the full conversation with Tessa Price and Peter Bodenheimer on Apple Podcasts or by clicking play below, or you can also listen to and download the episode directly with this link.

Food-X Unveils the 8 Startups Chosen for Latest Accelerator Class

This morning foodtech accelerator Food-X announced the eight startups chosen to participate in its Cohort 9 class, which is currently underway at the Food-X space in NYC.

There was an applicant pool of 500 companies this time around, and we asked Food-X Program Director, Peter Bodenheimer, how they waded through that list to select just eight. “We take a bit of a portfolio approach to how we do things,” Bodenheimer told me by phone earlier this week, “We try and balance it between the technology in the industry and the more consumer-product side.”

In keeping with that balance, the startups who will participate in Cohort 9 range from an AI-enabled voice assistant for restaurants to a company that makes functional foods for soon-to-be mothers. As Bodenheimer explained it, Food-X has a couple of main areas it focuses on when it comes to whittling down the application pool and choosing participants.

The first is what he calls “the application of advanced technology across the food system,” which can be anything from voice tech to AI to sentiment analysis. The other area Food-X looks to is ingredient tech — or finding new functions for ingredients, whether that’s pea protein for plant-based proteins or infusing coffee with wildcraft mushrooms as a natural energy boost.

Into this latter category also goes the concept of food as medicine, which was, according to Bodenheimer, the original inspiration behind that mushroom-infused coffee. “We believe the next generation of ideas will go beyond just “healthy” and deliver products and systems that become integral parts of how we avoid and treat disease,” Bodenheimer wrote in a recent blog post on Medium.

More generally, Food-X also carefully considers the actual people behind the products during the selection process. “You can have the best idea in the world, but if the team can’t execute, it won’t happen,” says Bodenheimer.

He also notes that part of the reason for this emphasis on people is the importance Food-X places on the community aspect of its program. Alumni from past cohorts are encouraged to work at the Food-X space alongside current members, and in doing so they create a lot of potential for collaboration between different companies: “Having that stability and having that sense of community between the different founders, it sounds a little bit hokey to say but that’s where the magic happens,” he says. “A connection gets made, an epiphany happens, a problem gets solved. That’s the stuff I love about having our current cohort companies and our alumni cross-pollinating.”

All participants to the current Food-X cohort get $120,000 (for which Food-X takes a small equity stake), mentorship opportunities, space in the NYC Food-X office, and, as mentioned, continued access to the latter once the cohort wraps.

Cohort 9 is happening as we speak. Here are the participating startups:
Kafina: an organic energy elixir
Mushroom Cups: maker of the aforementioned mushroom coffee
Paragon Flavors: a flavor encapsulation company
Mindwell: maker of plant-based “meaty” snacks
Simply Good Jars: sustainably packaged ready-made meals
Sweetie Pie Organics: food for expectant mothers
Vaartani: AI-powered insights for companies based on customer data
Voix: an AI-powered automated voice assistant

Previous participants to Food-X include Ingest.AI, an AI-powered management system for restaurants, RFID-enabled waste-reduction solution Wasteless, and Kindly, whose meal-delivery company services patience with chronic illness.

Cohort 9 is taking place right now in New York City. Stay tuned to learn more about these companies in the coming weeks.

Here Are the Latest Foodtech Accelerators You Can Apply to Right Now

As I mentioned earlier this year, foodtech is making up for lost time in terms of innovation, and part of what’s driving that is the number of accelerator programs out there. And while we’re halfway through 2018, there are still plenty of programs to which food startups of all shapes and sizes can apply—so many, in fact, that it’s not really possible to fit them all into a single post. We’ve hand-picked a few here and listed them in order of application deadlines. Feel free to add yours in the comments below.

BSH Future Home Accelerator (new)
Applications: Accepted starting July 23rd

BSH Home Appliances (BSH Hausgeräte GmbH) is teaming up with Techstars to create the “BSH Future Home Accelerator Powered by Techstars”, an accelerator targeted at “early stage companies with innovative digital business models that want to accelerate their ideas around the connected kitchen of the future home.”

The program, which will kick off in February 2019 with an initial cohort of 10 companies, will have a total of three cohort classes over the course of three years (2019-2021) and mentor a total of thirty startups.

