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Spoon Newsletter: LG’s HomeBrew Appliance, Spinn Update, World’s First Cell-Grown Steak

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When it comes to smart kitchen startups, there is no shortage of companies trying to change how we make our morning cup of joe.

One of the highest profile startups in this space over the past couple of years is Spinn, maker of a grind-brew coffee machine that utilizes a patented centrifugal brewing technology. I was intrigued enough with the company and its tech to plop down over $300 to join the first “batch” of orders in 2016, but almost two years past the promised ship date, I’m still waiting for my Spinn.

The company has hit some snags as they work to get their coffee maker to customers. While many of the Spinn’s early customers have been understandably frustrated, it appears most are hanging on, intrigued by the company’s periodic updates showing progress on the product. If they’re like me, I suspect many are getting frustrated with a company that continues to advertise and sell their overdue appliance, all the while creating more and more distance between new customers and those still waiting at the front of the line.

Still, I know I have no one to blame for investing my money in a Spinn with the knowledge that coffee startup products have been historically risky investments. With companies like ZPM and Arist turning out to be colossal misses and others like Bonaverde sputtering along for years and periodically shipping out products, I knew full well that I might never see the product. In the end, I may have been better off putting my money towards a Tesla like Spoon reader Rebecca:

“I put money down for this machine in Nov. 2016 (I’m a 1st batch-er) and at around the same time my husband put down money for a Tesla Model 3. At least I now have a smooth ride to the coffee shop!”

You can read my latest update on my Spinn journey here.

Coffee isn’t the only category that can be rough sailing for new startups. The home brew market has been notoriously tough as well, with companies like HOPii and iGulu struggling to ship and others like BrewArt and Brewie failing to get much traction.

Still, this hasn’t stopped South Korean consumer electronics giant LG from jumping into the game. The company recently announced they would debut a new home brewing device by the name of the LG HomeBrew at CES.  The capsule-based beer brewing appliance, which makes roughly the same amount of beer as a PicoBrew Pico per cycle, is expected to ship sometime next year.

What’s interesting to me is a company like LG usually only gets into a business if they see a high volume opportunity, which begs the question what will they do to differentiate their product?  While PicoBrew has certainly raised awareness around automated beer brewing, the company has yet to make home brewing a mass-market hobby, something I am sure LG hopes they can do.

Either way, next year promises to be an interesting one when it comes to tech-powered boozing at home. About a month ago, Keurig and AB InBev launched Drinkworks, a capsule-based instant serve cocktail, cider and beerbot machine expected to ship in limited quantities next year.

While home bev-tech space continues to slowly gestate, the pro market continues to move along at a rapid clip. Just this week, a robot powered bartender by the name of UR5e debuted at Broncos Stadium. The new bartenderbot is essentially robotic arm that grabs a beer cup and fills it (through the bottom, no less) for waiting customers.

Moving beyond beverage bots, this week also saw the introduction of a new sidewalk delivery bot from Postmates that goes by the name of Serve. Serve, which looks like the lovechild of Minion and Starship deliverybot, is expected to roll out in Los Angeles over the next year. And speaking of food delivery, this week Chris wrote about the breakup of Amazon and Instacart, something that’s been rumored ever since the big online retailer acquired Whole Foods.

There’s lots more great analysis to catch up from this past week, including looks at the first cell-grown steak and what the new farm bill means for CBD, so make sure to check it out.

That’s it for now. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week!

Mike

In the 12/14/2018 edition:

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

By Catherine Lamb on Dec 14, 2018 11:16 am
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.

The Denver Broncos Get a Beer Pouring Robot at Mile High Stadium

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 14, 2018 08:04 am
While the Denver Broncos may be in the midst of a losing season, they could win over fans this weekend when a new robot starts dispensing Bud Light at Mile High Stadium (h/t The Washington Post). You’d think that such a mechanical miracle would have a fancy name like the “Robo-Bronco” or the “Elway 3000,” […]

Startups! They’re Just Like Us! Amazon and Instacart Break Up

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 13, 2018 04:00 pm
Like Ben and Jennifer, Brad and Angelina, and Cardi B and Offset*, Instacart and Amazon have broken up. In a blog post today, Instacart announced that it was winding down (consciously uncoupling?) its grocery delivery relationship with Amazon. Like with so many other power couples, this breakup wasn’t entirely a surprise.

The Farm Bill Just Passed — What Does That Mean for the CBD Market?

