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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Instant Pot

The Zega is A Pot That Keeps Cooking Even After You Turn Off the Stove

Do we really need another cooking pot for our food?

If you had asked me a week ago, I would have said we’re good. After all, there’s the Instant Pot, which has become my weeknight workhorse during the pandemic for cooking everything from stew to rice to dumplings. Then there’s the hero of the potluck, the slow cooker, still making us happy with meatballs and party dips after all these years.

But then I saw the Zega on Indiegogo and it had me wondering if I could fit another cooking pot into my life. Zega makes what it terms “walkaway cookware,” which is pretty much just what it describes: cookware you can start a meal in and leave it (or even take it with you).

The Zega uses a design similar to that of a Yeti mug or a Thermos — double-walled thermal insulation — which allows it to maintain a high temperature for a long period of time even after you take the device off the stove. You put your food in, heat it up, turn off the heat, and the food continues to cook.

Hence the “walkaway” label.

While my Instant Pot and crockpots cover me for pretty much any pot-based meal I want to cook, I was considering adding the Zega to the repertoire for a couple of reasons. First, it saves energy. Not having to have an appliance plugged in for a few hours while I cook just seems more efficient.

I also like the walkaway aspect. Whether you’re an adult with young kids or you just want to run errands while the evening meal is cooking, this idea makes sense to me.

The Zega comes in two styles: connected and analog. The actual Zega pot is the same cookware, and it’s the knob that determines if you have a connected or analog version. You can see how each looks below.

The Zega app asks you whether you have a connected or analog version and gives you specific instructions tailored for each. If you have an analog version, you’re instructed to cook food to a certain temperature using the analog knob (“cook over high heat until the temperature gauge reaches the red zone”). The connected version remotely monitors the cooking and will send you notifications when a meal is done.

Now of course, this is a product that is available via Indiegogo and, as with any crowdfund campaign, deserves all the usual caveats. But from what I can see, the product seems well on its way towards shipping.

Before they had sent the product to Indiegogo, the team raised $550,000 on equity crowdfunding platform Venturecrowd. In my view, raising money from investors to build out manufacturing capabilities and funding the initial production run is the right order of things. Hardware campaigns often go wrong when founders raise funds from backers who want a product and then realize they don’t have enough money to actually build out their manufacturing line.

The company’s Indiegogo campaign, which has raised $69,000 as of this writing, says the products will be manufactured in July and delivered to backers in August, all of which sounds right if you assume the company used its equity funding to lock in manufacturing and has it ready to go.

Will “walkaway cookware” become its own new category? Too soon to tell, but the founders hope so. In their investment prospectus on Venturecrowd, the company forecasts the Zega could hit $3 million in sales this year and $12 million by 2022.

We’ll see. For now, I just hope they ship since I ended up backing the product, which is saying a lot from a guy who’s gotten pretty jaded at this point with hardware crowdfunding (hello, Spinn).

You can watch the Zega intro reel below:

Zega Intelligent Cookware

Here’s How People Are Using Their Instant Pots During Quarantine

By now we’ve all read about how people have changed their eating and cooking habits during the quarantine. But how exactly are they using their Instant Pots, arguably the runaway countertop cooking success story of the last few years, and the first cooking gadget many millennials ever purchased on their own?

To find out, I decided to check in with the maker of the Instant Pot appliance and they shared some data on exactly how people are using their multicookers ever since the pandemic forced the entire world to stay home and start cooking.

One of the big things that changed is the cyclicality of the normal cooking week. In a typical non-pandemic week, Sunday is the biggest day for Instant Pot by a substantial margin, with 25% off all cooking activity occurring on the day of rest.

During quarantine, cooking days have become more evenly distributed as people are home pretty much all the time and Sunday only accounts for 17% of cooking activity. Conversely, Friday, which normally represents the weekly cooking activity nadir, has jumped from 9% of all cooking activity to 13% during the quarantine.

Apparently you can make bread with your Instant Pot (who knew?), and just like with pretty much every other cooking device, the multifunction cooker has seen a sharp increase in loavemaking. The chart above shows how total searches for bread recipes jumped 700% right as the US went into social distancing in early March. Interestingly, this increase is almost identical to the 800% jump in breadmaker sales that happened at the same time.

The search for comfort has also been well-documented. That embrace of more carb-centric food has meant a significant drop in vegan and vegetarian diets, where searches dropped 82% by the week after social distancing had been announced.

And it wasn’t just plant-forward diets that took a hit during coronavirus, as Keto-centric recipes saw a 70% drop in the searches in the same time period.

