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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

ice cream

Ben & Jerry’s Will Introduce a CBD Ice Cream, Surprising No One

Half Baked. Phish Food. Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler.

Ben & Jerry’s may have made plenty of flavors that sound like they’re infused with cannabis, but so far they’ve steered clear of actually putting pot in their pints.

But all that’s about to change. Today the Unilever-owned company announced plans to release a line of CBD ice cream — as soon as the non-hallucinogenic cannabinoid is approved by the FDA.

They might not have too long to wait. The FDA is holding a public hearing on CBD tomorrow, with a public comment period through early July. While it’s unlikely we’ll see any real regulatory change for a few months at least, the hearing is still a significant step in the direction of approving CBD as a food-safe ingredient.

Once that happens there will be a cascade of CPG companies scrambling to release their own line of CBD-infused products. Coca-Cola, Molson Coors, and others have already announced that they’re experimenting with the trendy ingredient. Other companies have kept quiet, but with the CBD market estimated to reach $16 billion by 2025, they’d be foolish not to at least look into ways to use it.

For Ben & Jerry’s, a move into CBD makes sense. It may be owned by Unilever now, but the company was started by two hippies from Vermont who make no secret of their affection for the Devil’s Lettuce. The brand still gives off that granola-crunching, liberal-leaning attitude. Ben & Jerry’s has also been on the forefront of other product innovation, embracing growing demand for plant-based and low-calorie ice creams, so it’s not surprising that they’re ready to experiment with a new buzzy ingredient.

But nothing’s going to happen until the FDA gives the industry the green light. Until then, we’ll have to settle in and wait — preferably with a pint of Half Baked.

Kickstarter: SVANKi is an Electrically Heated Ice Cream Scoop

I wonder if the Germans, who have a word for everything, have a word for “impatiently trying to scoop ice cream before it thaws so all you get is small little unsatisfying discs.”

While it isn’t German, SVANKi (inexplicably pronounced “Swanky”) is a word people who have those ice cream related problems might want to know. Now running a Kickstarter campaign, SVANKi is an electrically heated ice cream scoop that promises to cut through that rock hard rocky road to dish out perfectly round balls of Instagrammable bliss.

Let’s just get this out of the way, SVANKi is solving perhaps the most first world of first world problems — serving dessert. But if you love ice cream (like me) and are impatient (also like me), then SVANKi might actually be… useful?

SVANKi sits on a wireless charging station. Push a button and the SVANKi will, according to the Kickstarter campaign, heat up and maintain a temperature between 140 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit. The batteries are rechargeable and last a half hour when topped.

That Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream at the bottom of your freezer doesn’t stand a chance.

You can pick up a swanky SVANKi via Kickstarter for the low, low price of $39. That’s only twice as much as one that uses body heat to warm up. But that $39 is just for early backers. It looks like the retail price will be $89 for one SVANKi when it comes out next year.

But do you really need one? And by “you,” I mean “me.” I asked a couple of friends who bascially shot it down saying that if I needed a heated ice cream scoop I was eating too much ice cream, which, is probably true.

Sigh.

However, I could probably make a case that I could get forty bucks worth of use after a couple of holiday gatherings and kid’s birthday parties. But, given that limited use case, crowdfunding’s spotty record when it comes to hardware actually making it to market, and the fact that I could, you know, just wait a few minutes before scooping, there’s a different word I’m trying to avoid: “sucker.”

Dessert Meets Tech and It’s Love at First Bite

It’s February 14, which means sappy love songs, heart-shaped chocolate boxes, and . . . 3D printing?

As Michael Wolf predicted in his prescient post “10 Trends Shaping the Future of Cooking in 2018,” dessert-tech is a market that’s growing fast. From intelligent ovens that speed up the cookie-making process to a whole mess of ice cream innovation, we’ve rounded up some of the sweetest (sorry) pairings in dessert-tech for your V-day holiday pleasure.