By Catherine Lamb on Dec 13, 2018 02:08 pm
After months of back and forth, Congress voted yesterday to pass the 2018 Farm Bill. The $867 million bill contains lots of wide-reaching legislative measures, like expanded farm subsidies, SNAP revisions, and permanent funding for farmers markets. But perhaps most interestingly, the bill legalizes the production and sale of hemp at a federal level.

What Bowery’s Latest Funding Round Says About Indoor Farming

By Jennifer Marston on Dec 13, 2018 12:00 pm
New Jersey-based indoor-farming startup Bowery announced yesterday that it has raised $90 million in fresh funding. The round was led by Alphabet Inc.’s GV with participation from Temasek and Almanac Ventures, General Catalyst and GGV Capital (Bowery’s Series A investors), and various seed investors. Bowery produces what founder Irving Fain calls “post-organic produce.”

ImpactVision Raises $1.3M Led by Maersk

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 13, 2018 10:11 am
ImpactVision, a startup that uses hyperspectral imaging to assess food quality, has raised $1.3 million, according to VentureBeat. The round was led by logistics and transportation company Maersk, and brings the total amount raised by ImpactVision to $2.9 million. As we wrote last year about ImpactVision: Using a combination of digital imaging, spectroscopy and machine learning, […]

Postmates Debuts its own Bright-Eyed Delivery Robot

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 13, 2018 06:00 am
You know what you can look forward to in 2019? More robots (but more on that in a later post). Case in point: delivery service Postmates announced today that it has developed its own autonomous delivery rover that will be hitting sidewalks next year. Dubbed Serve, the li’l robot is a bright yellow square-shaped box […]

Hi Fidelity Genetics Raises $8.5M for AI-Driven Plant Breeding

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 13, 2018 04:00 am
Hi Fidelity Genetics (HFG), which combines sensors, data and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve plant breeding, today announced that it has raised an $8.5 million Series A led by Fall Line Capital and Finistere Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by HFG to $11.5 million. There are two parts to the HFG system.

Deliveroo Goes Back to the Future with Brick and Mortar Food Hall

By Catherine Lamb on Dec 12, 2018 04:00 pm
You know how they say that in fashion, everything old comes back around and eventually is new again? It seems that the same might be true for restaurants. This week London-based food delivery startup Deliveroo opened up its first brick-and-mortar location in Hong Kong (h/t CNBC). The so-called Delivery Food Hall is home to five […]

Waitr to Acquire Bite Squad for $321.3M

By Jennifer Marston on Dec 12, 2018 02:00 pm
Online delivery platform Waitr has announced plans to acquire third-party delivery service Bite Squad for $321.3 million. The purchase price is a mix of cash and shares of common stock of Waitr. Both companies serve small- to mid-sized U.S. markets. Waitr is a full platform from online order and delivery. Restaurants partnering with the company […]

Keurig’s Pod-Based Home Bar Mixes Up Cocktails, Beer, and Cider on Your Counter

Today Drinkworks, a joint venture of Keurig Dr. Pepper and Anheuser-Busch, unveiled its first product: a countertop appliance which can prepare cocktails, ciders, and beers with the press of a button.

Available through an early access program in St. Louis, Missouri, the Drinkworks Home Bar is a pod-based system that can chill, mix and carbonate a variety of alcoholic beverages, from Margaritas to Mai Tai’s. Initially, there are twenty-four boozy pods to choose from, developed by “mixologists and beverage scientists,” according to the press release. The appliance also pairs with your smartphone to give system info and “fun tips.”

Though cocktails seem to be their main focus, you can also buy flights of beer pods, which include (surprise!) brews from Anheuser-Busch, including Beck’s beer and Stella Cidre. I can’t imagine a beer made by adding water to a flavor-concentrated pod filled with malt and hops would taste better than one from a can (or brewed from a PicoBrew), but I suppose some people would pay for the draft experience.

The Drinkworks appliances cost $299, and the company recommends pricing the cocktail pods for $3.99 each and the brews for $2.25 each. While we don’t know how the drinks taste, $3.99 is a pretty good price for a cocktail. Yes, you can make a bunch of drinks with a $30 bottle of rum — but if you want to make a cocktail like, say, a Mai Tai, you’d have to also have fresh lime, Orgeat syrup, and orange liquor on hand. All those extra ingredients add up. If you’re a super-cocktail enthusiast, or just entertain a lot, it might be worth the investment. Then again, most “mixology” nerds I know (cough, me) are too snobby to drink a cocktail made from a pod when they could mix it up themselves and have greater control over the finished drink.