The big question is will all of these forced changes brought on by the jarring impact of a forced quarantine stick around? My guess is some of the behavior change will have some staying power beyond summer as consumers adjust to lower overall incomes and continue to cook at home more as they head back to work (even at reduced or moderated schedules), but that we will see (and already are seeing) some partial snap-backs to behaviors and routines that were in place before the quarantine.

With Consumers in Quarantine, Connected Cooking Companies Spring Into Action With Tailored Content

With a good chunk of the world’s population currently in quarantine, most of us are cooking at home a lot more nowadays.

Along with all this home cooking has come a massive spike in demand for information for culinary how-to, ranging from recipe suggestions to tutorials on how to do everything from making rice to baking bread. While many are simply searching Google for recipes, others are settling in to learn cooking skills to help them learn to get food on the table.

This sudden hunger for cooking-related guidance has led some tech-forward cooking startups to ramp up the content as they look to both satiate newfound interest in cooking skills while also giving quarantine bound consumers something to do with their time.

Here are a few ways in which kitchen tech startups have ramped up their efforts to serve homebound consumers:

Hestan Cue

While the Hestan Cue already walks users through recipes with step by step instructions, the guided cooking startup has launched Hestan Cue Cooking School, a series of virtual classes to help users of the connected cooking platform build up on their cooking skills during quarantine.

Built with the virtual class platform Teachable, the initial classes cover techniques for cooking beef, eggs and vegetables. The cool thing is that while the classes suggest you use your Cue for certain steps, you can use the classes even if you don’t have the Hestan device.

According to Hestan Smart Cooking managing director John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen, about one third of the Hestan Cue users have signed up for courses.

Anova

Sous vide specialist Anova has always been active in creating cooking content for their user community, and over the past month they’ve gone quarantine cooking focused by creating content to help consumers with everything from making pantry staples to batch cooking. And for the parents with bored kids, Anova suggests enlisting them to help with the brisket.

Thermomix

Thermomix is known for its in-person sales model for the high-end multicooker, but in the age of COVID-19 they’ve gone virtual with a “quarantine kitchen” series of cooking demos and are also allowing potential customers to book online cooking demos with the TM6 sales team.

You can see one of their latest episodes of their quarantine kitchen series below:

SideChef

SideChef is also ramping up its quarantine specific content. In early March they created a quarantine cooking recipe collection. A month later, and with virtual happy hours firmly planted in the stay-at-home zeitgeist, they’ve created a guide for virtual dinner parties.

Instant Pot

The massively popular pressure cooker is famous for leaning on its Facebook community to create content for them. Still, the company seems to have recognized our new shared reality and is letting people know that Instant Pots can help you cook bread while you’re cooped up during quarantine.

Food Network Kitchen

While the Food Network Kitchen app doesn’t seem to have created any tailored content for quarantine bound consumers, they have seen a big jump in usage and consumers look for more ways to cook. Company spokesperson Irika Slavin told me via email that Foodnetwork.com has seen “double digit increases” in page views and the Food Network App, the guided cooking premium offering launched in October, has seen what Slavin describes as a “triple digit increase” in visitors.

ckbk

ckbk is a ‘Spotify for cookbooks’ app that puts pretty much any cookbook or recipe just a click away.

Since ckbk only offers access to existing cookbooks, the company isn’t creating any quarantine specific content, but they do have a good idea of what people are cooking. Company founder Matthew Cockerill told me he’s noticed most of his subscribers, and the world in general, seem to be moving in sync over the past month through what he calls the ‘seven stages of cooking grief.’

“So first of all it was about the prepping – stockpiling durable good – beans and pasta,” said Cockerill. “Then came the “staff of life” basics bread and baking. And after that, I think, there’s a need for some comfort, yes, but also some relief from the monotony. Which is where I think chocolate and dessert cravings are kicking in. It’s either that or alcohol. And in many cases both!”

“Lastly,” he continued, “we’ve also seen a trend of interest in ways to use the new found time which people see stretching out ahead of them, with longer-term projects” like baking bread.

Cockerill told me that new subscriptions are up 250% over pre-COVID times. If you want to cook your way through grief, the company is giving away 30 days free access to their app to help you cook through your pantry items.

Food Tech News: Califia Farms Raises $225M, Tyson Instant Pot Kits and Corn Fiber Chocolate

After a week of frigid winds and school closures in the PNW, we at the Spoon are looking forward to a long weekend. Hopefully you have a break too.

But before you start queuing up a Netflix series to binge, catch up on our latest food tech news roundup. We’ve got stories on Tyson’s new Instant Pot meal kits, a patent to reduce the sugar in chocolate, and a massive fundraise for plant-based dairy. Enjoy!

