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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

IoT

Bodega, The IoT Convenience Store, Meets Early Resistance

Now introducing the concept of place-based commerce. That is the idea of putting relevant products in the just the right place for busy consumers who can buy them with the swipe of a smartphone. The bet for projects such as Bodega is that busy millennials will be willing to trade convenience for the social interaction of traipsing to the corner mom ’n’ pop store for a late night shopping spree.

Bodega, founded by two ex-Googlers, starts with what is basically a cabinet-based vending machine. But, instead of loading it with sugary soft drinks and microwave popcorn, it dispenses goods related to a specific location or purpose. A Bodega placed in a health club might have sports drinks and protein bars; one in the lobby of an office building could have healthy lunches and a Bodega in the lobby of a college dorm would sport anything from handheld devices to personal hygiene products. To keep things secure, the company uses a set of techno future security measures in which the customer opens the Bodega with his or her smartphone. After selecting a product, an AI-powered camera captures the purchase and debits the user’s payment method. The camera also collects crucial data on what was purchased, when and by whom. The resulting information is a goldmine for Bodega as a planning tool for inventory replenishment and for future system improvements.

From concept to name, Bodega has not been given a front row seat on the welcome wagon.

First, there’s an issue with the name. Bodega has come to mean a small grocery store—one that often features Hispanic products. Hispanic leaders consider naming the new concept after such a proud institution in the Hispanic community as an insult.

“It’s sacrilegious to use that name, and we’re going to do whatever we need to do to fight this,” Frank Garcia, chair of the New York State Coalition of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, told the Guardian. “It was devastating to find out … and it’s not fair to the local bodegas now that don’t have the angel investors that these guys have.”

Here's why people are mad about 'Bodega'

Paul McDonald, one of the Bodega’s founders claims the company name was thoroughly vetted and was not met with any resistance by the Hispanic community.

McDonald told the Guardian that the company surveyed those who live in relevant areas to see if the name was an issue. The survey asked “(If the) Latin American community… felt the name was a misappropriation of that term or had negative connotations” and said 97% said no.

There also is some question about Bodega’s business model which does not compensate locations (such as a health club) for placing the unit in their facility. The new company’s logic is the autostore is a benefit to the location and acts as a customer draw.

Beyond the possible racial implications, there’s a matter of possible wiping out the countless small convenience store businesses that rely on local customers. Organizations that support local retailers are upset over Bodega’s rollout which depersonalize the relationship between a community and neighborhood businesses.

“It’s about having neighbors in your community who know you, who have lived there and been in business for a long time, who have seen changes in the neighborhood and are responsive to customer’s needs,” said Trisha Chakrabarti, senior program and policy manager at Mandela MarketPlace. “That kind of personalization of service, you will never be able to find with an automated service.”

It’s worth noting that the concept of providing last-minute necessities is not a new idea. Catering to the immediacy of meeting a consumer’s specific needs on the spot in itself is not a bad idea and there are many successful applications in place. Many hotel chains offer pantries which stock food, hygiene products and even clothing for travelers. Airports now have vending machines that dispense handheld devices, headphones and other gadgets for fliers in need. The trend for taking vending machines from being unhealthy snack purveyors to appliances that focus on health and convenience has been in place for the past several years.

Whether it’s the name, the terrible PR job that surrounded the Bodega announcement or the world growing tired of Google millionaires thinking they have the next great idea, there’s a lesson to be earned here—market research is a multibillion dollar business for a reason.

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New On Tap: Coasters That Interact With You

With thousands of craft beers inundating the market, how does a brewer go about getting noticed? At Coronado Brewing Co., which is one of San Diego County’s oldest craft beer makers, the answer lies in sensor-based coasters that engage the brewer’s consumers with the simple tap of a smartphone.

Coronado Brewing’s smart coasters are based on Thinfilm’s technology, which embeds NFC sensing in packaging, labels and many other kinds of items. Consumers tap NFC-based products with their smartphones and then see a customized landing page, video or other digital asset provided by the brand. The brand can, in turn, see a customer’s data inputs in real-time.