Insert a drinkworks pod to get an Old Fashioned cocktail.

A limited number of Drinkworks drinkmakers are available for pre-order in St. Louis. While they’ll initially be available solely on the Drinkworks website, on November 19th local St. Louis brick-and-mortar stores, including all Total Wine & More locations, will carry them. They’ll roll out to more locations in Missouri and Florida in 2019, and California in 2020.

When Keurig announced plans to buy the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group earlier this year, my colleague Chris guessed that some sort of pod-based cold beverage appliance wouldn’t be too far behind — though maybe not one that sprouted soda. It seems Keurig was thinking along the same lines and decided to try to enter the booming craft cocktail market instead. By launching a home appliance, they’re also cashing in on the growing number of consumers who are staying home to get their buzz on (we’re looking at you, lazy millennials).

Bartesian cocktail maker.

Drinkworks will have to compete with other at-home cocktail concocters, and the one that immediately springs to mind is Bartesian, which makes a countertop device that also mixes up pod-based cocktails, and also retails for $299. Bartesian offers six cocktail pods which it sells for $11.99 for a pack of six; almost half the price of the Drinkworks pods.

While they might not have the massive warchests, reach, or name recognition of Keurig or Anheuser-Busch, Bartesian did raise a seven-figure round in September of last year from Beam Suntory and has handed their manufacturing operations off to Hamilton Beach.

It also has a head start: Bartesian shipped the first round of its countertop drink-mixing robot to Kickstarter backers in June of this year (in fact, it shipped two). While the next round, which is available for preorder now, won’t ship until March of 2019, that’s basically in line with Keurig’s timeline to ship its preordered Drinkworks machines sometime in 2019, at least in Missouri and Florida.

The other thing to consider is that Dr. Pepper and Anheuser Busch bring with them a number of well-known brands. That recognition could come into play as a key differentiator for cocktail mixes: for example, people might gravitate towards a Moscow Mule made with Canada Dry ginger ale, or a G&T made with Shweppes tonic. As of now they don’t seem to be using any Dr. Pepper branded sodas in their cocktails, but it’s something to keep an eye out for.

While something like branded vs. unbranded soda in your mixed drink may be a relatively small detail, Bartesian and Keurig are competing in a zero-sum game. I can’t imagine why anyone in the world would want two pod-based countertop cocktail machines, so any little thing that could give them an edge is worth exploring. It seems like this next year (or two) will be a race to see which robotic bartender can carve out the most space in this niche market — and on our countertops.

Should Appliance Makers Use ‘DRM’ In The Kitchen To Lock In Consumers?

One of the biggest insider debates in the world of digital entertainment over the last couple of decades has been whether or not big content conglomerates should use what is called “Digital Rights Management,” or DRM, to protect their content.

The idea behind DRM is that it ensures anyone who uses a digital product, such as a movie or an album, has purchased the right to said product. In a way, it makes sense. After all, companies that invest billions of dollars in content rightly don’t want to see their content stolen and distributed on the Internet.

But DRM had a dark side. Not only did organizations like the Motion Picture Association of America go overboard and make consumers’ lives more painful by pushing to have DRM slapped on everything, but DRM also became a way to effectively hold consumers captive, reduce choice and hurt the overall consumer experience. Anyone who tried to make a copy of an HD movie DVD circa 2008 can attest to this.

Which brings us to the kitchen. With the modern kitchen becoming ever more digital, are appliance and food makers in danger of falling into the same trap?

Some already have. The first big digital kitchen “DRM” attempt was by Keurig in 2014 when they announced the Keurig 2.0 would require that consumers only use Keurig approved pods. This was an affront to anyone who values consumer choice.  Not only did hackers create a workaround, but consumers responded and eventually forced Keurig to reverse their position.

Others like Juicero followed suit (and we know what happened to them, though they had bigger problems than their juice-pod DRM). The big lesson I think we’ve learned is that consumers resist being held captive in one product ecosystem.

Which brings us to this tweet from Jeremy Stretch (hat tip to my friend Stacey Higginbotham for bringing this tweet to my attention):

Jeremy recently purchased a GE fridge and quickly noticed his $2k appliance had an RFID reader to verify whether or not he was using a GE-branded water filter. Because of this, he opted to return the fridge.