Tyson rolls out Instant Pot Kits
This week Tyson and Instant Pot announced their new speedy-cook collaboration: Tyson Instant Pot Kits. The kits contain prepped ingredients, including Tyson chicken. You dump all the ingredients into an Instant Pot and the meal is ready to serve in 20 minutes. Tyson Instant Pot Kits are currently available at select retailers and will roll out nationwide this spring. Pricing has not been disclosed.

Mondelez patents tech to reduce sugar in chocolate
If you’re trying to cut down on sugar in the new year, we might have good news for you. Mondelez has patented a process to reduce the sugar content in chocolate by up to 50 percent (h/t GroceryDive). The new technology uses soluble corn fiber as a stand-in for sugar, and apparently does not significantly affect chocolate’s sweet taste or physical appearance. Mondelez owns brands Cadbury, Toblerone, Chip’s Ahoy and more, so we could see reduced-sugar chocolate popping up in those products sometime soon.

Califia Farms raises $225 million Series D
Plant-based food & bev company Califia Farms announced this week that it had completed $225 million in Series D financing. The round was led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) with participation from Temasek, Claridge, Green Monday Ventures, and more. This brings the company’s total funding to a whopping $340 million. Founded in 2010, Califia Farms is known for its dairy-free milks, yogurts, and cold-brew coffee blends. The company will use the new capital to build on its popular oat-based platform, increase production, and ramp up global expansion.

The 2019 Kitchen Technology Year in Review

2019 was an action-packed year in world of food tech. Among other things, we saw an explosion in new products that promise to change what we eat, rapid change in food delivery models, and something of a slow motion food robot uprising.

The consumer kitchen also saw significant change, even if things didn’t move as fast as some would hope. As we close out the year, I thought I’d take a look back at the past twelve months in the future kitchen.

It’s An Instant Pot and Air Fryer World and We’re Just Living In It

Here’s an experiment: Next time you’re making cocktail-party conversation, ask someone about their most recent cooking gadget purchase for the home. Chances are its either an Instant Pot or an air fryer.

The above chart shows why this should come as no surprise, as it plots consumer interest in the Instant Pot and air fryer categories (as determined by Google searches) over the past five years. It also shows the seasonality of that interest (both spike during the holidays) and how air fryers have closed the gap with Instant Pot.

Regardless of how the two products perform relative to one another, the big takeaway is that the Instant Pot/pressure cooker and air fryer represent the two breakaway categories in countertop cooking over the past few years, and that trend continued strong in 2019.

Why? Because both products give consumers lots of cooking power to create a variety of meals at a low entry price point. Add in what are large and vibrant online recipe communities for both product categories, and you can see why both only became more popular in 2019.

Next-Gen Cooking Concepts See Mixed Results

Outside of pressure cookers and air fryers, 2019 was a decidedly mixed bag of results for next-gen countertop cooking concepts. June and Tovala both plugged along selling their second generation ovens, Suvie started shipping its four-chamber cooking robot and Brava’s “cook with light” oven tech sold to Middleby. But unlike the air fryer and Instant Pot, none of these new products have gone viral.

Why?

First, most of these products are fairly expensive, often coming in at $300 or above. That’s probably too high to convince enough consumers to take a chance on a new product in a new product category they don’t know much about.

Second, consumers need to better understand these new products. While I don’t expect Thermomix to replicate the success they’ve found with direct-sales in Europe in North America, there’s a reason such a premium priced product has succeeded in Europe: it has made consumer education and evangelism core to the business model.

Finally, the market has yet to see a product with just the right mix of new technology and high-value user-focused features that supercharges consumer interest. That said, there are some new products like Anova’s steam oven or the Miele Dialog’s solid state cooking (I’m told most big appliance makers are working on a similar product) that could potentially capture the imagination of consumers.

Large Appliance-Makers Continue to Dabble in Innovation

So here’s what some of the big appliance brands with resources did in 2019: Whirlpool came out of the gate fast with a lineup of new smart cooking appliances at CES 2019, including a pretty cool modular smart oven concept in the SmartOven+. Electrolux launched a new Drop-powered blender and partnered with Smarter to add machine vision and connected commerce features to its smart fridge camera platform. Turkish appliance giant Arcelik debuted a combo cooking and washing product concept under the Grundig brand.

Overall though, it wasn’t a big year for appliance-makers on the innovation front. Many of us waited for these companies to launch some of their more promising technologies, like Miele’s Dialog or BSH Appliances Pai interface, but neither effort seemed to move forward much, at least in any public way, in 2019.

