Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Guided cooking

Podcast: Is The Recipe Dead?

At last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit, celebrity chef Tyler Florence declared “the recipe is dead!”

There’s no doubt the recipe is changing with the arrival of new technologies, cooking methods and content formats, so we decided to have a conversation about this at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe. This episode of the Smart Kitchen Show features a panel conversation featuring the BBC’s LuLu Grimes, Hestan Cue’s Jon Jenkins and Dishq’s Kishan Vasani. The panel, which was moderated by YouTube star Katie Quinn, includes discussion about personalization, guided cooking, shoppable recipes and much more. It’s a great podcast so make sure to listen.

You can see hear more about the future of the recipe, food personalization, recipe commerce and much more at Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle. Use discount code PODCAST for 25% off tickets.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking play above, download it using this link or subscribe to the Smart Kitchen Show on Apple podcasts. For those who prefer to watch the panel, you can watch the video of the session from Smart Kitchen Summit Europe below.

SKS Europe: Personalized, Shoppable and Guided: Recipes Are Not Dead

AEG Rolling Out Smart Induction Cooktop and Wireless Sensor Probe At IFA

Electrolux’s AEG brand is rolling out a new smart cooking system in the form of a new induction cooktop (hob) with a wireless sensor probe at IFA next week.

The new AEG SenseCook system, which was first uncovered by design site Yanko, features what the company claims to be the first wireless and battery-less sensor probe for an induction cooktop. The SenseCook induction cooktop gets realtime temperature reading from the sensor probe and automatically adjusts temperature of the heating surface.

It’s an interesting move by Electrolux in that it’s the first time the European appliance giant is getting into smart surface cooking. The company’s early smart kitchen efforts (such as its partnership with Innit) have centered around cavity/oven cooking, but this marks the first effort to integrate smart cooking technology into the company’s induction cooktops.

The Electrolux/AEG news follows an announcement by Hestan Cue’s parent company, Meyer, in January at the Kitchen and Bath show of a new appliance range with built-in smart surface cooking. The Hestan smart appliance line and the AEG SenseCook system are a natural evolution from first generation smart cooking systems like that of the Hestan Cue, FirstBuild’s Paragon and the Cucianale that feature portable countertop induction burners. Longer term, I expect most appliance brands will build smart cooking intelligence into their larger cooktop appliances and AEG and Hestan are early indicators of that trend.

With IFA next week, I expect we’ll see a flurry of smart cooking news over the next few days, so stay tuned to the Spoon as we’ll be tracking all of it.

GE Launches New Microwave with Scan-to-Cook Technology

If your store-bought mac-n-cheese always comes out of the microwave molten on the outside but frozen on the inside, you might be interested in GE’s newest appliance, which the company announced today.

The GE Smart Countertop Microwave lets you use your smartphone to scan the barcode on food packaging. Heating instructions are then sent directly to the microwave complete with cooking times and power levels.

As the GE press release rightly points out, the average microwave has 10 power levels, but if you’re like me, you only use one, turning the microwave into a blunt instrument that nukes everything from pizza pockets to re-heated leftovers on full blast, the roof of my mouth be damned.

The GE Smart Countertop Microwave comes with 3,000 different frozen, refrigerated and shelf-stable items pre-programmed, and will be updated as time goes on. If you want to go more manual with GE’s new microwave, it’s also Alexa-enabled, so you can use voice commands to do things like stop the microwave or add more time.

This is the first scan-to-cook appliance for GE, who is playing a little catch up here, since Whirlpool debuted appliances with similar features more than a year ago. GE’s microwave is on sale for for a limited time and is coming bundled with an Echo Dot for $154.98, after that the MSRP is $139.

While limited to pre-packaged items with barcodes right now, scan-to-cook technology is a good example of the guided cooking trend we are following here at The Spoon. Appliance manufactures like Electrolux and LG are partnering with software startups like SideChef and Innit to not just heat your food, but also help you through the entire cooking process.

Even if what you are cooking is simply microwaveable mac-n-cheese.