“Any physical product can be turned into a channel at any point in time,” said Davor Sutija, Thinfilm CEO. “Thinfilm’s integrated mobile marketing solution empowers brands to own and manage the communication no matter where the consumer is, whether in the store, at the bar, or in the home.” Thinfilm also has a downloadable case study on its work with Coronado Brewing and the coasters’ impact on online conversions:  “Innovative Coasters Help Brewery Boost Website Conversions”

By deploying the coasters, Coronado Brewing Co. reportedly saw a significant increase in consumer engagement, particularly compared to click-through rates of 0.2% for its existing advertising. In fact, the coasters produced a 13 – 17.5X increase in website conversions, as measured by visits to the website resulting from consumer-initiated taps. Overall, Thinfilm has driven an estimated 92% lift in mobile traffic to the CoastWise landing page.

The smart coasters have been tested with CoastWise Session IPA, a new craft beer introduced by Coronado, brewed in collaboration with Surfrider Foundation, an environmental group. Coronado donates part of its revenues to Surfrider.

“Competing for the attention of craft beer drinkers is intense,” said Brandon Richards, COO, Coronado Brewing Co. “Getting people to hear your brand story without interference is even harder. The Thinfilm team made everything a snap. And our customers really enjoyed the interactive experience.”

Coronado Brewing Co. plans to have its remaining coasters direct consumers to its ecommerce page. The company is also considering using Thinfilm technology for additional point-of-sale opportunities.

Sensor and infrared technologies are also having an impact on managing bars. For example, we’ve covered Nectar Labs’ Getnectar, an IoT-based inventory management system. It uses sensor and infrared technology baked into bottle stoppers to track volumes left in each bottle at a bar. The system produces a dashboard of data that shows amount poured versus estimates and connects to an app to alert the manager when a given bottle is finished. The technology connects to ordering system to keep inventory topped up.

Meanwhile, Thinfilm is expanding its use of NFC sensing and tags within the beer industry. You can find a related set of case studies here.

Image credit: Flickr user John Kannenberg under creative commons license. 

Want to learn about the use of connected commerce in restaurants? Come to the Smart Kitchen Summit. Use discount code SPOON for 25% off of tickets.

PLAATO Adds IoT Smarts To Beer Fermentation

Here’s how Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine describes the purpose of a fermentation airlock:

The sole purpose of any airlock is to allow an otherwise sealed fermentation environment to relieve internal pressure. That’s it. Airlocks aren’t designed to tell you anything, and they aren’t indicators of fermentation. 

Sorry to break it to you Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine, but the folks behind PLAATO have different ideas.

That’s right, the Norwegian startup is looking to take what is typically a dumb $3 piece of plastic used to release excess CO2 during the fermentation process and add IoT smarts to create a tool for beer brewers to monitor beer gravity, temperature and estimate the alcohol content of the beer using algorithms.

Sure, the PLAATO isn’t a beer brewing appliance, but as it turns out, when it comes to modernizing the beer brewing process not everyone wants a turnkey system like PicoBrew and BrewArt. Some home brewers want to brew their beer the traditional way, but aren’t against the idea of applying modern technology to refine the process and elevate their craft. PLAATO helps do that by monitoring the amount of CO2 generated by fermentation, send that data via Wi-Fi to the cloud, which then allows the brewer to monitor the brew process in a mobile app.

The PLAATO app

The PLAATO airlock, which can also be used for fermentation of cider, wine and mead, has reached its target via the company’s Kickstarter campaign. The campaign, which as of this writing has six days left, has raised a total of $165 thousand.

The team behind the PLAATO started working on the concept a year and a half ago. After finishing their first prototype in May of 2016, the company finished hardware design in February of this year and started the process of moving into production. The company plans to ship the PLAATO to backers by October of this year.

Juicero To Lay Off 25% of Staff As It Accelerates Plans For Gen-2 Juicer

Juicero, the high-profile connected juicer startup founded by cold-press juice pioneer Doug Evans, is laying off 25% percent of its staff in an attempt to lower costs as it accelerates the development of a second generation juicer.

According to a report in Fortune, Juicero CEO Jeff Dunn sent a letter to employees which said the company is planning to lay off a quarter of the staff as part of a plan to lower costs as it transitions away from a premium pricing strategy.