A Sputtering Consumer Sous Vide Market

It was a bad year for those who make sous vide gear. In mid-year we learned that ChefSteps, maker of the Joule sous vide circulator, would be laying off a significant amount of the team after they ran into money problems. And, just a little over a week ago, one of the first consumer sous vide startups in Nomiku announced it would be shutting its doors.

Why did the consumer sous vide market lose steam? My guess the primary reason is because sous vide cooking is just too slow as an everyday or multiple-time-per-week cooking method. While some like Nomiku wanted to position the sous vide as a replacement for the microwave, it just isn’t convenient enough and requires too many steps for culinary average joes accustomed to the push-button cooking of the microwave. The reality is over time many sous vide circulators ended up stuck in the kitchen drawer.

Software Powers The Meal

At Smart Kitchen Summit 2017, Jon Jenkins said we will all someday “eat software” as it becomes more important in how we create food in the kitchen. Evidence of this was everywhere in 2019 as companies rolled out new software features to do things like cook plant-based meat to companies like Thermomix and Instant Brands betting big on software for the future.

We also saw kitchen-centric software players like SideChef, Drop and Innit loaded up on more partnerships with appliance and food brands to better tie together the meal journey, while Samsung NEXT acquired a digital recipe and shopping commerce platform in Whisk.

In short, it’s fairly obvious that for a kitchen appliance brand to survive, it’s becoming table stakes to have something of an evolved software strategy.

Amazon Continues Its Push Into Kitchen

If there’s been one takeaway from watching Amazon over the past few years, it’s that they see the food and the kitchen as an important strategic battleground. This past year did nothing to dispel this belief as the company introduced their own smart oven and continued to file weird food-related patents. Amazon also pushed forward with new delivery concepts for the home that bring together the different parts of the Amazon portfolio (voice ordering, smart home, grocery and more).

Grocery Delivery Space Race

Amazon wasn’t the only one looking to connect the smart home to grocery delivery this year. Walmart also debuted a new in-fridge delivery service called InHome. Meanwhile both companies and big grocery conglomerates like Kroger continue to invest in robotics and home delivery.

The reason for this growing interest in innovative home delivery concepts is pretty simple: more and more consumers are shopping online for groceries. Big platform players like Amazon and Google see a massive new opportunity, while established grocery players are forced to innovate to play defense.

No One Has Recreated The Success of the Keurig Model (Yet)

While much of the early focus for new kitchen startups has been on copying the Keurig model of pairing a piece of kitchen hardware with a robust consumer consumables business, unfortunately none have really been able to emulate the model for food products. There’s been no shortage of cocktail making robots, coffee, 3D food printing, chai tea and others attracted the the concept of recurring revenue that food sales bring, but as we’ve seen it’s hard to emulate the pod model approach.

Some, like Tovala, look to have had some limited success on pairing cooking hardware with food delivery, while others like Brava, Nomiku and ChefSteps weren’t able to create sustainable models. Genie and Kitchenmate are making a go of it in the office environment, while Level couldn’t and had to shut its doors earlier this year.

I expect kitchen hardware entrepreneurs to try to continue to pair food sales with products, but I expect that it will be tough sailing unless the company land upon very compelling, easy-to-use solution that turnkeys the cooking solution.

Cooking Media: A Peloton For The Kitchen Emerges

Forget Buzzfeed Tasty quick-play cooking videos. In 2019, we saw the emergence of other players providing deeper, more personalized cooking guidance that emulates what Peloton or Mirror have done with home-fitness instruction. Food Network made the biggest splash with its Food Network Kitchen concept while others like FET Kitchen are creating their own hardware platforms.

For Buzzfeed’s part, they haven’t given up on Tasty quite yet. Instead, they partnered up with Amazon to push their recipes onto the Echo Show, complete with step-by-step guidance. The combo creates essentially what is a fairly quick and easy guided cooking product.

Food Waste Reduction Comes Into Focus — Everywhere But The Home

If any place is lacking in innovation when it comes to reducing the amount of food we throw away, it’s the consumer kitchen. Sure, some startups are trying to rethink how we approach cooking by helping us to work with the food we have, while others are rethinking the idea of food storage, but innovation in home food waste reduction is lacking when compared to what we are seeing in restaurants and CPG fronts. We hope this changes in 2020.

True Home Cooking Robots Remained A Futuristic Vision in 2019

While single-function taskers like the Rotimatic did significant volume and others like Suvie positioned itself as a “cooking robot” for the home, the reality is we saw no significant progress towards a true multifunction consumer cooking robot. Companies like Sony see the opportunity to create a true home cooking robot, but for now food robots remain primarily the domain of restaurants, grocery and delivery.

Bottom line: It was an exciting year in the connected kitchen and we expect 2020 to be even more exciting. Stay tuned next week for my outlook on what to expect!

