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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Here Are Our Smart Kitchen Predictions for 2019

I used to think making predictions about consumer technology in the run-up to CES was a fool’s errand. After all, all it takes is one or two surprise announcements from a big player or ambitious startup to throw all of your assumptions for the coming year into question.

But my thinking about this has changed.  After the past couple CES’s, I’ve come to the conclusion that anything that comes out of the big consumer tech show almost invariably underscores trends we’ve already been observing rather than surprise us with entirely new ones.

So here, a week before the big show, are my smart kitchen predictions for 2019.

Big appliance Makers Get Into the Smart Oven Game

One of the big plans in my home for 2019 is a kitchen remodel.  Not surprisingly, I can’t wait to replace our old Amana oven from the 90s with a smart oven. The only problem? My wife wants a built-in oven and pretty much all the latest cutting-edge consumer ovens like the June and Brava are countertop appliances*.

The good news is that will soon change. Big appliance brands have all been investing in R&D to create new technology to power their next generation of appliances, and 2019 will be the year we’ll finally see built-in cooking appliances integrate smart features beyond just Wi-Fi. And it’s not just ovens. GE’s integration of the Hestan Cue technology is a sign surface cooking will get better and smarter too in 2019.

Now if I can only get my wife to hold off on the remodel for a few more months.

Microwaves Get Smart

In the world of kitchen tech, no appliance gets picked on more than the microwave. That’s because, for all its ubiquity, microwaves use tech developed during World War II to create results that are often less than perfect.

But the microwave as we know it is transforming, and it goes way beyond Amazon getting into the game. Startups like Markov are using AI to essentially create intelligent microwaves that can better steer their energy to heat with better precision, and big appliance brands like BSH are investigating microwaves with internal cameras to monitor cooking and adjust heating in realtime during a cooking session. Meanwhile, food companies like Conagra are also researching ways to create tailored heating algorithms for different frozen food product SKUs. Finally, I expect 2019 will be the year other big brands will join Miele in building home appliances with next-generation RF cooking technology that could essentially do away with traditional microwaves altogether.

Next-Gen Interfaces Are More Than Just Voice

At some point over the past year, voice assistants crossed the chasm from being “the future” to the everyday and commonplace.  And while the mainstreaming of voice assistants from Amazon and Google has meant hundreds of millions of devices installed in the field, I still think the future of consumer interfaces isn’t all spoken word.

So if every single interaction in the kitchen won’t start with a conversation with Alexa or Google, what will that mean?  As I’ve written before, projected touch screen interfaces are potential game-changers, and finally last year we saw a big appliance maker in BSH that seemed serious about bringing their projection interface (called PAI) to market.

Finally, while we’ve seen some plateauing of interest in chatbots as a control layer, I still think we’ll continue to see social and messenger integrations create interesting conversational interfaces in coming years, especially as Gen Z comes into their own as a consumer force.

The Kitchen Computer Isn’t Coming. It’s Already Here

A few years ago, word got out about a secret Amazon project called Kabinet in which the Seattle e-commerce giant was supposedly building a ‘kitchen computer’.  While the company never released a product called they referred to as an “kitchen computer”, my assumption has always been that the Echo Show was the result of this secret effort and could have easily have been called just that.

Now just a couple years later, the voice-enabled smart display has become one of tech’s biggest battlegrounds as Amazon, Google and even Facebook jockey for a space on our kitchen counters.  Because these devices are trojan horses for commerce and services sold into the home, these companies see the kitchen – the home’s central hub for most families – as the most desirable landing spot for these devices. In 2019, I expect these companies to continue investing into food and cooking-centric applications and to beef up their partner rosters (like Google’s hookup with Innit) in order to build these capabilities out further.

The Emergence of the Sentient Kitchen

Last month, I uncovered a Whirlpool patent for a computer vision system that would use machine learning to help it better understand behaviors within the kitchen and react to them. It was a fairly expansive and ambitious patent, one which told me Whirlpool sees AI as one of the key battlegrounds for the future of their space.

And the appliance giant isn’t alone.  Amazon has been working on anticipatory food delivery while startups like Icebox are building AI-powered systems that make sure you never run out of eggs. Add in some interesting research in areas like synthetic sensors and we’re seeing the foundations for the sentient kitchen being built before our eyes, where the kitchen and underlying systems become able to anticipate and react to the consumer’s needs.

Food-Driven Revenue Models Come Further Into Focus

While the appliance business has historically focused on selling metal boxes, 2019 will be the year many appliance brands adapt their business models to include recurring revenue through food sales (subscription and otherwise). Tovala and Nomiku have been working on home food delivery for a couple years, and over the past six months they were joined by the likes of Brava, June and ChefSteps. 2019 will also see big appliance brands move in this direction as well, and an early sign of this is LG’s Home Brew appliance, a home beer brew system with an accompanying subscription ingredient business.

2019 will see also see grocery and delivery platform players making focused efforts to partner with appliance brands. In broadband parlance, cooking appliances are essentially the “last mile” when it comes to food decisions, meaning those who control the cooking and food storage control, in many ways, consumer food spending.  Amazon knew this years ago (hence the “kitchen computer”) and others are just now waking up to the strategic importance of the connected kitchen.

There are my predictions for the smart kitchen in 2019, now let’s see what happens at CES next week to reinforce those thoughts (or blow them up).

If you’ll be at CES showing off some cool kitchen or foodtech, direct message via Twitter. We’ll have the entire Spoon team there reporting from the show. 

*The lone exception was the June built-in oven, but the startup essentially end-of-lifed that appliance when they launched the gen 2 June.

Amazon Patents Personalized Restaurant Suggestions. Could a Reservation Platform be Next?

Every year in the run-up to Mother’s Day, I usually remember – often too late – to make a reservation at a nice restaurant to take my children’s mom (who is also, not so coincidentally, my wife) out to brunch.

Now I know what you’re thinking: I should probably offload this activity to my kids (she is their mother, after all, not mine). But the reality is figuring out a good restaurant to make reservations at is a challenge that pops up for me throughout the year, which is why I was intrigued to stumble upon this patent issued today to Amazon for personalized restaurant suggestions.