Land O’Lakes Dairy Accelerator
Applications Due: June 29

Those companies wanting to disrupt the dairy space should apply to the Land O’Lakes’ Dairy Accelerator, which kicks off in mid-September. Participants don’t have to fully relocate to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, but are expected to travel there for the session days taking place throughout the program. All companies receive a $25,000 stipend to offset travel and other costs, as well as training, mentorship, and networking opportunities.

Land O’ Lakes wants companies using dairy as a prime ingredient in their products (duh) and who have done around $200,000 or more in revenues over the last 12 months. Detailed information is in the accelerator’s FAQs.

Chobani
Applications Due: July 2

Greek yogurt maker Chobani has one of the more high-profile incubators coming from a CPG. As Catherine Lamb noted recently, the current round of applications are for the fourth iteration of the program. The chosen ones will be early-stage food and beverage startups who already have some traction in the market (roughly under $10 million in revenue).

Six to seven companies in the manufacturing space will be selected. Chobani provides pretty thorough details on its selection criteria, so you can easily determine if you’re an appropriate fit.

In addition to the company’s high-profile incubator, Chobani just launched a new food tech residency program focused specifically on food and ag tech startups. The program, which is targeted at early stage startups with strong technical pedigrees that could benefit from access to Chobani’s food expertise, will run simultaneously with the Chobani incubator program and culminate in a joint demo day in December. Applications for this new program are also due July 2nd.

FoodForward

Applications Due: July 29

FoodForward is a new food tech accelerator managed by Deloitte Italy in partnership with a group of Italian corporate partners such as Amadori, Cereal Docks and Gruppo Finiper and food innovation entities such as Innogest, Digital Magics, Seeds & Chips and Federalimentare Giovani. The accelerator is open to both Italian and non-Italian startups that fit into the following themes: new foods, quality and traceability of food, healthy lifestyle, circular economy, new delivery models, smart packaging and precision agriculture.

The program, which will accept seven startups in its initial cohort, will run between January and May 2019 in Milan. Each startup will receive a commitment of access to €20k in cash contribution and €50k in services in direct investment in exchange for 6% of of the company’s equity.

Food-X

Applications Due: July 15

“We use a pragmatic, data driven approach to perfect your offering, your operation, and your message,” claims the Food-X website. In terms of how that helps your growing startup, that means access to Food-X’s extensive network of mentors, investors, and other partners, including AWS, Hubspot, California Technology Council, and DigitalOcean. Chosen participants also get $50,000 in cash upon starting the program (in exchange for 7 to 10 percent equity).

Food-X looks specifically for early-stage companies at the “product-market fit” stage. The accelerator takes place at the company’s NYC offices over a 14-week period.

Accel-VT Ag & Food-Tech
Applications Due: August 15

Accel-VT cohort members are chosen based on their company’s ability to use technology to solve an issue related to agriculture—supply chain management/traceability, reducing energy usage, and food distribution, to name a few. The accelerator consists of three, four-day sessions onsite in Burlington, Vermont. There are webinars and homework assignments in between sessions.

Those looking to apply should be at startup or seed stage, have at least two team members, and demonstrate, according to the Accel-VT site, “market adoption in the form of a pilot or paying customer.”

FoodFutureCo
Applications Due:On a rolling basis

The Food Future Co folks pride themselves on being a slightly different kind of accelerator, namely one that caters to founders wanting to scale up their concepts and solutions. Its four-month program, which runs twice per year, looks for entrepreneurs who have some proof of concept and are on track to gross $1 million and up.

FoodFutureCo just wrapped Cohort 3, which took place at Project Farmhouse NYC. For future cohorts, four to six companies will be selected and receive mentorship as well as an in-kind value of up to $100,000 per company.

Food System 6
Applications Due: On a rolling basis

FS6 looks specifically for companies wanting to solve challenges in the food system, be it finding pesticide alternatives to reducing food waste and creating tools for regenerative agriculture. The four-month program takes place twice per year, all of which take place in the San Francisco Bay Area. A mix of for-profit and non-profit companies are selected to participate.

The chosen few (6 to 10 companies) receive training and mentorship, as well as opportunities to connect with partners and investors.