Desserts On Demand:

Some chocolate made-to-order ice cream from Solo Gelato.

Solo Gelato

This Israeli-based startup is basically applying the Keurig system to desserts. Currently, their capsules containing ice cream mixture are quite a bit bigger than the coffee pods, though the two systems work in a very similar way: after the Solo Gelato capsules are inserted, the machine “freezes and expels air” into them. Sixty seconds later, out comes fresh gelato. The company’s website also boasts a cloud-based database and “state of the art mechanical and cooling solutions.” Solo Gelato currently boasts a lineup of 24 flavors, with offerings including sorbet, traditional ice cream, and even boozy treats for the 21+ crowd.

Churned-to-order ice cream made with the freezing power of liquid nitrogen has been around for a few years. However, bringing on-demand ice cream into your home, Solo Gelato is hoping to “disrupt the ice cream industry” in the very way that coffee pods disrupted the coffee industry. (Side question: to what extent have coffee pods really done that?)

Tigoût

Another dessert company piggybacking off the Keurig model is the Argentinian startup Tigoût—though really, they’re more like a souped-up Easy-Bake Oven. How it works: pop two capsules into their designated slots in the top of the machine (I’m assuming one is liquid and one is dry ingredients, but no details are given). In just a few minutes (again, no details on cook time are given) you get a freshly baked pastry. According to LinkedIn, the startup is preparing to launch a minimum viable product (MVP) and has a patent in process.

Tigoût also has an integrated app which allows you to order more pastry capsules, monitor your baking process and set alarms. As of now, Tigoût offers seven different types of dessert capsules ranging from chocolate fudge to a caramel “volcano.”

CHiP’s cookie oven promises fresh, homemade cookies in 10 minutes.

CHiP Cookie Oven

What if instead of having a warm, melty chocolate chip cookie in, say, an hour—taking into account the time to soften the butter, make the dough, shape it, and bake it—you could get your mitts on one in only 10 minutes? That’s the promise of CHiP, a smart oven that uses patent-pending convection cooking technology to speed up the cookie baking process.

For all the tech nerds out there, CHiP is also wifi-enabled and can integrate into your smart-home system. Customers can order cookie dough pods in a variety of flavors, including vegan and gluten-free options, which are clad in biodegradable parchment paper for easy insertion into the oven. Milk not included.

Less Sugar, Less Dairy

Healthier options are another big trend in the dessert-meets-tech sphere, especially when it comes to ice cream. Vegan, non-dairy, high-protein and low-sugar desserts are gaining popularity, as proven by the runaway success of HaloTop. The low-calorie treat, which became the No. 1 best-selling ice cream in U.S. grocery stores in 2017, and other ice cream brands are scrambling to cash in on the healthier trend. Plant-based desserts such as the coconut-based ice cream NadaMoo!, non-dairy Ben & Jerry’s, and a whole host of vegan ‘screams have been rising rapidly in popularity.

NadaMoo! is a coconut-based ice cream based in Austin, TX.

However, not all health-conscious ice creams come in pint form. Veru is a company that uses patent-protected flash-freezing technology to make ice pops that are low-calorie, additive free, and (apparently) still manage to taste good. They make use of our old friend liquid nitrogen to freeze their ice cream mixes to temperatures as low as -196 degrees Celsius in just seconds. This quick freeze allows them to preserve maximum flavor so that they can cut calories without sacrificing on taste.

3D Printing

Another pioneer in the frozen-dessert field is Pixsweet, an L.A.-based company that participated in the Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase last year. Pixsweet makes customizable, 3D-printed popsicles, so you can turn everything from brand logos to unicorns into edible pops.

The pop possibilities are endless!

Pastry chefs are another group embracing the edible 3D printing trend. One of the most popular, who has also become an internet darling, is Dinara Kasko, an architect-turned-pastry chef known across the web for her sculptural desserts (just check out her 555,000 Instagram followers). Kasko uses computer modeling software to make intricate molds, which she then 3D prints and uses to make her custom cakes. The popularity of her desserts and the customizable pops from Pixsweet suggest 3D printing might play a significant role in the future of dessert.