“The current prices of $399 for the Press and $5 – $7 for produce Packs are not a realistic way for us to fulfill our mission at the scale to which we aspire,” wrote Dunn.

Much of these struggles come in the wake of a Bloomberg article in April that showed how the company’s juice packs can be squeezed by hand without the company’s $400 juicers. The article and accompanying video resulted in dozens of similar blog posts all asking essentially the same question: How on earth could a company raise $120+ million to build a $400 juicer when all you need is your hands?

As I wrote back in April, Juicero brought much of the crisis on themselves. Not only did their premium pricing strategy for the juice press and pods rub many the wrong way, the company also brought out the snark with talk of their product as a “platform”.  With popular shows like HBO’s Silicon Valley mocking the excesses and faux gravitas of today’s tech entrepreneurs, more and more people are quick to question why every gadget has to be viewed as more than just a gadget.

However, I also felt the Bloomberg article didn’t paint a full picture of the company. While the post’s authors pointed out the folly of investing $120 million in a juicer that could be replaced with one’s hands, they never discussed how the company spent much of that initial investment to create an entire juice pack factory and delivery supply chain system. The article also failed to mention that while pretty much any form of automated kitchen task performed today such as blending, cutting or squeezing can be done without a machine at a lower price, people have shown they are willing to pay for convenience in the form of task automation. It’s this very idea of paying for convenience that is the foundational principle behind pretty much any store that sells tools, whether it’s the corner hardware store or a Williams-Sonoma.

Nitpicks of the Bloomberg article aside, the reality is the company needs to lower pricing to reach a bigger audience. As I wrote in January when the company dropped the price to $399, while they are still in a unique position as the only company making a pod-based cold-press juicer, they needed to drop pricing to reach significant growth.  The company’s next-generation juicer, expected to be priced around $200, could stimulate significant demand, particularly if the company could just figure out how to lower the price of its juice packs to three bucks or even lower.

Long-term, the company has an even bigger challenge: figuring out how to scale its juice pack production. With only one production plant currently (located in Los Angeles), they will eventually need to figure out how to get packs to customers around the company quickly. The answer is likely more production facilities which, of course, will likely require tens of millions of dollars to build.

CEO Dunn, which at one point oversaw Coca Cola operations for North America, clearly has ability to scale production and distribution of a drink. The challenge will be whether he can now do it with a startup that has much more limited resources than his former employer.

Calling All Startups: Apply To Pitch & Demo At 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit

One of the best parts of attending the Smart Kitchen Summit is getting a front row seat to brand new technology and innovative products that are coming down the pipeline. The event’s startup showcase is now in its third year and invites all startups in the food tech and smart kitchen space to apply for a spot.

Details

The Startup Showcase is the perfect way to demonstrate the most innovative new ideas, products and companies reinventing food, cooking and the kitchen. If you have the next great idea that will change the way we buy, cook, store, or consume food, apply today on the SKS website. Anyone with a working product that is either a late-stage working demo or actually shipping is welcome to apply free of charge.

SKS organizers will select 15 startups as finalists and they will be invited to the event to demo their product and get on the Summit stage to talk about who they are and how they’re going to change the future of food, cooking or the kitchen.

From these 15, a winner will be chosen from a mix of judges and crowd-voting and be crowned the winner of the Startup Showcase on October 10th.

To apply, fill out the application and make your case for why you deserve to be a finalist – the more articles, photos, videos and compelling info you can provide on your product and company, the better your chances are of grabbing one of the coveted tables at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit.

Past Startup Showcases

The Startup Showcase in 2016 proved to one of the top highlights of the Smart Kitchen Summit – attendees poured into the showcase room to see live demonstrations of 3D food printing, home growing systems, smart precision cooktops, connected spice racks and more. For startups, the Smart Kitchen Summit audience consists of directors, executives, investors and press across the tech, food, design, housewares and appliances, commerce and retail spaces.

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The 2017 Showcase will not only offer a demo table and an eager audience but a demo space in the heart of the main Summit event at Benaroya Hall and a chance to pitch a panel of judges and the audience. No event brings together the decision makers and disrupters from across the food, cooking, appliance, retail and technology ecosystems. The Startup Showcase provides a platform for exciting startups, investors and entrepreneurs to demonstrate what they are working on and let others experience it firsthand.