The patent, entitled “Implicit occasion personalization for restaurants,” describes a system that makes highly-customized suggestions based on a contextual understanding of a person’s past behavior, friend and family network, and specific time-based events such as birthdays, anniversaries and, yes, spouse-specific holidays that demand attention as to avoid marital doghouses.

In one example described in the patent, the system would recognize that a person has an important event coming up in their life, either based on their own calendar or that of their family or friends, and suggest a reservation at a high-end restaurant:

“Perhaps the date (e.g., March 5th) is the birthday, anniversary, or other occasion that is personal to the user, the user’s family and/or the user’s friends. The service provider may leverage the user pattern to make recommendations to the user. In at least one example, the service provider may recommend a reservation at the high-end restaurant to the user on or before the date.”

And while the system described in the patent can certainly help suggest restaurants for important dining occasions, it also describes helping with the more mundane ones. One proposed example has the system recommending new pho restaurants based on similarities to other restaurants the user patronizes.

This isn’t the first time Amazon’s dabbled in preemptive restaurants suggestions. Earlier this year, The Spoon uncovered a patent from Amazon that described a system that would use contextual information to trigger a preemptive restaurant delivery order. With this new patent, it looks like Amazon is trying to corner the market on predictive recommendations around a person’s entire restaurant purchasing behavior, whether that be for dine-out or delivery.

Not only would it make sense to integrate these services with the online giant’s food delivery marketplace as well as with Alexa (“Alexa, can you tell me what I should do for dinner tonight?”), but I can also envision Amazon building out their own reservation platform and marketplace to take on fast-growing startups like Tock and Resy and well as industry goliath OpenTable.

The Spoon’s 2018 Food Tech Holiday Gift Guide: Crickets, Coffee, Connected Ovens and More!

We at The Spoon write about food tech and food gadgets all year long. So when it comes time for the holidays, we want you to spend your money wisely, which is why we’ve put together our 2018 Food Tech Holiday Gift Guide. These are our staff recommendations for food tech products worth buying that people will love.

This year, we tried to break the list out in a realistic, real world manner. We’ve categorized our picks based on what you’d get for a co-worker (think: Secret Santa), a friend, a family member and finally, what you’d splurge on for a significant other/spouse/partner or even yourself.

If you wind up getting one of these items, drop us a line and let us know what you think!

Happy holidays (and holiday shopping) from all of us at The Spoon!

Co-worker


Foodie Dice
Everyone needs a little inspiration for meal planning, which makes Foodie Dice ($24) a good all-around gift most people will appreciate. The set comes with five wooden “primary” dice that have protein, grain, herb and cooking-method options, as well as a mysterious “bonus” option, engraved on their surfaces. Four more dice feature veggies. According to the product description, there are 186,000 possible combinations which, if nothing else, will give cooking dinner a little shot of excitement. -Jenn


Manatea Infuser
Do you have one co-worker who’s never without his/her steaming cup of tea? This adorable manatea (get it?) tea infuser ($8) will brighten up their day and add a little spirit to their mug. In addition to being really cute and reasonably priced (especially compared to some of the high-tech tea contraptions out there), the infuser is also reusable, which means no more throwing out tea bags on the daily. Pair with a box of high-quality loose leaf tea for a coworker gift that you’ll actually see them use around the office. -Catherine


TRUFF Hot Sauce
OK. Yes. Fine. This isn’t any “tech” in this food. But try this once and you’ll swear it was invented by alien scientists from the future who wanted to craft the perfect hot sauce. Even Oprah named it one of her favorite things (which is too bad because that will probably make it harder to get). Truff is “a curated blend of ripe chili peppers, organic agave nectar, black truffle, and savory spices” that I’ve been slathering all over my pizza, mac-n-cheese, and just about everything else I’m eating. At $15, it’s a little pricey for hot sauce, but a steal when it comes to flavor. -Chris


Chocolate Crickets
While alternameats get all the press, there’s no question that bugs are going to be a big part of our protein future. You can help your burger-loving coworker make the bugs go down a little easier by adding a little chocolate and coffee flavor. Pick up a snack bag of these crunchy insects for $17.95, or splurge on a full pound for the bug-lover for $39.95. -Mike

Friend


Sudden Coffee Subscription Pack
Think of Sudden Coffee as an instant version of pour-over craft coffee. The company uses ethically sourced, top 1 percent beans, a special freeze-drying process, and a “secret method” to place the kind of coffee you’d get in a cafe into single-serve packs with a six-month shelf life. While there are multiple product options from which to choose, an eight-pack starter kit ($20 for a one-time purchase; $16 for a subscription) is pretty much a guaranteed win for coffee-drinking friends. Even the coffee snobs can get into this one. -Jenn


Bee’s Wrap Cheese Saver
It’s no secret that cheese can cost some serious cheddar. What you might not know is that cheese breathes like a living thing, and storing it in plastic wrap not only suffocates it, it also makes it taste like, well, plastic. Ideally, cheese should be stored wrapped in breathable paper like Bee’s Wrap ($18). Made from organic cotton and beeswax, Bee’s Wrap can be used to store a lot more than just cheese, but that’s my favorite way to use it. It’s also washable, reusable and compostable, so it cuts down on both food and plastic waste. Pair a pack of Bee’s Wrap with a few local cheeses and any cheese-loving friend will be happy. -Catherine


Dash Egg Cooker
Outside of the microwave, there is no kitchen device we use in our house more than this cute li’l egg cooker ($30). It’s not smart, it’s not connected, but it is a dead simple way to make half a dozen perfect hard boiled eggs, every time. No pots of water to boil. No timing to get just right. Just fill the included cup to the right level with water and pour it into the machine. Pierce your eggs, cover and 15 minutes later, voila! -Chris


“MiCURA” Craft Sake brewing kit
You know that mildly annoying (but still much-loved) friend who shows off their knowledge of sake every time you’re out for sushi? Time to show how much you appreciate them with a home sake brew kit. The “MiCURA” Craft Sake brewing kit is shipped from Japan with all the necessary ingredients to make real sake at home, including rice, yeast, and dried koji, the mold that powers the fermentation for this magical elixir.  It’s a bit on the pricey side (remember, you love this friend) at $188, but this will make the industrious sake-lover in your life very happy. -Mike

