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Instant Pot

December 13, 2019

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.

October 21, 2019

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.

August 23, 2019

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:

  • Starship’s new funding round and expansion to more college campuses
  • The new cow/plant-based milk blend product from Dairy Farmers of America
  • The curious crowdfunding campaign of Mealthy, a startup with a shoppable recipe app and pressure cooker air fryer converter lid
  • NYC’s proposed 10 percent cap on third-party delivery fees
  • Our reviews of the Impossible Whopper

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.

Audio Player

http://media.adknit.com/a/1/33/smart-kitchen-show/snv7l2.3-2.mp3
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Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.

Enjoy the podcast!

June 27, 2019

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.

March 8, 2019

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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March 4, 2019

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.

December 14, 2018

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.

September 19, 2018

Instant Pot Launches Multi-Purpose Blender that Heats and Makes Alterna-Milks

Instant Pot, the company behind the multicooker with a rabid online fanbase, is getting into the beverage business with the release this week of the Ace Blender, which will be available exclusively through Walmart.

Dubbed the Instant Pot Ace Multi-Use Cooking & Beverage Blender, the new device not only blends up frosty smoothies, but also heats up liquids. From the product description, the Instant Pot Blender features:

  • 8 Smart Built-in Programs – Smoothie, Purée, Ice Cream, Crushed Ice, Soy Milk, Rice Milk, Almond, Nut/Oat Milk, and Soup
  • 3 Manual Blending Speeds – Low, Medium and High, blender will beep 3 times and begin blending at the selected speed
  • 4 Cold Blending Programs – Smoothies, Ice Cream, Crushed Ice, and Almond (Nut)/Oat Milk
  • 4 Hot Blending Programs – Purée, Soy Milk, Rice Milk and Soup, with the ability to toggle between 2 options for purée, rice milk and soup
  • Pitcher – Premium-quality 60 ounce (1.75 Litres) glass pitcher which includes a concealed heating element and 8 machine ground stainless steel blades

All this for the low low price of $99, which is about a quarter of the price of the Vitamix 5200. Though, to be fair, we have no idea at this point how well the Ace will perform, how long the motor will last, etc. But more important than the actual performance could be the perception of functionality for existing Instant Pot users and potential new customers.

We named Instant Pot as one of our FoodTech 25, writing:

“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. It also has a large and fanatical community, where enthusiastic users share and reshare their favorite Instant Pot recipes across Facebook groups and online forums. By becoming the first new breakout appliance category of the millennial generation, the Instant Pot has achieved that highly desirable (and rare) position of having its brand synonymous with the name of the category; people don’t go looking for pressure cookers, they go looking for an Instant Pot.”

It’s worth pulling out the millennial aspect from that analysis, as this new blender seems to tick all those little millennial boxes: It’s affordable. Its multi-function means a lot of use in a small amount of space. And there is an existing, active community online that users can connect and experiment with. (Though technically, every generation enjoys a good bargain.)

Additionally, with the heating ability, millennials (and others) can make their own alterna-milks like rice, soy and almond (the blender even comes with a strainer cloth). Which, if it works as promised, is coming at an optimal time: non-dairy milks are growing in popularity.

We should also note that Walmart has made a savvy move by getting the exclusive on the Ace Blender, as it blocks rival Amazon from selling the appliance. Amazon, which is notoriously tight-lipped about any stats, said that the Instant Pot DUO08 was its best selling kitchen appliance in the U.S. and worldwide last holiday season. As we prep for the holidays once again, Amazon is being shut out of any buzz and sales generated by the blender.

The new Instant Pot Blender will be available for sale at Walmart starting September 23.

May 31, 2018

The Food Tech 25: Twenty Five Companies Changing the Way We Eat

Here at The Spoon, we spend most days writing and thinking about those who are transforming what we eat. No matter whether a startup, big company, inventor, or a cook working on new approaches in the kitchen, we love learning the stories of people changing the future of food. So much so, in fact, that we wanted to share those companies that most excite us with our readers.

And so here it is, The Spoon’s Food Tech 25: Twenty Five Companies Changing the Way We Eat

What exactly is the Food Tech 25? In short, it’s our list of the twenty five companies we think are doing the most interesting things changing the way we create, buy, store, cook and think about food.

As with any list, there are bound to be a few questions about how we got here and why we chose the companies we did. Here are some answers:

How did we create this list?

The editors of the Spoon — myself, Chris Albrecht, Catherine Lamb and Jenn Marston — got together in a room, poured some kombucha (ed note: except for Chris), and listed all the companies we thought were doing interesting and important work in changing food and cooking. From there, we had numerous calls, face-to-face meetings and more glasses of kombucha until we narrowed the list down to those you see here.