Instant Pot and Drop Partner for New Guided Cooking Recipe App

Instant Brands, the company behind the Instant Pot, and Drop, which makes smart kitchen software, today announced that the they have developed and launched a new Instant Pot recipe app.

Available for both Android and iOS, the new Instant Pot recipe app will feature roughly 1,000 recipes for Instant Brand appliances such as the Instant Vortex Air Fryer, Instant Ace Blender, and, of course, the full line of Instant Pot pressure cookers. The app will include step-by-step guided cooking recipes powered by Drop that adjust accordingly based on the number of people being served as well as ingredient substitutions.

One Drop feature this new Instant Pot will not have is device control. So while the Instant Pot app will walk you through the steps of making a particular recipe, it won’t allow you to, say, automatically turn on an Instant Pot from the app’s recipe. (Being at the device itself is probably a good idea for something like controlling a blender.)

Powering the Instant Pot app is another nice feather in the cap for Drop. The company announced an integration with Thermomix, another popular standalone appliance, last month. Drop also has deals with Bosch, Electrolux, GE Appliances, and LG Electronics using its software, the Instant Pot has a massive installed base of millions of appliance owners. Those appliance owners are also vociferous in Facebook groups, so if the Instant Pot app works well (or doesn’t), believe me that community won’t be shy about sharing their experience online.

The new Instant Pot recipe app launches today, those using the older version of the app will be migrated to this newer version.

J-Lo and A-Rod Get Behind Tiller & Hatch’s Pressure Cooker Meal Kits

Don’t be fooled by that box that you got, it’s just food from (food from) Jenny on the block. Kinda. Tiller & Hatch Supply Co., which is “backed” by Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez, announced today the launch of its new line of frozen meals, which will be available nationwide online and in-stores at Walmart.

While the bling-y nature of its celebrity backers may be attention-grabbing, what caught our eye how Tiller & Hatch’s meals actually work. The company offers a number of different menus including Farfalle with Marinara and Ground Turkey, Coconut Chicken Stew with Vegetables and Rice, and Santa Fe Style Pasta with Chicken Breast. All are shipped frozen and meant to be re-heated in an electric pressure cooker.

While they don’t mention the brand specifically, it seems like an obvious play to reach Instant Pot’s massive installed base. Given that device’s rabid audience, Tiller & Hatch’s approach isn’t a dumb idea. Whether or not it’s enough to sustain an entire business though, is another matter altogether.

Tiller & Hatch isn’t the only meal service targeting pressure cookers. Up in Canada, Presto has been selling frozen meals for pressure cookers over the past year, though they sell their food for $10 a serving. Tiller & Hatch says its meals are roughly $4 a serving.

In addition to the pressure cooker angle, Tiller & Hatch’s go-to market also highlights how frozen food continues to experience its renaissance. No longer just aluminum trays of Salisbury steak and peas, frozen food sales are up two percent over the past decade thanks to millennials’ love of convenience and companies like AquaStar, Buttermilk and Daily Harvest re-thinking what goes into frozen fare.

Then there is the celebrity angle of J-Lo and A-Rod, though we don’t know how involved they even are with Tiller & Hatch. A press announcement sent to The Spoon only says that they have “backed” the service, but we don’t know what that means exactly, and neither celebrity name appears on the Tiller & Hatch website. We reached out to Tiller & Hatch for clarification, and will update accordingly. UPDATE: A spokesperson for Tiller & Hatch emailed to tell us that Lopez and Rodriguez are Co-Founders of Tiller & Hatch. Even so, celebrity endorsement doesn’t always equal success in the packaged meal game. Blue Apron launched a line of Chrissy Tiegen meal kits, and that wasn’t enough to stop the company’s steady decline.

Is J-Lo just a, err, hustler with Tiller & Hatch? Probably not, but it’s worth keeping an eye on the company to see if its pressure cooker approach is enough to win over customers.

The Food Tech Show: Delivery Bots Head to College

This week the Spoon gang got together to talk about some of the most interesting food tech stories of the week.

On this week’s Food Tech Show we talk about:

As always, you can listen to the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also download direct to your phone or just click play below.

Enjoy the podcast!

June Raising Price of its Smart Oven $100 Because Tariffs

I am an unabashed fan of Kai Ryssdal, host of the public radio show Marketplace. If you’re a listener or follow him on Twitter, you know he’s been saying the trade war President Trump is engaged in with China is actually going to be paid for by American consumers. And this week, we got evidence of that when we learned the tariffs will soon impact the prices of connected kitchen appliances.