Family


Ember Coffee Mug
Ember had us all buzzing (literally and figuratively) around this time last year for their high-tech coffee mug that lets you regulate your drink’s temperature using an app. Yes, $80 and up is a lot of money to spend on a drinking vessel. But if you know someone in the habit of microwaving their drink multiple times a day to keep it warm, Ember might just be the gift for them. Plus, the company recently moved into the Apple store with an update to its app that lets users track their caffeine intake. -Jenn


Great Jones Cookware
Cookware may seem like a gift more practical than thoughtful, but I’m here to say that it can be both. If you have a family member that’s stocking a new kitchen (maybe their first?) or wants to get better at cooking, turn to Great Jones ($395). The company has been making waves lately by disrupting the cookware industry like Warby Parker disrupted glasses. Their pots and pans use high-quality materials and typically cost less than half of the cookware “royalty,” like Le Creuset. Plus they look really cool. -Catherine


Anova Nano
If you haven’t introduced your carnivorous friends to the magic of sous vide cooking — shame on you! But, all can be forgiven with the gift of the Anova Nano sous vide wand. This small but powerful device turns just about any pot of water into an elegant way to cook steaks (or almost anything, really) to a precise temperature. It talks to your phone so you can go about your business and get an alert when your food’s done. If you are cooking steak, after you’re done with the sous vide, give it a quick sear on ripping hot pan or grill, and you have tender, juicy meat that will be the star of any meal. It’s also just $75, so it won’t break the bank. -Chris


Tovala Gen 2
One of the questions asked this year at SKS was whether, in a world where great food can be ordered with a click of a button, kitchens will even be necessary in the future? While some may see this choice between a kitchen/non-kitchen future as divergent, smart kitchen startup Tovala asks why we can’t live in a world where both food delivery and good home cooking coexists? We’ve tried the Tovala Gen 2, and found that for $349 (or $249 when you order 100 meals in advance), you get both an auto-piloted cooking appliance and a powerful steam oven for aspiring chefs in one tidy little package. -Mike

SO/Yourself/Partner


NutriMill Harvest Grain Mill
Baking bread may be a known stress reliever, but those of us who do it often come up against a couple frustrations: store-bought flour sucks, but versatile grain machines are expensive and hard to find. Enter the NutriMill Harvest Grain Mill, a countertop device that will grind soft or hard wheat, oats, rice, and just about any other grains, as well ad dry beans and lentils. So you can make bread to your heart’s content but also cereals and soup ingredients. Each machine is made from sustainably sourced bamboo, which makes it a nice-looking addition to the countertop, too. And at $229, it’s relatively affordable, depending on how avid you are about baking. Sure, bread has a lousy reputation nowadays, but a device that makes it easier to get your hands on fresh flour and other grains might just help change that. -Jenn

Joule + JouleReady bags
At $179, ChefStep’s Joule is not the cheapest sous vide on the market (that honor goes to the Anova Nano). However, it recently launched Joule Ready, a line of sous vide-ready bags filled with sauces like Thai Green Curry and Salsa Chamoy. Just scan the bag with your Joule app, fill with your choice of protein and cook for a pretty-finished meal, just add starch. Together, the Joule + Joule Ready combo would enable anyone — confident home cook or no — to make top-notch meals in under an hour. -Catherine


June Oven
Listen. The June Oven is big and it is not cheap ($600). But it’s actually seven appliances in one (oven, toaster oven, dehydrator, air fryer, etc.). To be honest, I don’t even use most of the functions because it’s become my primary oven. From salmon to chicken to leftover pizza, the June’s camera recognizes what you put in it and pre-set cook programs do the work for you (with no pre-heating!). It has changed my relationship to cooking, and by that I mean I actually cook now instead of ordering in. Plus, as the June becomes more of a platform (see: Whole Foods integration), it will only get smarter and more useful. -Chris


The Pizzaiolo Smart Pizza Oven
Ok, so it’s expensive ($800!). But if you really love that pizza lover (or yourself), you might want to sell that tanking Apple stock or Bitcoin and buy your loved one a Breville Pizzaiolo pizza oven. The new Breville Pizzaiolo can not only cook a pizza in as fast as 90 seconds using its three-element heating technology that can reach up to 750 degrees, but it can also emulate all your favorite pizza styles (wood-fired, Chicago style, pan and more). -Mike

We’re Taking Our Food Tech Meetups on the Road to Los Angeles!

On November 27th we’re taking our food tech meetups on the road to the sunny Los Angeles area! We’re teaming up with hardware VC firm Make in L.A. for this a half-day event highlighting innovative makers, startups, and investors that are leveraging technology to shape our relationship with food. Here’s what we have in store:

  • Short talks and Q&A’s from the founders of Ordermark, Pathspot, and Kitchen United, plus a panel with all three companies on how they’re shaping the future of the restaurant.
  • The founder of Somabar will talk about how robots can help us live, eat, and drink better.
  • DishDivvy’s CEO will discuss how her company is democratizing home food businesses and bringing the sharing economy to dinner.
  • We’ll wrap things up with a VC panel on strategies for investing in companies disrupting food industries with leaders from Make in L.A., Upfront Ventures and Valley Oak Investments.

Oh, and there will be plenty of time for networking and lunch from a taco food truck, of course.

If you’re in the L.A. area and are interested in the food tech space we’d love to have you join us. The event will be from 10am-2pm  at MiLA’s innovation hub Toolbox LA in Chatsworth, CA. Registration is free thanks to our sponsors Fenwick & West and the Silicon Valley Bank. See you there!

Weekly Spoon: Kitchen Projection Interfaces, Amazon Drone Patent & Innit Nabs Arçelik

This is the post version of our weekly newsletter. If you’d like to get the weekly Spoon in your inbox, you can subscribe here.

If you go to lots of trade shows like me, you know it takes time for innovation to make its way from the show floor into our living rooms.

We’ve all seen this with technologies like virtual reality and 3D food printing; only after years of development and iteration cycles do we get to the point where a product is ready for prime time.

And then there are technologies like projection interfaces that – up until now at least – seem like they’re stuck in development stasis. The idea of a projectable, anywhere surface interface has been discussed for close to a decade in the research and academic community and started showing up on trade show floors about five years ago. Despite this, the concept never seemed to go beyond an occasional product demo.