The deadline for applications is August 15.

Rubin: Essential Home Will Be The “Bridge” Between Competing Smart Home Ecosystems

Last night Andy Rubin got on stage with Walt Mossberg at the Code Conference to discuss his new company.

The two spent a good chunk of the conversation talking about the Essential Phone, but when they finally got to the Essential Home, they didn’t disappoint.

I wrote yesterday about what we already knew about the Essential Home smart home product, but Andy’s discussion with Walt gave us a better understanding of the company’s strategy for the device.

Rubin and his team have (correctly) identified the main problem of the smart home as one of too many competing ecosystems. The main goal of the Essential Home is to solve for that.

Per Rubin: “One of the problems in the home is the UI problem. There are too many things you have to interact with in your home.”

While we often use that term UI to describe the various consumer interaction layers such as voice, touch or motion, Rubin is using the term more broadly here. He points to a fragmented smart home world with too many competing apps, smart home protocols, and technologies. And, as the guy behind Android, Rubin admitted that in many ways he helped create the problem.

“I feel somewhat responsible. One of things Android helped do make really easy to write a mobile app. the guy building your IoT doorbell, he’s going to write an app.”

According to Rubin, the problem with so many apps and technologies is each time a consumer walks through their smart home, they are walking through a series of competing apps and ecosystems.

“In certain ways,” said Rubin “the industry has recognized what the problem is, which is you don’t want to launch someone’s app when you walk up to your front door to unlock it, where they have their own UI, their own login credentials, and when you finally get through front door and its time to turn on your lights, do the same thing with the guy that built your light bulb.”

He’s right in saying the industry knows fragmentation is the main problem in consumer adoption. In our survey of over 100 smart home execs last December, the number one hurdle to adoption of smart home products identified by industry insiders is confusion over too many smart home platforms.

In other words, fragmentation. Or, as Rubin puts it, “a UI problem.”

Rubin said the solution to the problem of UI fragmentation is to bridge all of these competing ecosystems by working to integrate as many of them as possible together.

“You have to think of it as a UI problem,” said Rubin, “and you have to solve the UI for the home as an interoperability and integration issue. You can’t just support ten devices; you have to support one hundred thousand devices.”

That’s a lot of devices, but Rubin plans to get there by bridging the various ecosystems across the world of Apple, Amazon, Google and more. In other words, he doesn’t want to compete with the giants, but instead wants to connect them to one another.

“You can think of this as everyone is creating an island by creating their own ecosystem, so building bridges is the best way to describe what we’re doing. It has to talk to all these ecosystems, whether it’s Smart Things, HomeKit, or Google Home, or Thread or Weave.”

Rubin didn’t go into the specifics of how he plans to solve the fragmentation issue, other than to say they think they’ve found a way to do it. Whatever the approach is, it sounds like one built from the operating system on up with a focus on security.

“We had to build a new operating system so it can speak all those protocols and it can do it security and privately.”

That operating system is called Ambient OS. It will be part of the new Essential Home which is rumored to ship in late summer.

Make sure to subscribe to the Spoon newsletter to get it in your inbox. And don’t forget to check out Smart Kitchen Summit, the first and only event on the future of the connected kitchen and the future of cooking. 

Alchema Brews Up An IoT Approach to Home Fermentation

The world has discovered hard cider. With annual sales skyrocketing and a continual parade of newcomers entering the market, cider is having its moment. The sudden popularity of this age-old alcoholic beverage is a convergence of three popular food trends--interest in fermented foods, understanding of probiotic’s health benefits and DIY driven by new technology.

At an elemental level, fermentation is the process of converting sugar, yeast or other starter into acid, gas or alcohol. In the case of such probiotic-rich foods as sauerkraut, pickles and yogurt, the method is called lacto-fermentation because lactic acid results from fermentation. In the case of hard cider (as opposed to farm-fresh nonalcoholic apple cider), yeast is added to fruit juice and over time the result of fermentation is a hearty adult beverage.