Today, June announced that starting July 1, it is raising the price of its smart oven to $699, a $100 increase. In a statement emailed to The Spoon, June CEO, Matt VanHorn said:

As you may have heard, the US recently increased tariffs on imported products manufactured in China. Unfortunately this affects us and we have had to raise our prices by $100, to $699 for the June Oven and $899 for the Gourmet Package. This will take effect on July 1, 2019. We absorbed the first tariff increase last year to minimize customer impact, but for this second increase, we have had to pass along some of this cost to customers.

June’s price increase comes just days after Corelle Brands said that tariffs would force it to raise the price of the wildly popular Instant Pot multi-cooker, from $38 to $187.44. (Though to be fair, I’m not sure there’s a person left in the U.S. who doesn’t have one.)

We had heard off-the-record talk of price increases from food tech execs last year. Now, with no end in site for the tariff tantrum, it looks like those high prices are now a reality.

In addition to established companies, one has to wonder how this could impact the fulfillment of Kickstarter projects, many of whom manufacture their goods in China. Crowdfunded hardware projects have a hard enough time getting to market, and this could be yet another hurdle for those that didn’t budget appropriately.

We’ll be on the lookout for more fallout from the trade war with food tech companies (when we aren’t listening to Marketplace). Drop us a line if you notice tariff-induced price increases, and if you were interested in a June oven, you, uhh, may want to get that order in this weekend.

Meet the TM6, Thermomix’s Latest Generation Do-Anything Cooking Appliance

Back before there were Instant Pots, cooking robots and smart ovens, there was the Thermomix.

And today, the original all-in-one kitchen appliance got a little (or maybe a lot) smarter with the launch of the TM6, the sixth generation of the cooking appliance popular with everyone from the world’s top chefs to working moms and dads just trying to put something tasty on the table.

The new appliance, which will cost $1,499 in the U.S. when available later this year, is available for purchase today in Vorwerk’s native Germany as well as Austria, and will be rolling out to other European countries over the next few months.

While I can’t go over in detail every single difference between the TM5 and TM6 (there are a lot), I’ll highlight the major ones:

Integrated Connectivity

While the original TM5 didn’t ship with embedded Wi-Fi, Thermomix did a relatively good job playing catch up by later offering their connectivity module in the Cook-Key (Thermomix tells me as of this month there are 2.2 million Cook-Keys in the field).

With the TM6, both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are integrated directly into the appliance. While you might be thinking “big deal,” since pretty much everything seems to ship with connectivity nowadays, it’s significant for the Thermomix because it will enable things like over-the-air functionality upgrades and access to the ever-growing Cookidoo guided-cooking recipe library.

Speaking of the Cookidoo…

Cookidoo Becomes a Core Integrated Feature 

If there’s a company that has done well at making the concept of guided cooking valuable for both kitchen newbies and old-hands, it’s the Thermomix. I’ve used my TM5 to fearlessly cook lots of new dishes since the appliance walks me through the recipe and helps me create a good-the-first-time effort.

In fact, it’s this ability to cook most any recipe well the first time that makes you want to keep trying new recipes (as Wired’s Joe Ray writes about here), but the problem with the TM5 was you had to add new recipes chips or — after the introduction of the Cook-Key — periodically download the new recipe collections.

That all changes with the introduction of the TM6, which gives users instant access to 40,000 recipes out of the box. And sure, because Thermomix recently launched its Cookidoo 2.0 platform it’s effectively giving any TM5 users with a Cook-Key an all-access pass for the full Thermomix recipe library. But with the TM6, they are fully available from the start.

Bigger Processor, More Memory

While most cooks probably don’t consider how much processing power or memory their cooking appliance has (and they shouldn’t), for a device like the Thermomix it’s an important factor. With a new quad-core processor, the TM6 will have the same processing power of a modern smartphone, and also packs in about 16 GB of memory (the baseline for an iPhone 6) to enable storage of new software features, media-rich recipes and more.

Bigger Touch Screen Display

If there is a complaint I had about my TM5, it’s the screen size. The small screen often has me struggling to read instructions and probably limited what the Thermomix could do (for example, the TM5 doesn’t show videos or images on the device).

With the TM6, the device has a 6.8″ touch screen display, which is a game-changer. Not only will users have a much bigger display to view media-rich recipes, but with a bigger touch screen, they’ll also no longer be limited to a dial as the primary recipe interaction interface.

You can see a close up of the screen here:

The Thermomix TM6 touch screen display

New Cooking Functions

While you’ve always technically been able to do sous vide and other popular cooking techniques with the TM5, those required more manual operation than many of the more straightforward recipes on a Thermomix.