So last year I started to wonder why exactly the technology hadn’t reached consumers yet. After all, with the likes of Whirlpool, IKEA, and Bosch showing off jaw-dropping demos, it only made sense this technology would find its way to market at some point.

While there’s no clear answer, I narrowed it down to a couple of factors. First, the reality is the technology still needed some refinement to make it both consumer-ready and affordable. Second, appliance vendors often wait for big-tech to take the first leap, and from what I could tell none of the big-tech 5 (Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon) seemed particularly active with projection interfaces.

But now, it looks like one big company is committing to bringing a projection interface to market. BSH Appliances showed off a new product concept called PAI at IFA in Berlin this past week. PAI is a movable projector interface that is designed to go on a countertop in a kitchen.

I’m excited that BSH looks to be serious about bringing PAI to market. While some see voice as the dominant user interface of the future, abysmal usage rates of Alexa skills for commerce have shown us that voice in itself isn’t enough.  Consumers are visual, and most things we do in the kitchen are multimodal. Because of this, I believe the dynamic projection interface could a vibrant area in UI development over the next decade.

BSH Appliances wasn’t the only one to make news at IFA last week. Sharp showed up in Berlin with a fridge that featured a built-in vacuum sealer, prompting Chris Albrecht to wonder what exactly types of features he would want in his next fridge.

Smart kitchen platform startup Innit had a strong showing at IFA, popping up in a number appliance OEM booths, including that of a new partner in Arçelik.  The Turkish appliance conglomerate behind the Beko and Grundig brands showed off an Innit integration to power guided cooking as part of its HomeWhiz smart home platform.

It wasn’t all IFA this week. This week the Spoon scooped yet another Amazon patent in which the Seattle tech giant shows an innovative new method for delivery drones to generate power while in transit by harnessing both wind and kinetic energy.
After the news of a $30 million funding round for Farmer’s Fridge, I’m looking forward to a panel at Smart Kitchen Summit on the future of lunch. We’ll be discussing how new technologies, business models and delivery formats are all colliding to change what we eat every day, including at work.  You can read Chris’s piece on Farmer’s Fridge, a startup we’ve been covering for the past year.

Speaking of Smart Kitchen Summit, we’re less than five weeks away from our flagship show exploring the future of food and cooking. We have an amazing program planned, and not only will we have executives from big appliance brands like Whirlpool, GE and more, but we’ll also have startups from the smart kitchen, food robotics, restaurant tech, retail and more to discuss and showcase how each of these industries are changing to disrupt the consumer meal journey.  Make sure to get your tickets now and use the discount code NEWSLETTER (You can also use this link which has the code already applied).

That’s it for now. Have a great rest of the week.

Mike

P.S. Make sure to tune into this weekend’s episode of the Smart Kitchen Show podcast, where I have a great conversation with the CEO of the startup behind what is arguably the most successful consumer food robot ever made. You won’t want to miss it!

In the 09/06/2018 edition:

Ordermark Raises $9.5 Million for its Online Order Management Tools

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 06, 2018 10:23 am
Ordermark, a startup that helps restaurants unify and organize online orders, today announced that it has closed a $9.5 million Series A led by Nosara Capital. This brings the total amount raised by the company to $12.6 million.

Nima Peanut Sensor Now Available, Gluten Sensor Selling at Select CVS Stores

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 06, 2018 06:00 am
It’s back-to-school time, which means my son is once again eating lunches in a cafeteria. I doubt his school is unique, but it actually has separate tables for kids who bring in peanut butter sandwiches.

With its own Grocery Delivery Service, Walmart Grabs More Data

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 05, 2018 04:00 pm
Walmart is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to getting you your groceries. As of today, that includes testing out its own delivery service (h/t Food Dive). The retailing giant announced a pilot program for its new last-mile delivery service, dubbed Spark Delivery, which will deliver groceries directly to customers’ front door.

For Goodr’s Jasmine Crowe, Blockchain Is a Key Piece to the Food Waste Puzzle

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 05, 2018 02:00 pm
Food waste is generating quite a lot of interest as of late; but one buzzword that might give “food waste” a run for its money is blockchain.

Innit Adds Arçelik To Growing List of Appliance Partners

By Michael Wolf on Sep 05, 2018 12:00 pm
The smart kitchen was everywhere this year at IFA, Europe’s big appliance and tech expo, and one company that seemed to be on everyone’s dance card was Innit.

Farmer’s Fridge Stocks up with $30M

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 05, 2018 10:54 am
Farmer’s Fridge, the company which makes vending machines that dispense healthy meals such as salads and protein bowls, today announced that it has raised a new $30 million round of funding led by Innovation Endeavors. This brings the total amount raised by the company to $40 million.

Seltzer? Sous Vide? Smart Apps? What Cool Things do you Want in a Fridge?

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 05, 2018 07:33 am
For those old enough to remember, there is an episode from season two of The Simpsons where Homer designs a car for the average American. The result, as you can imagine was a hodge-podge monstrosity that featured bubble domes, three horns, shag carpeting and cost $82,000.

Bear Flag Robotics Raises $3.5 Million for Autonomous Tractor Tech

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 04, 2018 10:00 am
The common refrain from robotics companies is that they help with manual, repetitive tasks. And when you run a farm, there are plenty of manual, repetitive tasks, and Bear Flag Robotics raised $3.5 million seed funding right before the holiday weekend to help agricultural workers out with them.

Amazon Patent Points to In-Flight Recharging For Delivery Drones

By Michael Wolf on Sep 04, 2018 06:54 am
Ever since Jeff Bezos teased the idea of drone deliveries on 60 Minutes in 2013, the tech world has been abuzz with the idea. At the time Bezos said that the reality of drone deliveries wasn’t there yet, but he thought it just might be in 4-5 years.

FoodPlus Sells Surplus Food (in Slovenia) so it Doesn’t go to Waste

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 04, 2018 06:00 am
Based in Slovenia, FoodPlus began in 2015 when co-founder Dalibor Matijevic began searching for a way to cut down on food waste by redistributing surplus food. He developed a B2B platform for companies to buy and sell extra food at a super low cost — creating a new revenue stream and keeping food out of landfills.