Update: We were initially given the wrong price for the GE microwave. We have updated this post with the correct pricing.

Cookpad Launches OiCy to Connect Recipes and Appliances

Cookpad, the global recipe hosting site, today revealed OiCy, a new service that connects recipes with appliances to create a guided cooking system for smart kitchens.

OiCy (pronounced “oh-ee-shee”, which is a roughly translates to “おいしい,” the Japanese word for delicious), will take recipes uploaded to Cookpad’s site and turns them into a machine-readable format that connected appliances can understand.

So if you were trying to make a particular Cookpad spaghetti recipe, OiCy would pull data from the recipe, and “talk” to different connected appliances you might have in your kitchen and guide you each step of the way. Depending on the number and type of appliances you’d have, it would automatically boil your water, tell you when to add/remove pasta, dispense seasonings, etc..

But that type of full connected kitchen implementation is still a ways off. Right now, OiCy only works with a limited set of select recipes in Japanese, and the company has only just begun talking with appliance manufacturers in Japan about implementing the software into future versions of devices that wouldn’t come out until sometime next year.

You can see how OiCy works in this video showing off a prototype Japanese condiment dispenser that talks with a Cookpad recipe to create sauces necessary for that dish.

At the heart of the digital kitchen is the recipe, and Cookpad has 4.3 million of them from 68 countries and across 23 different languages. So translating that content into a machine readable format will give them a solid base for creating a wide ranging, global guided cooking system.

Translating recipes into a machine readable format, however, is no small task. Cookpad recipes are user generated, so there is no standardization around the way they are written, so data is all over the proverbial place. Cookpad is starting with Japanese recipes and the Japan appliance market because 55 million of it 90 million active user base is in Japan.

While Cookpad has the recipes, it’s playing catch up when it comes to appliance manufacturer relationships. Rival recipe sites such as Innit and SideChef have already formed relationships to integrate their guided cooking software into appliances from LG and Electrolux.

As it happens, I’ll be on-stage, moderating a panel with Miles Woodroffe, CTO of Cookpad at our Smart Kitchen Summit: Europe conference tomorrow. So I’ll be sure to ask him about OiCy’s roll out and role within Cookpad.

SideChef Integrates with Amazon Fresh for Shoppable Recipes

Guided cooking startup, SideChef, announced today that it will soon be facilitating shoppable recipes through a collaboration with Amazon Fresh.

Starting this August, SideChef users who are also Amazon Prime members and subscribe to Amazon Fresh will be able to get same-day or next-day delivery of ingredients from more than 5,000 recipes available in the SideChef app. This integration will be available to “major cities” across the U.S..

A SideChef spokesperson told me that when a user finds a recipe that they want to make, there will be a one-button experience to add all the ingredients to a shopping list in Amazon Fresh. From Amazon Fresh, users can edit the list if they already have certain ingredients and proceed with the checkout.

From the language used in the announcement, this doesn’t appear to be an official partnership between SideChef and Amazon. Instead they are referring to it as an “integrated collaboration.” Amazon Fresh has turned into a go-to vehicle to enable shoppable recipes. Fexy, AllRecipes and Whisk have all integrated similar ingredient purchasing options through Amazon in the past year. Perhaps Amazon’s patent for recipe-driven commerce has something to do with it.

We’ve been saying that the recipe is more important than ever and will become the center of the kitchen as it evolves to become a discovery and commerce platform. As Amazon, Walmart, Target and Albertsons all ramp up same-day delivery efforts, recipe providers like SideChef will be able to turn meal inspiration into (relatively) immediate action. Expect more shopping options to pop up on SideChef’s platform to enable customers to shop from their own favorite grocery brand.

This isn’t SideChef’s first foray into commerce, it has an existing collaboration with Chef’d to deliver meal kits based on hundreds of recipes in the SideChef app. SideChef has also been ramping up activity on the guided cooking side, integrating its software platform into LG and Sharp appliances.

If you’re curious about the future of shoppable recipes, you can learn all about them at our Smart Kitchen Summit in Dublin Ireland in June.