Dessert Meal Subscription Kits

It seems that no matter your lifestyle and dietary preference, there’s a meal kit for that. Now sweet lovers can sate their sugary cravings with Sweetbake, a food subscription service from Nestle (its first) that caters to those with a sweet tooth. For $35 per month, subscribers get two ready-to-bake kits—just add milk, butter, and eggs. At first glance, it’s like a fancier version of boxed brownies, only you get the added thrill of receiving mail. However, Sweetbake’s repertoire extends far beyond chocolate chip cookies; their kits have ingredients for everything from gingerbread biscotti to peppermint brownie cups.

One of sweetbake’s dessert subscription boxes.

They’re not the only company breaking into the dessert delivery kit sphere: companies foodstirs and SoBakeable also offer baking subscriptions. The latter even provides videos with recipes and baking tips for those who download the companion app.

What’s Next?

One dessert-meets-tech innovation we’d love to see at the Spoon is a home bean-to-bar chocolate-maker. As contributor Allen Weiner has pointed out, “the home chocolate market appears to be a large, untapped opportunity.” Tech entrepreneurs, smart kitchen gadget makers, and startup upstarts—we’ve got your next project ready for you.

Did we miss anyone doing exciting things in the dessert/tech field? Tell us in the comments!

VERU Is the Latest Company to Disrupt the Ice Cream Cone and Offer a Healthier Alternative

For nearly a century, Ice cream was barely touched in terms of technological innovation. In the last few years, however, we’ve seen 3D-printed ice pops, spray-dried yogurt powders, and popsicles that don’t melt.

Add cryogenics to that list. Verū, who’s been making some headlines recently, is using a patent-protected flash-freezing technology to make ice cream pops that are low-calorie and additive free but actually taste good.

As a general rule, the faster a food product can be frozen, the better it will taste. Verū’s technology—which it developed with a cryogenics company and the University of Berlin—uses liquid nitrogen to freeze its product down to as low as -196 degrees Celsius (about -321 Fahrenheit.) And it can do so in seconds.

A traditional ice cream mixture typically freezes at only around -6 degrees Celsius, and its freezing rate is much slower. To get a high-quality taste and texture, traditional ice cream makers have to add fat, sugar, and all those other additives to their products. By speeding up the freezing rate and dropping the temperature, Verū’s able to deliver a high-quality product that’s made so quickly it doesn’t need anything much besides the puréed fruit. (In case you wondered, the liquid nitrogen never comes into physical contact with the actual product.)

Right now,Verū serves serves mostly B2B customers like hotels, fine food stores, and catering companies. Of late it’s started to shift its focus from the technology side of things towards figuring out how to best bring its treats to market beyond Germany.

They’re not the first to try cryogenics on ice cream. A San Francisco-based company called Smitten has its own technology that’s controlled by algorithm to “deploy hazy gusts of liquid nitrogen that rapidly, precisely transform fresh ingredients into individual servings right before customers’ eyes.” Sub Zero, which also uses liquid nitrogen, started as a Utah couple’s side project and is now distributed internationally. Mini Melts has a long history of marrying science and frozen desserts, and will even deliver its cryogenically manufactured ice cream to your door. And lest we forget, Dippin’ Dots has been around since 1987, though this “ice cream of the future” is a actually more of a nostalgic item these days.

I think it’s safe to say this sudden wave of innovation in ice cream is a direct response to consumers’ desire to find healthier alternatives to more traditional options. There are a lot of considerations food producers have to take into account these days: lactose intolerance, vegan diets, growing concern about obesity, and even the simple desire to eat cleaner. Most of us will still partake in the occasional scoop of Ben and Jerry’s. That said, if technology continues to influence the world of frozen deserts, we may soon have a ton more options to satisfy a sweet tooth without consuming a day’s worth of sugar in the process.