Food Tech News Roundup: Fungi Burgers, Pineapple Beer, and Chatbot Bartenders

Summer has descended upon us like a thick, laze-inducing haze. If you’re like us, all you want to do is head to the local pool and drink cool beverages out of our stainless steel straws.

Steamy weekends are not the time for more work, so we went ahead and rounded up some news-worthy food tech stories from around the web for your reading pleasure. Bonus: you can peruse while you’re lounging in air conditioning.

Bronx Brewery Beer Fights Produce Waste
On July 30th New York’s Bronx Brewery will release a beer made with repurposed food scraps. Called More To The Core, it’s a Kolsch style ale brewed with pineapple cores and skins, which are normally tossed into the trash and end up in landfills. This tasty, waste-y beer is a collaboration between Baldor Specialty Foods and The Bronx Brewery, and is available in their taproom.

 

Capital sprouts up for fungi-based meat company
This week Terramino Foods, a startup which uses fungi to make meat and seafood alternatives, raised $4.25 million in a seed funding round co-led by Collaborative Fund and True Ventures. In a press release, True Ventures indicated that Terramino Foods has already developed a plant-based salmon burger, and has plans to create alternatives to beef, chicken, and pork with its new capital. 

 

Costco partners with Zest Labs to optimize food supply chain
Wholesale giant Costco announced this week that it would start working with Zest Labs, a company which works in fresh food supply chain traceability. According to a press release, Costco is expecting this partnership to help modernize and optimize their fresh foods, reducing food waste up to 50%.

 

McDonald’s workers are short on soft skills
This week McDonald’s released the results of its Workplace Preparedness Study, which analyzed skill development across multiple age groups. The survey polled 6,200 people and discovered that many were missing soft skills, such as teamwork, customer service, and responsibility. We’ve addressed the restaurant labor shortage before on the Spoon, and have wondered if companies will pad their meager workforce with robots in coming years. But will robots have better soft skills than teenagers looking for a summer job? Or maybe the robots will take over the physically repetitive jobs, like food prep and dish running, freeing up people with soft skills to interact with customers.

 

Allrecipes & Tito’s vodka launch Barkeep, a chatbot ‘bartender’

Ready to get your drink on through Facebook? Allrecipes and Tito’s vodka got you covered. The recipe site is working with the Austin, TX craft vodka maker to launch a chatbot by the name of Barkeep using Facebook Messenger chatbot platform. After checking if the user is of legal drinking age, Barkeep suggests a few cocktails (using Tito’s, natch) and then walks the user through a conversation branch flow that has the user ultimately choose a cocktail recipe. Once a recipe is picked and the user is sent to Allrecipes, they can then order their some Tito’s or other liquor through Drizly. You can try Barkeep out for yourself here.

Did we miss anything? Tweet us @TheSpoonTech!

CrowdFooding Rebrands, Launches Food Tech Innovation Hub

When I was in London after SKS Europe a few weeks ago I got to take a sneak peek inside CrowdFooding’s new food innovation hub. Housed in trendy coworking space HuckleTree West in White City, the hub is meant to be an incubator for food tech and food CPG startups. It officially launched on June 28th, the same day it rebranded as Forward Fooding.

Essentially, Forward Fooding will act as a middle man between (relatively) new CPG companies and large corporations. “We want to be a bridge for smaller companies to sell to large food manufacturers,” explained Alessio D’Antino, co-founder and managing director of Forward Fooding.

So if Nestlé approaches Forward Fooding to find a new snack producer making use of trendy ingredients, Forward Fooding would put together a pitch series with relevant CPG companies in their innovation hub. If Nestlé selects any of the companies to work with, either through investment or acquisition, then Forward Fooding will charge the corporations what D’Antino calls a “success fee.” They don’t take any equity in the incubator companies.

D’Antino expects the hub startup members to consist of 80 percent CPG companies and 20 percent tech-related companies. Forward Fooding has received around 60 applications so far and will select 4-5 businesses to join the hub by September, rounding it out to 10-12 by the end of the year.

Companies that make the cut will get a reduced rate for membership to the Huckletree West space (and access to its amenities), attend events and bootcamps taught by Forward Fooding staff and its food partners, and get a foot in the door to pitch to large food companies.

D’Antino was clear that they are only looking for food startups with the capacity for high-volume production, preferably ones with a brand and marketing strategy already in place.  “We want someone who already established, who just needs a way to connect to large corporates,” specified D’Antino. Their target CPG startup is one with some name recognition that’s looking to shift from B2C to B2B. As an example, he named chickpea-snack company Hippeas and gourmet popcorn producer Proper Corn.

On the corporate side, his “ideal partner” would be “a large, family-owned corporation that’s entrepreneur-led.” D’Antino listed companies Barilla, Nestlé, and Mondelez as potential partners that have expressed interest in their hub; Forward Fooding also recently put together a pitch evening at Google featuring emerging food CPG companies.

They also want to make technology integration a key aspect of their incubator. In addition to Tech Bootcamps focused on digital marketing and upping online sales, D’Antino also named improved ecommerce websites, referral programs, digital marketing, and even VR integration as potential tech aspects. (Yes, the coworking space has a specialized VR studio.)

Some corporations, such as General Mills or Kraft, are trying to find innovative food startups on their own through accelerator programs. However, creating accelerator programs requires a lot of work: there’s R&D investment, startup handholding, and the risk that, at the end of the day, companies’ products just won’t be a good fit.

Forward Fooding hopes to provide the same level of discovery for big corporate players — without the work. “It’s a win-win,” said D’Antino. “This model takes some risk out of big companies’ investments, and helps startups get into bigger distribution channels.” He predicts that the incubation hub will act as a compliment to those big CPG accelerator programs.

Founded in 2014, Forward Fooding has 5 full-time employees and has a satellite office in San Francisco. They have plans to expand into Spain and other European countries, hoping to take advantage of its myriad of tech-enabled CPG startups.

BSH Appliances Teams With Techstars To Create Connected Kitchen Accelerator

BSH Home Appliances (BSH Hausgeräte GmbH) announced this week it 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.

While – as the name of the accelerator indicates – much of the focus will be on the kitchen, the company took pains to emphasize that the scope could be much broader than that.