Is this an annual list?

No, this is a list of the companies we think are the most interesting people and companies right now, in mid-2018. Things could definitely look different six months from now.

Is this list in a particular order or are the companies ranked?

No, the list is in no particular order and we did not rank the 25 companies.

Why isn’t company X on the list?

If this was your list, company X or Y would most likely be on the list (and that’s ok with us). But this is the Spoon’s list and we’re sticking to it (for now – see above).

And of course, making this list wasn’t easy. There are lots of companies doing interesting things in this space. If we had enough room to create runners-up or honorable mentions, we would. But we don’t (and you don’t have enough time to read a list like that).

So, without further ado, here is the Spoon’s Food Tech 25. If you’re the type that likes your lists all on one page, click here.


EMBER
Ember bills itself as “the world’s first temperature control mug,” which basically means you can dictate a specific temperature for your brew via the corresponding app and keep your coffee (or tea or whatever) hot for as long as you need to. The significance here isn’t so much about coffee as it is about where else we could implement the technology and relatively simple concept powering the Ember mug. The company currently has patents out on other kinds of heated or cooled dishware, and Ember has cited baby bottles and medicine as two areas in which it might apply its technology. And yes, it allows you to finally stop microwaving all that leftover morning coffee.

 


INSTANT POT
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. It also has a large and fanatical community, where enthusiastic users share and reshare their favorite Instant Pot recipes across Facebook groups and online forums. By becoming the first new breakout appliance category of the millennial generation, the Instant Pot has achieved that highly desirable (and rare) position of having its brand synonymous with the name of the category; people don’t go looking for pressure cookers, they go looking for an Instant Pot.

 


DELIVEROO
We chose Deliveroo out of the myriad of food delivery services because of their Editions project, which uses customer data to curate restaurant hubs in areas which have unfulfilled demands for certain chain establishments or cuisine types. This model allows food establishments to set up locations with zero start-up costs, and also gives customers in more restaurant-dry areas a wide variety of delivery food options. Essentially, it’s cloud kitchens meets a food hall, with some heavy analysis to help determine which restaurants or cuisines customers want, and where. These “Rooboxes” (hubs of shipping containers in which the food is prepared) show that Deliveroo is a pioneer in the dark kitchen space, and are doing serious work to shake up the food delivery market.

 

AMAZON GO
There are any number of ways that Amazon could have been included in this list, but its Amazon Go stores are what we think will be the real game changer. The cashierless corner store uses a high-tech combination of cameras and computing power, allowing you to walk in grab what you want — and leave. That’s it. At its first location in Seattle, we were struck by how seamless the experience was. As the locations broaden, this type of quick convenience has the potential to change the way we shop for snacks, (some) groceries and even prepared meal kits.

 


INGEST.AI
Restaurants have more pieces of software to deal with than ever. In addition to all the delivery platforms they are now plugged into, there have to deal with payments systems, HR software, and inventory management software. And right now, none of those applications talk to each other. Created by a former IBM Watson engineer, Ingest.ai promises to extract and connect the data from ALL of those disparate software pieces and tie them together to give restaurant owners a holistic, data-powered view of their business. It also helps them have more precise control over their business and automate tasks like food ordering and staff scheduling.

Want to meet the innovators from the FoodTech 25? Make sure to connect with them at North America’s leading foodtech summit, SKS 2019, on Oct 7-8th in Seattle.

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March 17, 2018

Podcast: What Caught Our Eye at the Housewares Show

The International Housewares Show is big. Very big. More than 60,000 professionals from all corners of the world convened in Chicago last week to check out the latest and greatest products coming soon to a home near you (or to your home).

Whether you attended in person, or missed it this year, we’ve got you covered. Mike Wolf and I walked the show floor to find the best bits of connected kitchen tech.

In this podcast, we talk about how the whole smart home industry is maturing, the prevalence of connected devices, and the very cool things we came across (precision heated plates and baby bottles!).

December 26, 2017

Amazon Sold “Tens of Millions” Alexa Devices This Holiday Season

Amazon released a lengthy list of vague stats about its holiday selling season this year. And while details may be scant, it was a big season for Alexa (and the Instant Pot).

Amazon says it sold “tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices” worldwide with the company adding that the Echo Dot was among the top-selling Amazon devices this holiday season. Additionally, Amazon said that Prime memberships continue to grow, and that 4 million people “started Prime free trials or began paid memberships.”