Company Behind Henckels Knives Takes 25% Stake in Smart Kitchen Startup Cuciniale

Zwilling, the company that owns the Henckels knife brand, is taking a 25.1 percent ownership stake in guided cooking startup, Cuciniale, the two companies announced today. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Cuciniale system uses a combination of induction cooktop, temperature sensor and app-delivered instructions to digitally assist people each step of the way through the cooking process.

Both Zwilling and Cuciniale are based in Germany, and the partnership will provide the literally centuries-old Zwilling with the technology to move beyond standard housewares and into the intelligent cooking space. At the same time, Cuciniale will get a boost from the global reach and brand recognition of Zwilling.

This deal isn’t the first partnership for Cuciniale. At the Eurocucina fair in Milan last month, Italian kitchen hood manufacturer Elica showed off a demo of a smart induction cooking system powered by Cuciniale’s technology.

As digital recipes become the center of the action in a connected kitchen, guided cooking will become increasingly important. Once you have all the ingredients, you’ll want to make sure everything is prepared correctly, which is where companies like Cuciniale come in.

But they aren’t the only ones. The Zwilling/Cuciniale announcement follows a number of partnerships between big brands and startups to deliver guided cooking to home kitchens. Whirlpool bought and integrated Yummly’s software platform into its devices. Electrolux will equip some of its home appliances with Innit’s cooking software. LG is adding both Innit and SideChef for similar integrations. And the smart cooking division of Meyer, Hestan Smart Cooking, has started injecting its cooking smarts into high-end appliances such as induction and gas cooktops.

Cuciniale launched in the U.S. as a Kickstarter campaign in 2016. That campaign was halted part way through when the company found a partner.

You can be sure I’ll be asking what this new Zwilling partnership means for Cuniciale when its CEO, Holger Henke is on stage with me at our Smart Kitchen Summit in Dublin on June 11. Get your ticket today to hear what he has to say, and to rub shoulders with all the important food tech players from around the world.

Guided Cooking Is Now A Resort Amenity

Want to learn how to cook on vacation? Now you can, courtesy of Hestan Cue and Vista Collina resort.

The guided cooking company recently hooked up with Vista Collina to offer the Cue as an amenity in all 39 of the Napa Valley resort’s suites. The Cues in-room go beyond off the shelf features with a customized flourish for guests of the resort:

“Inside your suite, the Hestan Cue Smart Cooking System, featuring instructional videos by the resort’s own Chef Vincent Lesage, stands ready to bring your ingredients–and Napa Valley dish–to life.”

The concept of offering cooking guidance customized for in-resort guests is interesting one. With the hospitality market facing increased competition from home-share platforms like Airbnb, resorts and hotels are looking for new ways to attract guests. By offering in-room cooking and cooking education with the Cue, resorts can entice guests who see cooking as a relaxation activity.

While I don’t think the Cue would be a good fit for the local Holiday or Hampton Inn, a Napa Valley resort seems like a logical place to road test the concept of guided-cooking-as-amenity since guests are likely to have ample leisure time and on the lookout for things to do.

The deal is also interesting in that it shows Hestan expanding into the leisure channel. Consumer markets often take time to develop due to the need for market education and long replacement cycles, so newer channels such as leisure or education (think cooking classes) could be a good place for forward-concept products in an early stage of the market. And by offering customization capabilities that feature a destination’s personality (such a resort’s in-house chef), Hestan Cue has shown itself as a platform for differentiated amenities for hotels and resorts looking to go beyond in-room Wi-Fi.

Guided Cooking Trend Continues Momentum In 2018

Two years ago at the Housewares Show in Chicago, I saw the emergence of a new trend called guided cooking. At the show, companies like Cuciniale, Oliso and Hestan Cue showed off early efforts to combine sensors, software, precision heating and content in an orchestrated experience that guides home cooks through the creation of a meal.