With the TM6, a whole host of cooking functions have been integrated as core features. In addition to sous vide, the TM6 will have a browning feature as well as those for slow cooking and fermentation. These features will take advantage of the same core German-engineered capabilities, including a robust motor that powers stirring, chopping and all the things that set the Thermomix apart and make it a do-most-anything appliance.

And Finally, the First Do-Anything Appliance Enters the Smart Kitchen

Earlier this week I wrote that the Instant Pot was the Millennial generation’s first cooking appliance they could call their own.

However, despite popular opinion, the Instant Pot didn’t usher in the world of do-it-all countertop cooking. That was the Thermomix, which was fostering communities of devotees well-before the creation of the first Instant Pot Facebook group.

But while the Thermomix has had fans going back to the ’60s, the company’s methodical and one-model-at-a-time approach has meant each generation would last for the better part of a decade. The TM5 is five years old at this point, and probably based on decade-old technology since development likely started well before its release in 2014.

This isn’t necessarily bad; having one device that works really well is a pretty good formula for success. But in an era when digital features like guided cooking and recipe libraries are some of the biggest draws for a new appliance, it was clear the Thermomix was ripe for an upgrade.

And while the features I mentioned above are all welcome capabilities of a more modern Thermomix, I think we’re likely only scratching the surface of what’s possible.

What do I mean by this? For one, I think we could see the Thermomix TM6 become a central kitchen hub that works seamlessly with other appliances. While the company started dabbling with this last fall, efforts so far have been hindered by the limitations of the TM5. In the future, we’ll see the TM6 not only communicating with other appliances, but possibly even acting as a central command center as it takes control of other appliances (TM6, turn on my GE oven) through the TM6 screen.

Theromix’s U.S. president, Kai Schäffner, says the company is also looking at integrations with smart-home interfaces like Alexa and Google Home.

Bottom line, the move into the smart kitchen by Thermomix is welcome and, in a way, necessary given the accelerated pace of competition and a generational shift towards digital-powered cooking. While pressure cooker based multi-cookers like the Instant Pot don’t have nearly the feature set of an appliance like the Thermomix, they are much lower cost and can still do plenty. Meanwhile, others are entering this space with Thermomix-like appliances, including kitchen appliance giant KitchenAid.

Thermomix has told me that the TM6 will make its way to the U.S. later this year in late summer.  Like with the TM5, you will be able to buy it both through the direct sales model (the only way to buy it in Europe) and online.

You can find the full spec sheet with all the features for the TM6 here.

You can find out more about the TM6 at Thermomix’s website and watch a video intro to the Thermomix TM6 below:

TM6™: The all new Thermomix®

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Pyrex Parent Company and Instant Pot to Merge

Corelle Brands announced Monday that it plans to merge with Instant Brands, the decade-old startup best known for turning the Instant Pot into a consumer favorite in the world of cookware. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the Wall Street Journal estimates it could be worth $2 billion.

That’s not too surprising, given the popularity of the Instant Pot, a hybrid product that acts as a slow cooker and a pressure cooker in one device. It regularly tops holiday shopping sales lists, and since launching the original product in 2010, the company has released multiple other products and amassed an online fanbase with a jaw-dropping level of enthusiasm for the company’s wares.

As we wrote last year, when including the company in our FoodTech 25 list: The Instant Pot is not the highest-tech gadget around, but its affordability, versatility, and speed have made this new take on the pressure cooker a countertop cooking phenomenon.

Besides making dishes that don’t break when you throw them, Corelle also owns ktichenware brand Pyrex, food-storage product maker Snapware, and Japanese knife manufacturer OLFA, among others. Cornell Capital bought Corelle back in 2017 for an undisclosed sum; once the deal with Instant Pot is finalized, both companies will be owned by Cornell Capital.

Instant Brands will keep its Ottawa, Canada headquarters. Meanwhile, Robert Wang, who invented the Instant Pot with $350,000 of his own money, will become the CIO of the combined business.

The deal will give Instant Pot access to new markets, particularly on the international front. From Corelle’s perspective, it’s a chance to refurbish a century-old brand and pair it with an Internet age startup that’s, according to Corelle CEO Ken Wilkes, “fundamentally changing how consumers think about cooking.” Indeed, the almost 2 million users in Instant Pot’s public Facebook group are constantly slinging new recipes at one another, along with cooking tips and problem-solving advice. I’m not so sure a Pyrex Facebook group will pop up anytime soon, but association with that kind of internet-centric kitchen activity will no doubt get Corelle’s family tree a more solid place in today’s connected kitchen.

Presto Eats May Be the Most On-Trend Meal Kit Company Yet. But Will It Succeed?

Whenever I get word about a new meal kit company, it’s hard not to be immediately skeptical.