“We didn’t want to be too closed on topic,” Tibor Kramer, the program’s manager, told me in a phone interview. He explained this was in part because they didn’t want to shut out interesting ideas that could help make a consumer’s life better.

But Kramer also made it clear that the main focus will be on the digital kitchen. The kitchen is the “heart of the home,” he said. “We at BSH, as a home appliance manufacturer, are quite focused on the kitchen and on kitchen appliances and cooking is the most creative process.”

The move by BSH into creating its own accelerator is part of a larger trend of established companies in the food, home and retail spaces trying to tap into new ideas and energy through the creation of an accelerator and incubator programs. BSH joins the likes of IKEA, Land O’Lakes and Chobani who have gone down this path, and will likely spur other appliance and houseware products to consider doing the same.

For BSH, the creation of their own accelerator could give them a leg up as appliance companies scramble to find new products and platforms to accelerate digital transformation. These companies are transitioning from a business largely centered around the one-time sale of non-connected, stand-alone products towards a future in which software-powered kitchens open up new opportunities for radically different business models.

“As a company focused on improving our customer’s quality of life, BSH is forging a path to be the leader in digital services for the connected kitchen,” said BSH Appliances CEO Karsten Ottenberg in the announcement.  “To be successful in this rapidly evolving space, it is important to continually expand our digital capabilities and align ourselves with the most innovative startups and technology – which we will achieve together with Techstars through this accelerator program.”

According to Kramer, while Techstars will mentor the cohort companies on how to build and scale a young company, the role of BSH – which owns a number of appliances brands such as Bosch, Siemens, Thermador, Gaggenau – will be as experts in the home appliance business.

“We will handpick our mentors from the Digital Business Unit (the new business unit where the accelerator will reside), as well as executives from BSH corporation that we think will give added value to the startups,” said Kramer. “We want to give them a good mentoring and connect them with the (BSH) network.”

The program will begin taking applications online on July 23rd and will notify those accepted in November.

BSH Appliances CEO Karsten Ottenberg will be at the Smart Kitchen Summit in October. If you’d like to hear him talk about transforming BSH towards the digital future, make sure to get early bird tickets today. 

Thoughts On Dublin: A Look Back At Smart Kitchen Summit Europe

We held the first Smart Kitchen Summit in an old cannery.

Part of the reason was it was affordable. Events are big investments, and we are in many ways a startup; when I founded SKS, it was just a crazy idea about getting the people who were working on the future of cooking and food together in the same place for a day and to start a conversation.

But to be honest, I also liked the idea of having an event about the future of cooking and the kitchen in a hundred-year-old building that had its roots in food. As nearly 300 people gathered between those exposed beams and brick walls to talk about the future back in November 2015,  we were reminded it’s necessary to be mindful of the past behaviors, traditions and cultures that have shaped our food experiences as we discussed how innovation will impact every aspect of the meal journey.

And so when we began planning to take SKS across the Atlantic, I thought what better place to hold our first European event than at Guinness Storehouse? The idea of talking about the future of food and drink in an iconic 20th-century brewery was exciting, but I also like the inherent tension of a place steeped in history while modernizing to create a better experience for the consumer.

In a way, it’s that tension between old and new that’s at the heart of the food tech and what makes it such an exciting space to explore, something we were reminded of last week in Dublin as the day unfolded.

The conversations, discussions and demonstrations made it clear that the future of food and the kitchen is still being established in diverse regions across Europe. Below are some key takeaways from the day – you can also check out some of the pictures from SKS Europe here.  And, if you’d like to connect with many of the same execs, make sure to attend our flagship event in Seattle on October 8-9th.

The Changing Meal Journey

“50 years ago, if you wanted to eat, you had to cook,” said the BBC’s LuLu Grimes on a panel discussing the reinvention of the recipe. “You don’t have to cook anymore.”

This is true. Whether it’s the abundance of food delivery options, more automated cooking technology or dining out, consumers today have many more options at their fingertips and will only have more in the future.

But what about using technology to get more of us into the kitchen? There was a general debate happening both on stage and over coffee on whether it was the job of technology to make cooking easier and more enjoyable or if tech could someday just take over the role of chef entirely. But the one question we kept revisiting was: how could innovation make cooking more approachable?

Chef Angela Malik at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe

According to chef Angela Malik, it’s by thinking more inclusively – we need to be making anything used for cooking or preparing food that can work with diverse ingredients and foods. Particularly in a region as diverse and varied as Europe, with a long list of cultures and traditions around food. Audiences will feel compelled and connected to an appliance or product that feels like it could fit into their lifestyle.

Other speakers felt the development of guided cooking will make preparing food at home less intimidating. Jon Jenkins of Hestan Smart Cooking talked about how the arrival of software and precision heating technologies will make cooking outcomes better, which ultimately will make people want to cook.

Personalization Will Drive The Kitchen Of The Future

Another recurring theme we heard during the day is new ways to create more personalized meal experiences are fast approaching.

Onlookers watch Tailor Made cocktail robot at SKS Europe opening reception

“Unearthing the right recipe for the right person at the right time is where technology is going,” said Kishan Vasani of Dishq.  Convenience is the end game, said Vasani, but with personalization at the center of it. Groups like FoodPairing and FlavorWiki are trying to capitalize on these trends by capturing data points about taste and flavor and creating algorithms that leverage data combined with personal preferences to create meals that have the right nutrition and the right flavors for you.

Food, Kitchen and Cooking Are Platform Opportunities

While big companies like Amazon and Google are creating broad horizontal platforms around AI, conversational interfaces and IoT, a number of companies see the unique and multi-varied nature of our relationship with food as an opportunity to create vertically focused platforms. Drop’s Ben Harris spoke about how the kitchen is the “heart of the home” and how they’ve built a company around focusing on the food making journey.  Innit’s Ankit Brahmbhatt spoke about how the beauty of the kitchen is it’s complicated and definitely not binary, which means there will never be just one solution to figure out the meal journey every day of the week.

Google’s Devvret Rishi, meanwhile, spoke about how Google has identified food as an important space and talked about how the company is working to find ways in which Google Assistant can be plugged into the meal journey.