As I said of my effort to make salmon with the Hestan Cue, using a guided cooking system for the first time was something of a revelation:

“…this combination of the pan, burner and app and the guidance system they had built that really led me to see the possibilities around this new category. I am not a great cook by any stretch of the imagination, but I cooked one of the tastiest pieces of salmon I’ve ever had in about 20 minutes. The experience was enabled through technology, but the technology didn’t take me out of the experience of cooking. Further, I can see as I gain more confidence using a system like this, I can choose to “dial down” the guidance needed from the system to the point I am largely doing most of the cooking by myself (though I don’t know if I’d ever get rid of the automated temperature control, mostly because I’m lazy and it gives me instant “chef intuition).”

Fast forward a couple of years and the guided cooking trend continues to gain momentum. A number of companies talked up new guided cooking platforms at CES in January, from big appliance makers like Whirlpool and LG to big tech platform providers like Google and Amazon.

And at the Housewares show in Chicago this week, guided cooking was everywhere. Hestan Cue, now shipping, was on display this week in the Smart Home pavilion. iCuisine, a startup that utilizes a modular sensor to connect to everyday kitchen tools to a guided cooking app, had its own take on step-by-step cooking instruction. Vorwerk’s Thermomix showed off their all-in-one multicooker with built-in guidance and talked about the company’s online recipe platform, the Cookidoo.

Over at the Gourmia booth, the prolific maker of low-cost connected cooking devices showed off a variety of connected devices, including a Thermomix-like multicooker with built-in cooking guidance. The company’s head of product told me the Gourmia multicooker will eventually act as a smart kitchen hub that enables cross-device cooking orchestration with other Gourmia appliances. As I left the booth, celebrity chef Cat Cora was performing a cooking demo in the booth and talking about the concept of smart recipes.

Gourmia’s Thermomix clone (currently only available in Europe)

Chefman, another maker of low-cost connected cooking appliances, showed off its sous vide cooking app with newly integrated guided cooking capabilities at the show, and a company spokesperson told me the company plans to add guided cooking to all of their connected cooking appliances this year.

Meanwhile at SXSW (which annoyingly was at the same time as the Housewares Show this year), Innit announced the release of Google Assistant functionality within the Innit app they first demoed at CES. With Google Assistant, a home cook can navigate the Innit app’s guided cooking features via voice. According to company COO Josh Sigel, the release marks the first third party app which is completely controllable via Google Assistant.

Of course, like any new trend, there will be hits and misses as products roll out. Early reviews of the Tasty One Top have been somewhat subpar, while my experiences with some of the early Amazon video cooking skills have been hobbled by lack of YouTube integration and the early stage of cooking capabilities in their Alexa skill API.

All that said, I think we can expect lots more in the guided cooking space as 2018 unfolds. I saw a slew of products in Chicago under embargo that are slated for later this year that offer new approaches to guided cooking, and there will no doubt more guided cooking products being developed in stealth that should see the light of day at IFA and Smart Kitchen Summit.

Bottom line: what started as a trend a couple years ago is fast becoming a central theme for appliance makers big and small, making 2018 a big big year for guided cooking.

Podcast: The CES 2018 Smart Kitchen & Foodtech Wrapup Show

CES 2018 is in the books. It was a hectic week packed with smart kitchen news and showcases. Mike was on the floor in Las Vegas and reveals the big trends (voice activation everywhere!), the cool news stuff (guided cooking!), and the countertop dishwasher he calls “sexy.”

Take a listen for all the in-depth analysis you need. You can also subscribe to the Smart Kitchen Show in Apple Podcasts or download it here.

Whirlpool Smart Kitchen Announcements Include Cooking Automation And Yummly 2.0

Whirlpool is kicking off CES with a slew of smart kitchen announcements, including an update to the Yummly personalized recipe app, voice integration with Google Assistant and scan-to-cook guided cooking technology.

Whirlpool made a huge effort at CES 2017 to move further into the smart kitchen space, showing off a suite of connected appliances. Then, in May of last year, the company acquired recipe app startup Yummly and gained an entire community of users and a host of food content.