Home brewers have long tinkered with DIY cider methods, but most of those processes are cumbersome and time consuming. Keeping the juice/yeast mixture at the incorrect temperature or having the wrong proportions of the ingredients can result in something that’s a cross between vinegar and spoiled OJ. Using some advanced IoT-driven technology, innovators are stepping up to empower any consumer to become a master cider maker.

Enter Alchema, a Kickstarter entrepreneur led by CEO Oscar Chang, a Taiwanese entrepreneur whose idea for the appliance crystalized through his friendship with a former micro brewing expert Tung Han-ning. Han-ning, who studied home brewing in the U.K., became the perfect counterpoint to Chang’s engineering skills. Together, they sought to help DIY cider makers overcome their fear of fermentation.

Chang says the Alchema, which resembles a fancy coffee pot weighing eight pounds and about 16-inches in height, is aimed at two target markets—pure cider lovers who will buy anything related to cider and DIY-ers who are passionate about perfecting their own recipes.

“We want to make the process is most easy for beginner,” Chang says. “It takes water, sugar, yeast and fruit and we want users to be able to anticipate a great tasting cider.”

The cider market in the U.S. is booming with 700 commercial cider makers making 3,250 different styles. New York, Michigan, California and Washington lead the nation in cider making, with the Empire State alone having 86 brewers creating 294 different varieties of cider. Like craft beer, devotees of the fruit-based alcoholic beverage want to treat their palates to the best professional and home-crafted beverages. Fueled by availability of heirloom fruits and berries, cidermakers are experimenting with flavors and unique tastes.

Alchema takes full advantage of interaction between a smartphone app and the device. A user can select a recipe from the app and follow the easy directions to create a batch of cider. A UV light sanitizes the pitcher before brewing and a scale used for precise ingredient measurements works in concert with the app for accuracy. The user can control the level of alcohol desired in the finished product and a sensor will indicate when the brew has reached its finished state.

As its name infers, the Alchema, which will retail for $499 when it hits in 2018, is a general-purpose fermentation machine which can make mead, jun, kombucha and even pickled vegetables. As Chang explains, the device’s ability to detect the proper level of fermentation is independent of the ingredients in the pitcher. The Alchema’s ability to sense exact levels of fermentation is based on proprietary technology, adds Chang.

The Alchema is not alone in the IoT-based home fermentation space. The Ferment, showcased by Panasonic at SXSW, is a high-tech device that aims to deliver anything from fermented rice to kombucha.

IoT-Led Disruption Powers the Future of the Bar Business

Fans of the Spike TV show, Bar Rescue, are more than aware of the challenges of being a barkeep in a highly competitive market. Issues that include employees pilfering from the till and drinking while on duty are one thing, but over pouring and giving away free drinks are a recipe for disaster—not to mention bankruptcy—for bar owners charged with daily multitasking.

Inventory control systems are crucial to a bar’s success and have been in place for decades. Moving from a pen and paper operation, such processes evolved into the 20th century with tracking spreadsheets and early use of RFID technology. Prime for disruption, though, the hospitality industry has been the focus of IoT investments that offer tighter control over bar inventory management, with some options replicating Amazon’s Dash button. Using web-based technology, the Dash button facilitates replenishment when stocks reach a predetermined level by directly contacting the supplier.

Palo Alto-based Nectar is in the development phase of its product which automates Amazon’s Dash button by automatically reordering spirits when their volume reaches a set threshold. Armed with $4.55 million of fresh financing, Nectar hopes to build a solution which can eventually create a cache of data that can be used for predictive analysis to understand patterns which can help in business development. For example, knowing seasonality trends of various cocktails can allow pre-ordering in bulk which can save a bar owner considerable money. In addition, such advanced inventory control systems can track the habits of individual bartenders by giving them individual IDs that tie to the business’ Point of Sale system. That way, such costly behavior over pouring or an abundance of free drinks can be spotted and remedied.

In addition to Nectar, Bar Fly from a company called Local Libations offers a smart-device-based keg monitoring system. Using geotags attached to the individual kegs, a smartphone app or computer can track the beer volume and provide automatic reordering. Much like Nectar, Bar Fly can compile data used for predictive analysis related such areas as customer drinking patterns and busiest hours for staffing purposes.