Innovation Happening In Companies Big and Small

I always enjoy hearing about an entrepreneur’s journey, especially when it’s told with a little humor and lots of authenticity. Christian Lane recalled his roller coaster journey from the heady early days as the Dragon Den’s youngest-ever entrepreneur (19 years-old) to building the first prototype for what would eventually become Smarter with the last 90 pounds in his bank account after the crash of his first company.

Christian Lane talks about his entrepreneur journey into the smart kitchen

We also heard from the eight early-stage companies in our Startup Showcase. From AI-driven meal personalization apps like PlantJammer to hardware/food delivery service offerings like Mealhero, to the Showcase winning effort of Mitte which was focused on healthier & more efficient mineral water usage at home, it was inspiring to hear the stories of these driven innovators trying to bring change to the kitchen.

Whether its in a certain category or trying to create an entire ecosystem for the kitchen, innovation is not just small companies.  We heard from those responsible for driving change at Electrolux, BSH Appliances and V-Zug and how these companies are changing decades-old practices as they transition their business towards the digital kitchen. Mario Pieper who leads digital strategy at BSH Appliances (Bosch, Siemens, Gaggenau brands) talked about the importance of external *and* internal changes that must be addressed while legacy enterprise organizations work to keep up with the pace of disruption and the new players looking for partners and often times competition.

Similar to our first SKS in the U.S., kitchen appliance brands in Europe are eager to lead the conversation in the space, understanding the key role they play in the consumer kitchen but also recognizing the increasing role of digital content, connected platforms and grocery and home commerce brands. One startup founder during a networking break questioned why the larger grocery and retail chains were not on stage looking at how they plan to keep up with the future of food and the kitchen. “They aren’t sure what it means for them yet,” he remarked.

My guess is in the future they will be. Much like in Seattle and SKS Japan, I expect SKS Europe will continue to grow and incorporate more perspectives as we explore how the interlocking pieces across the entire food system recreate the meal journey. I hope to continue the conversation in Seattle and Japan and I hope you will join me.

Food Tech News Roundup: Ben & Jerry’s, Food Waste Snacks, and Target Takeovers

It may have been a short week (at least for some of us), but it still feels good to reach the weekend finish line. Let’s celebrate with some food tech news, shall we?

We’re still riding a high from the announcement of the FoodTech 25: twenty five companies we think are changing the way we grow, source, cook, eat, and think about food. But lots of other food innovation news popped up around the web as well! Here are a few of our favorite stories, from Ben & Jerry’s new sustainability initiative to BYO homebrewing packs.

Chobani incubator to focus on food tech
Lately, quite a few CPG brands have been launching food-related incubators — including Greek yogurt darling Chobani. This week Chobani announced new incubator program which will revolve around our favorite subject: foodtech. The Food Tech Residency will be the company’s fourth incubator initiative, and will run parallel to their original incubator class. They’re currently searching for startups involved in agtech, food safety, innovative packaging, and other areas to improve the food system. Once selected, participating companies will have access to all Chobani Incubator programming, including factory visits, mentorship, opportunities to pilot new products, and a chance to pitch for funding. They have three spots open, so if you’re an emerging food tech or agtech startup, get on it!

 

Tyson Foods rolls out snacks made of food waste
Poultry giant Tyson Foods has created a snack brand which makes “Protein Crisps” out of food waste such as chicken breast trim, spent grain from beer brewing, and excess vegetable purée from juicing. Dubbed “¡Yappah!,” the brand will be used as an umbrella under which Tyson will release other sustainable food products. Each individual 1.25-oz serving has 8+ grams of protein and is packaged in a recyclable aluminum can. The crisps launched on IndieGoGo on May 31st, and are available to back now with a projected ship date of July 2018. Clean meat, food delivery startups, and now food waste snacks? Tyson Foods continues to work to be on the cutting-edge of all emerging food innovation trends.

PicoBrew now offers DIY PicoPaks
Countertop homebrewing startup PicoBrew rolled out DIY PicoPaks this week via Kickstarter, an option that lets Pico users load up their own ingredients to make beer and fusion drinks. The new bring-your-own ingredients option – which will work with the new Pico U as well as the existing Pico Cs and Pico Pros – provides an option for those in the Pico community who have wanted brewing flexibility beyond want preconfigured PicoPaks allow. The reward bundle includes containers for both beer brewing and PicoPak minis to create “fusion drinks” at home such as kombucha or goldenmilk. Post-Kickstarter, it will be interesting to see if PicoBrew offers brewers a variety of DIY container bundles depending on their preferences and brewing frequency.

Three new Targets to open up in Seattle area in 2019 & 2020
Target will add three smaller, grocery-sized stores in the Seattle area over the next two years, according to the Seattle Times. These are in addition to their original urban format store, which opened in Seattle in 2012. Their new stores are designed to fit into dense cityscapes and will stock products tailored to the surrounding neighborhood. This, as well as their recent expansion into same-day delivery, smart home-powered replenishment service, and acquisition of Shipt, is another way that Target is trying to keep up with the shifting grocery game and fight against Amazon.

 

Photo: Ben & Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s works to offset their ice cream’s carbon footprint
Customers at Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop in London’s Soho neighborhood now have an opportunity to counterbalance the carbon footprint of their waffle cone of Cherry Garcia or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. For each purchase, Ben & Jerry’s will pay a penny to offset the carbon used to raise the cows, produce the ice cream, and ship it to the shop. Customers then have the option to donate a cent of their own and double the impact.

According to Forbes, the ice cream company is partnering with a not-for-profit who is helping them use blockchain to divide carbon credits — which are typically quite large — into smaller transactions which can link up to each ice cream purchase. They’re even developing an app to help customers keep track of their person carbon offsets.

 

Photo: Anova

Anova finally opens new Anova Kitchen
We’ve been monitoring the retail ambitions of sous vide specialist Anova closely, so we were intrigued to learn this past week that the company will finally open the Anova Kitchen for a sneak peek on June 6th. A company spokesperson told The Spoon that the new space will be used for events and will have some public-facing retail space, but that we shouldn’t expect the Anova Kitchen to be open to the public every day.  This contrasts with Brava, who plan to open a full time retail space early this summer.  Either way, we’re intrigued to check out the Anova’s new retail/event space. If you are too, make sure to RSVP for next week’s event and report back to us!

Did we miss anything? Tweet us @TheSpoonTech to let us know the best food tech news of the week!