Whirlpool spent the rest of 2017 working on taking full advantage of the Yummly acquisition and is introducing the results of its work today at CES 2018. Among the brand’s many kitchen-related announcements, Whirlpool is launching Yummly 2.0, a new version of the recipe and cooking resources app that includes image recognition, meal scheduling features and an enhanced guided cooking experience when using Whirlpool connected appliances to cook.

Ingredient Recognition 

The next-gen Yummly app will include built-in image recognition software powered by machine learning to recognize multiple foods in one picture and dole out recipe recommendations based on what foods are shown. With a large database of food images, Yummly will continue to get better at identifying the food that users have on hand, using machine learning to evolve and grow its knowledge base.

In the Whirlpool mobile app, the company is launching the new Scan-to-Cook technology, a feature that allows users to scan a UPC barcode on frozen food packages and an existing set of instructions including temperature and cooking time for that particular food will be sent to the appliance. Scan-to-Cook setting can be customized to individual preferences if a food is preferred more or less cooked than the standard settings.

Guided Cooking Gets Better

For home chefs that have Whirlpool’s connected range or microwave, Yummly is now able to identify recipes that will work with those appliances and send cooking instructions to the device while following an interactive step-by-step tutorial in the app with images and video. While the user is instructed on what to chop, wash and prepare, the participating oven can be heating up and preparing a timer so it’s ready to go when they are. 

Starting in the spring of 2018, users will also be able to control their connected appliances straight through the Yummly app – a good sign that the brand plans to continue to invest in the platform as the center of their smart kitchen strategy in 2018.

Same Day Grocery Ordering 

Many smart appliances offer grocery list integrations, but Whirlpool takes it a step further in the Yummly app. The ingredients are categorized automatically in an attempt to make shopping easier (better than my Amazon Alexa grocery list which is just one giant list of things I may or may not have already bought) but even better – a new integration with Instacart means you can get the ingredients you need, delivered in about an hour.

Scheduling, Voice, Remote Start

The Yummly app lets users schedule their meals out for the week and let them know when it’s time to start cooking based on the scheduled desired eating time. And, like almost every other company at CES, Whirlpool is announcing integration with Google Assistant to be able to control connected appliances through voice command. Details on the integration weren’t provided but with Google pushing back at Amazon’s domination in voice assistants, it’s not surprising that they’re pursuing the kitchen as a space to gain mindshare. Additional features in the app lets families remotely start their appliances from outside the house to warm up the oven and get the kitchen ready for dinner.

For more #smartkitchen news at CES, follow @TheSpoonTech, @SmartKitchenCon and @michaelwolf for updates.

Hestan Introduces Cue Enabled Cooktop & Previews Precision Gas Cooking

Hestan Smart Cooking, the company behind the Hestan Cue guided cooking system, is introducing the first Hestan Cue powered cooktop this week at the Kitchen and Bath Show (KBIS) in Orlando, Florida. The new cooktop will be part of a new residential lineup from Hestan Smart Cooking’s parent company under the Hestan Indoor brand. The company also announced it would preview Cue-powered gas cooking in Orlando.

As you would expect, the new induction cooktop will work with the company’s Bluetooth enabled cookware and eliminate the need for a countertop induction burner. Long term, this move is a logical evolution from the company’s first generation product, which required the consumer to buy both a countertop burner and bluetooth-pan in a box, to one where the company’s bluetooth cookware will eventually work with a home’s built-in appliances.

In fact, when you step back and read this announcement with the broader Hestan and Meyer portfolio in mind, a bigger platform vision comes into focus:

  • Hestan, which has traditionally been the professional appliance brand within the Meyer stable of products, is now moving into high-end residential appliances.
  • The Hestan Cue moves from being a stand-alone product to a platform that powers built-in appliances. In talking to Christoph Milz, the managing director for Hestan Smart Cooking, this is only the first “Cue-powered” appliance. They expect to have more announcements this year, including with third-party appliance makers.
  • The Hestan brands are all part of Meyer, one of the world’s largest cookware companies.  If, as I assume, Stanley Cheng and company see a future where cookware and appliances connect and are powered by software to help consumers cook and make better food, it’s clear they are assembling the pieces to make this future a reality.
  • Working with gas broadens the appeal of the Cue platform and makes it potentially much more relevant in the US market, where gas still reigns. If the company’s technology can be built into gas stoves, that’s a nearly 4 million unit annual market in the US alone into which they can tap.