Following the success of single-server coffee brewer, Keurig, innovators in the IoT space are racing to take the lead in the home bar market. The current state of the home mixology world consists of a mix of startups, with products approaching the market via crowd funding, and those with “cocktail robots” available at retail. These auto-bartenders come in two flavors—closed loop systems which require the consumer to buy premixed drink pods from the device manufacturer and open-loop systems which allow the home drink master to use his own booze and mixers. In both cases, these countertop marvels connect to a smart device via Wi-Fi and allow the user to select from a myriad of various cocktail choices. The machine, such as Burlingame, Calif.,-based Bernooli, then precisely measures the libations to build the perfect Martini, Bloody Mary, Rob Roy or something more exotic, like a Blue Lagoon or Bahama Mama.

Bernooli uses a smart spout system which, when paired with its proprietary app, uses Bluetooth to light up the bottles required for a given adult beverage. The spout allows precise pouring amounts are for the home user. Others in the race to become the Keurig of the cocktail set include Somabar, Monsieur, and Bartesian.

With so many options in the development pipeline, clearly IoT and the “robot cocktail” space is headed in some interesting directions. Additional market contenders include Picobrew, which uses smart technology to turn consumers into home beer brewmasters.  With another twist to attract the wine connoisseur, D-Vine offers mini tubes of wine correctly cooled and aerated for proper serving.

 

An Explainer: The Impact of The Mirai Botnet Attack On The Smart Kitchen

Last week, one of the worst fears of Internet of Things (IoT) industry insiders was realized when someone took advantage of security holes in connected devices like netcams and home routers to create a botnet attack on popular websites like Twitter and Soundcloud.

While the attack didn’t involve any connected kitchen devices, as more and more device makers add network connections such as Wi-Fi, the possibility of a similar attack becomes likely.

Because of the complicated nature of malware like Mirai and what happened last week, let’s review exactly what happened and then look at the possibility of it happening in the smart kitchen.

What Happened

-First, the event was the result of a form of malware – essentially a form of computer virus – that runs on devices with an embedded operating system called Linux. Many connected consumer electronics use some form of Linux, which is an open source operating system, including smart kitchen devices.

-This attack was engineered to attack devices that have a network connection and an open IP address on the Internet. It also targeted those devices that still used the factory default password and username (You know the “admin” and “password” login credentials you get when you buy something like a low-cost home router at Best Buy).

-Once a device was infected, it was instructed to send a bunch of requests to connect with popular websites like Twitter. While one device like a network camera doesn’t do much to impact a popular site like Twitter, hundreds of thousands of these devices working together in the form of an IoT “zombie army” can overwhelm even the most popular sites. This type of attack is called a ‘Distributed Denial of Service’ – or DDOS – attack.

What Could Happen Next and What To Do About It

Now, what didn’t happen is what we often fear will take place when we put a connected device in our home: someone overtakes the device and starts to do bad things like make it operate when we don’t want to or makes it malfunction. Not that those things can’t happen – we’ve already had examples of people overtaking connected baby monitors to talk to children.

The reality is that IoT devices are a new playground for folks with malicious intent. The idea of connecting and controlling a small consumer connected device is enticing for hackers, as has been amply illustrated at hacker conventions like DEF CON.

However, it’s fairly straightforward to protect your products by taking a few basic steps that employ best practices. One is to make sure you don’t default to the same username and password in devices coming from your factory. Companies like Securifi, the makers of the Almond consumer router, create randomly generated default passwords that make it much harder for a person with malicious intent to access the device.

Next, use a secure connection to the cloud if your connected device employs any form of Internet service. What you don’t want to do is simply leave it open to be accessed from remote locations on the Internet.

Lastly, you should have both in-house expertise as well as rely on third party experts who know how to create secure consumer devices. Often appliance makers wading into the connected home are new to this world, so just like you wouldn’t enter a foreign market without tapping into local expertise to help you navigate a new marketplace, you don’t want to enter the world of connected devices without knowledgeable people both inside and outside your company walls.

Check out our podcast on the topic with IoT expert Jim Hunter here.