It’s no secret that meal kits are struggling: Chef’d surprised everyone when it shut down abruptly earlier this year. Boston hyper-local meal kit Just Add Cooking ceased operations this fall. And Blue Apron’s stock continues to underwhelm. And with complicated supply chain logistics and the challenge of customer loyalty, and its no wonder why. To fight back, meal kit companies are turning towards new sales channels (i.e. drug stores), targeting specific audiences (i.e. kids) and are experimenting with customizeable and frozen ingredients.

But one Canadian company seems undeterred by the bleak, overcrowded meal kit landscape. Based in Vancouver and Calgary, soon-to-launch Presto Eats makes meal kits that can be cooked in a pressure cooker or slow cooker.

“I started Presto Eats because I fell in love with the new wave of kitchen appliances,” CEO Connie Chong told me in a phone conversation. She found that she could get a flavorful meal out of her pressure cooker in 30 minutes, but it still took her over an hour to shop for and prep ingredients. So she decided to create a meal kit specifically targeted at the Instant Pot crowd: millennials and busy professionals who like to cook at home and aren’t afraid of new kitchen technology.

Earlier this year Campbell’s tried a slow cooker meal partnership with Chef’d. The meal kit company shuttered only four months later so it’s hard to get a sense of how successful the partnership was. But it also only offered slow cooker meals, which took 6-ish hours; it didn’t capitalize on the wild popularity of the quick-cooking Instant Pot.

Presto Eats is smart to take advantage of the pressure cooker’s cult-like status. While many meal kit companies advertise ready-to-eat meals in 30 minutes, you still usually have to actually do the whole cooking thing. Presto Eats takes the same amount of time but it’s all hands-off. “The convenience factor is huge,” said Chong. Plus it’s all done in one (Instant)pot, which means fewer dishes.

Since Presto Eats’ meals are destined for a pressure cooker, they can be sold frozen. Which means that consumers can buy them in bulk and cook them on their own time. Frozen meal kits make a lot of sense, from both a business and consumer perspective, and Presto Eats is one of several companies taking advantage of the frozen food renaissance. It could also mean more packaging waste (ice, cold packs, etc.), which is something Presto Eats should be conscious of.

While it’s a smart move to capitalize off of Instant Pot’s widespread and loyal fan base, there are a few potential drawbacks to Presto Eats’ offering. Firstly, some people get meal kits because they actually like cooking — just not the minutiae of, say, shopping for, peeling and grating a ginger root. To them, meal kits are a way to experiment with new meals that they might not otherwise be bold enough to try and cook. Dumping a bunch of ingredients into an Instant Pot and pressing a button means there’s significantly lower chance of failure, but there’s also not much of a cooking “experience.” And at $10 per serving, some people may want to shell out a few bucks more and order in delivery.

Secondly, the fact that all of Presto Eats’ meals are cooked in a pressure cooker limits their variety. Chong listed menu choices like salmon risotto with vegetables, lentil bolognese pasta, and Thai curry, all of which sound delicious but reside in the same sort of warm, soupy comfort meal category. You can’t make seared steak or crunch roasted cauliflower in an Instant Pot, after all.

Presto Eats is cashing in on yet another dining trend: local food. It will partner with local farmers and suppliers to source ingredients for their meal kits. Which may attract eco-conscious consumers, but also means they will no doubt have to pay more to stock their kits. In an industry where margins are razor-thin, this is a risk. Just Add Cooking also sourced local ingredients for their meal kits, and ended up folding because they couldn’t make the economics work. Chong told me that they will create rotating menus featuring farmers’ surplus food, which could help keep costs down — but it’s still probably more expensive than buying from a mega produce supplier.

As of now, Presto Eats has a team of three and is bootstrapped. They will partner with food delivery companies to get their meal kits to consumers, and Chong said that down the road they hope to partner with grocery chains to get on retail shelves. They plan to launch their meal kits at the end of January in Calgary, and soon after that in Vancouver.

There they’ll have to duke it out with several local competitors. Earlier this week Chris wrote about Fresh Prep, a Vancouver, Canada-based direct-to-consumer meal kit company which raised $3.3 million. And in October Hello Fresh, the biggest meal kit company in the U.S., acquired meal kit company Chefs Plate, which also has a fulfillment center in Vancouver.

By combining three consumer dining trends — frozen food, Instant Pot, and local ingredients — Presto Eats has developed a very appealing product. The question is whether those value-adds will help it attract enough customers to carve out a spot in the crowded meal kit space. I’m optimistic that they have a shot, mostly because of how much people love their Instant Pots. But first, they’ll have to nail down a supply chain and scale up: two things that plague even the biggest meal kit companies.