The move into gas also brings the story of the Hestan Cue full circle. The original team and technology behind the Hestan Cue began as a Seattle based startup named Meld, which had launched a smart retrofit stove knob that allowed users to control gas or electric stove with an app. When Meld was acquired, the company announced it would not ship the knob (they quickly refunded their Kickstarter backers). It was disappointing news at the time since the idea of precision-controlled gas cooking was pretty exciting. But now, it looks like precision gas cooking is coming, only as part of a broader platform-centric approach rather than the original retrofit knob concept.

When I asked Milz about what his company is doing is different from others in an increasingly competitive market for smart cooking platforms, one thing he pointed to the cookware. While a combination of content, software, and hardware is critical, Milz said that mastering the smart cookware piece is something no one else has done.

But, said Milz, the biggest differentiator, is their focus on the end result.

“We’ve always focused and communicated that we’ve built Cue from the ground up to guarantee a high-quality result on the plate. This is the biggest differentiator.”

BSH Acquires Controlling Interest in Kitchen Stories As Part Of ‘Connected Cooking’ Strategy

Late last month, BSH Home Appliances, the largest appliance manufacturer in Europe, announced it had acquired a controlling interest in Kitchen Stories, maker of video-rich cooking apps with step-by-step instructions and recipes.

The deal is yet another sign of how large appliance makers are moving quickly to transform themselves into content companies and connect their appliances to digital content platforms.

In the announcement, the two companies said they had plans to integrate Kitchen Stories content into BSH’s smart home connectivity app and platform, Home Connect. While initial integration will start with basic tasks like temperature setting for Bosch and Siemens appliances, more capabilities like guided cooking will be built into the app over time.

Kitchen Stories cofounder Verena Hubertz outlined the vision around integration with the Home Connect platforms:

“This investment will enable us to tap the connected kitchen market, and to help design the cooking of the future. We’ll develop solutions to help users in all aspects of the cooking process – from inspirations for recipes to added-value services. And we’ll be combining our own findings with those of BSH about what consumers want. That will enable us to reflect users’ expectations better, and to make Kitchen Stories even more attractive. Kitchen Stories will also soon be integrated into the Home Connect ecosystem, and will gradually be expanded with new applications.”

This deal is the latest in a string of moves by appliance companies to more deeply integrate their cooking hardware with cooking content as the kitchen becomes increasingly digital. Earlier this year Whirlpool acquired Yummly as the kitchen entered what Whirlpool exec Brett Dibkey described as a ‘transformation.’ A new crop of startups like Hestan Cue, ChefSteps, SideChef, and Innit have been busily creating a variety of products that create immersive guided cooking offerings that connect with cookware and appliances, and this summer the media startup Buzzfeed moved into guided cooking with the launch of its Tasty One Top.

The deal caps what has been a few years of fast growth for Kitchen Stories, an early entrant into the video-guided cooking app space alongside others like SideChef. According to the company, the Kitchen Stories app now has millions of users and has been released in 150 countries worldwide.

Another interesting aspect of the deal is it marks a successful exit for a women-led company.  Like many other tech segments, women have been under-represented in the smart kitchen, so hopefully the move is a sign of increasing momentum and encouragement for women-led startups in the space.

Lastly, the deal comes just over a month before CES, where big tech companies like Bosch often show off their latest products. I would expect to see the company at least showcasing Kitchen Stories early integration in Las Vegas.

You can see an interview with the two Kitchen Stories cofounders Verena Hubertz and Mengting Gao and BSH Chairman Karsten Ottenberg below:

Ten Questions for BSH and Kitchen Stories