Okay, yes. That statement from the company is kind of silly. But it was estimated that Amazon had 80 million Prime members back in April. Combine the boost for Alexa devices with the ever-growing Prime member audience, and Amazon is poised to dominate the smart kitchen, same day delivery, grocery and meal kit delivery and so much more.

So what were people doing with their Alexa devices this holiday? Here are some brief bits on kitchen usage, according to Amazon:

  • Alexa helped mix tens of thousands of cocktails this holiday season, with Martini and Manhattan being the most requested drinks.
  • The recipe for chocolate chip cookies was the most requested recipe this holiday season.
  • Customers asked Alexa for cooking-related advice 9x more this year as they did last holiday season.
  • Alexa customers set 3x as many timers this year compared to last holiday season.

In addition to recent stats, Amazon seemed to be looking ahead in its press release. The recently launched Amazon Key in-home delivery service also got a specific shout out in the press release quote from Jeff Wilke, Amazon CEO Worldwide Consumer. Perhaps this is indicative of a bigger push to come for Key, especially in light of Amazon’s recent purchase of Blink security cameras.

And, if my Facebook feed is any indication, many of you received Instant Pots this holiday. Amazon shared some of info about the popular rice/slow/pressure cooker. According to Amazon:

  • The best-selling kitchen item in the U.S. and worldwide was the Instant Pot DUO80.
  • Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Laurel Randolph, independently published through Kindle Direct Publishing, has been topping Amazon Charts throughout the holiday season – reaching #1 on the most sold non-fiction list the week of Cyber Monday.
  • And, oh by the way, an Amazon Air cargo plane can hold more than 10,000 Instant Pots.

Even if the details are few, it was an undeniably big holiday for Amazon that capped off a huge year for the company. Given all their moves around food and the kitchen, one specific stat you can expect in 2018 is more stories from us about Amazon.

November 9, 2017

Oliver Aims To Take One Pot Cooking To The Next Level

The holy grail of convenience cooking has always been the one pot solution. Since the early 1970s, the CrockPot and other less famous brands of slow cooking machines dominated the kitchen as the solution for “set it and forget it” meals. Whether it was pork roasts, applesauce, stews or chili, the Crock Pot lets users combine (mostly) raw ingredients, turn the device on and come back later in the day to a fully cooked meal. In 2009, with the rise of the electric pressure cooker, the Instant Pot debuted and the debate began as to which technology was actually more useful.

The Instant Pot has a slow cooker feature, but the love of the device comes from its ability to produce cooked food in a much shorter amount of time through pressure cooking.

But whether you’re team Crock Pot or team Instant Pot, one thing remains true: one pot cooking tech hasn’t changed much in the last 40+ years. They still require users to dump a slew of ingredients all at once into a large bowl (or manually add different ingredients at different times) and hope it all cooks perfectly. But not every food item requires the same amount of time – or the same levels of heat – to cook.

This was the challenge Else Labs was trying to tackle with new one pot automated cooking machine Oliver. The technology and device design allows ingredients to be divided into dispensing canisters and then placed into the pot for cooking when the recipe-driven app tells it to.

Else Labs Founder & CEO Khalid Aboujassoum sat down with The Spoon’s Allen Weiner at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit.

“This technology takes slow cooking to a new level. You can taste every ingredient – they all have the right texture and right flavor because they were cooked correctly,” said Aboujassoum.

Oliver isn’t exactly a slow cooker; it mimics the way you’d cook on a stove top (saute onions first, add vegetables, cook meat around it, make the broth separate, etc) – but it enables automation and connectivity to take over and relieve the cook from standing over the stove for the entire process.

Oliver does what Crock Pot and Instant Pot can’t – understand the sequence and temperature of how each ingredient should be cooked and mimic those actions the way a human cook would. Oliver dispenses at the right time and heats to the right temperature with a robotic stirring arm built in to stir as needed.

“Tell Oliver ‘I need food by six’ and the machine will do the math for you in terms of when to start, stir, dispense and stop,” said Aboujassoum.

Another differentiator? Oliver records the work of pros so busy home cooks can replicate their work. According to Aboujassoum, the recipes generated from the Oliver app are all created with professional chefs. As the chefs make their recipes with Oliver, Oliver and the app capture all the actions, recording the sequence so it can be automated and replicated for Oliver users. Eventually, the plan is to let the Oliver user community contribute and add recipes using this same method to capture a more diverse range of content.

It took almost 40 years for the Crock Pot to have a serious competitor but it seems the Instant Pot may not enjoy the same length of time as a crowd favorite. Oliver is poised to launch in 2018.

 

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