Mucho Makes Shoppable Meal Planning More Dynamic & Efficient

“You do the cooking. We do the rest.” That’s the tagline of Mucho, a London-based startup which aims to create personalized, convenient meal plans that can be customized a whole slew of ways. And they really do take you pretty much ALLLLL the way through the meal journey.

Customers can use the Mucho app to select recipes based on dietary preferences (low sugar, vegetarian, etc.), budget, and how people they want to feed. The app then builds a customized shopping basket around the recipe(s), which users can either transfer into a printable shopping list or, if they’re in the U.K., they can also have their shopping list delivered through grocery delivery service Ocado. Users can also add on bits and pieces like cleaning products or snacks to their delivery list.

As of now, Mucho has over 1000 recipes in their database, culled from 40 online influencers and 20 brands — most of whom focus on healthy recipes. 

When I first heard of Mucho, I thought “Isn’t this just emeals, but British?” Both services offer personalized recipe selections, both create shopping lists, and both are linked up with grocery delivery companies so users can have their meals’ ingredients delivered straight to their door.

According to their cofounder Shanshan Xu, however, Mucho differs from emeals — and existing shoppable recipe services in general — quite a bit.

First of all, it’s more flexible. “We’ve found that people’s mood changes all the time,” said Xu. While emeals requires a subscription that locks users into a set number of dishes from the get-go, home cooks can use Mucho as much — or as little — as they’d like. They update their dietary profile and the number of people they’ll be cooking for every time they open up the app.

Emeals does allow their users switch between plans, but you can’t customize day-by-by. Which can be a hassle if you’re someone that, say, wants to eat vegan one week and flexitarian the next, or isn’t consistently dining with a partner or family. 

Mucho can also be cheaper — depending on how much you use it. Jenn Marsten reported for The Spoon that prices for emeals vary based on how long you choose to commit, but it costs $29.99 for three months or $59.99 for a full year, not including the cost of ingredients and grocery delivery. Mucho’s app is free to use, and if customers choose to have groceries delivered through the app they add a 5% fee to the final bill.

Do a little high school math, and we can determine that if you’re buying less than $1,200 in groceries per year, Mucho costs less than emeals. While $1,200 isn’t much at all to spend on groceries, especially for families, emeals also requires users to sign up for grocery delivery services (such as Amazon Prime or Instacart) separately, whereas Mucho builds Ocado delivery into the service. Xu told me that they’re hoping to soon shift the price burden away from the consumer and onto the grocery retailer.

To me, Mucho is a good option for people who want a more dynamic meal-planning service than emeals, but who need more hand-holding than is offered by shoppable recipes.

I’m betting the app will be popular with young, single folk (read: millennials) who want to cook more (and more adventurously), but also value the convenience of grocery delivery — and are willing to pay for it. Plus, Mucho’s bright, poppy graphics seem like they were made with this audience in mind.

Speaking of millennials, I tried the app myself; it was fun and easy to use, and while I couldn’t use the delivery capabilities (because I’m in the U.S.), I could definitely see myself incorporating Mucho into my grocery routine, especially when, as Xu reassured me, the delivery option comes over the pond.

The app has over 10,000 downloads so far. The Mucho cofounders put together money themselves to create the beta version of their app, and their roughly 10-person team is working to perfect their product before raising their seed round.

Pablos Holman Sees a Future Where We Print French Bread & Strawberries

While 3D food printing is still in its early stages, inventor/hacker Pablos Holman believes we’ll eventually live in a world where printers in our homes spit out complicated foods like French bread and even something resembling strawberries.

“This isn’t as weird as it sounds,” said Holman, who spends his days working in the lab at Intellectual Ventures, Nathan Myhrvold’s invention and research organization that has become one of the most prolific invention centers – as measured by patents filed and issued – in the world.

According to Holman, wheat and other materials within bread could be stored in “printer” cartridges and turned into bread at the push of a button.

“What a chef is doing is putting wheat through a complicated process to manage texture,” said Holman. “What my 3D printer would do is put down a pixel of wheat, hydrate with a needle, zap it with a laser to cook it, rinse and repeat for every pixel, and it’s going to print you a meal.”

While it’s weird to think of foods traditionally cooked by humans instead being printed on printers, Holman thinks this method is vastly superior to the one-sized-fits-all production method of traditional kitchens.

“The (3D printed) meal is customized and customized for you,” said Holman, who before working at Intellectual Ventures helped to start Jeff Bezos’ space travel company, Blue Origin. “It avoids your allergens, and dietary restrictions and injects your pharmaceuticals.”

In short, Holman believes 3D printed meals could be optimized for each person’s specific dietary requirements and taste profile. “Now we have a way of correlating your diet to health effects. If you have to get off of sodium, we’ll drop it by one milligram a day for months, and you’ll never feel it happen.”

“Unless you have a personal chef, it’s almost impossible for people to do that kind of thing right now,” Holman continued. “What we really want to do is have the computer to know what you ate, know what health effects you are experiencing are, know how to tune your meals so that they’re optimized for you.”

In Holman’s view, the biggest challenge to ushering in a world of personalized printed food will be managing texture. But, he believes, it’s a challenge that is hardly insurmountable: “When you think about what a chef is doing, they’re managing flavor, managing aroma, managing nutrition and they’re managing texture,” said Holman. “I can buy flavor in a bottle. I can buy aroma in a bottle. I can both nutrition in a bottle. What’s left is managing texture.”

And, as Holman sees it, developing 3D food printers that can create food textures that are pleasing to the human tongue is just another step forward on centuries-long creativity continuum that brought us food like French bread and pasta. “We learn new textures are the time,” he said. “God did not invent pasta or French bread. Those are inventions. Humans make those.”

Holman is not shy about sharing this view. Five years ago he went to Parma, Italy, the birthplace of pasta, to speak at Barilla headquarters where he “told a room of full of twelve hundred Italians that God did not invent pasta.”

While Holman hasn’t been invited back, Barilla may have gotten the message anyway: The world’s largest pasta company has since launched its own 3D pasta printer.

If you want to listen to the full conversation with Pablos Holman to hear his views on the evolution of 3D food printing, the development of Intellectual Ventures lab and more, you can download the podcast here, get it on Apple podcasts or just click play below.