I understand the business case for requiring consumers to use a particular brand of filter. And, to be honest, I am much more likely to be accepting of a first-party water filter vs. being held captive to a premium food consumable. But, that doesn’t mean as a consumer I wouldn’t jump at the chance to use a third-party water filter.

Stepping back, however, it’s worth examining if appliance brands should use this technology to restrict consumer choice to a brand’s own products.  In a way, RFID-enforced “DRM” can certainly help to accelerate a recurring revenue business like water filters or drink pods. On the other hand, consumers bristle when it comes to less choice.

And, perhaps even more importantly, these restrictive systems can also be shortsighted. Keurig owes some of its massive success to the availability of cheaper coffee pods; in early markets, the more choice, the better.

This is a lesson early connected kitchen startups like PicoBrew already recognize. While users of the Pico beer brewing appliance currently have to use a new PicoPak purchased from PicoBrew every time they make a batch of beer, the company is working on a beta for fill-your-own disposable pods and also has a reusable polycarbonate ingredient holder on its product development roadmap.

Others like Tovala (and the soon to ship Suvie), which offer food subscription services for their hardware, have wisely chosen not to restrict consumers to only using only their food “pods.”

As for GE, I have no doubt the company will continue to use RFID to enforce the use of their own water filters. And, because a water filter is something consumers only buy every 6-12 months, I don’t really think this will create the same type of anger that a food-consumable DRM would (i.e. Keurig 2.0).

That said, I would still encourage appliance makers to use DRM judiciously.  While most consumers have been trained to use hardware DRM by the likes of home printers, they certainly don’t like it, which of course means they’ll eventually they’ll find away around it.  If there is an option for a non-captive alternative for a consumable, many consumers will opt for that.

And if it’s a food consumable? Forget it. Not only have we seen the kind of anger something like Keurig’s DRM created, but brands should realize that they don’t need DRM to get consumers to buy first-party products. There is a significant percentage who will choose Keurig pods even if they are more expensive. In other words, there are always those consumers pay for convenience and are loyal to brands, at least if you treat them right. If you don’t, these consumers will stay away, and the overall market suffers.

Bottom line? Appliance makers would be wise to learn the lessons of past mistakes around using DRM and understand that by giving consumers more choice, there’s a much better chance of being rewarded in the marketplace.

COO of Lecker Labs, Makers of Yomee, Talks Crowdfunding Success

Since we announced the 8 finalists in our SKS Europe Startup Showcase last week, we’ve launched a series of Q&A’s to introduce this year’s talented crop of food innovators. Next up is Anindya Roy, COO of Lecker Labs, producer of Yomee.

Lecker Labs got their start at the food tech accelerator program FoodX and before launching a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign for Yomee, a countertop appliance which combines milk (and milk alternatives) with branded probiotic pods to create chilled yogurt in 6 hours.

Head to the SKS Europe blog to read our Q&A with Roy and learn more about the inspiration behind Yomee, the startup’s biggest challenges, and the secret to their crowdfunding success.

If you want to meet Anindya and more of the Yomee team in person and see them demo their countertop yogurt maker, register for SKS Europe in Dublin on June 11-12th!

 

VitaCup Scores a Dose of Funding for Its Vitamin-Infused Coffee

We normally think of caffeine and vitamins as coming from two different sources in the morning. The folks at VitaCup think otherwise, and they have a product that could change the rest of our minds, too.

The company makes Keurig-compatible coffee and tea pods infused with vitamins and available in a range of flavors you’d find with any other line of Keurig cups. And we’ll likely see the company’s offerings expand in the near future, as VitaCup announced last week that it has raised an undisclosed round of funding led by First Beverage Ventures.

“The single-cup coffee category is a large and growing market with limited innovation,” VitaCup CEO Brandon Fishman recently noted. “We are excited by the prospect of what we can accomplish together with our new partners at First Beverage as we bring greater capabilities and focus to execute on our growth strategy at VitaCup.”

As the story goes, CEO Brandon Fishman started VitaCup after discovering his own vitamin deficiency as well as the fact that 40 percent of the population suffers from a lack of vitamin B12. After Fishman teamed up with fifth-generation coffee brewer Jeff McIntosh, the California-based company was born in 2017.

Every cup is infused with vitamins B1, B5, B6, B9, and B12, as well as A+ and D3. Those target areas like metabolism, energy, healthy hair and skin, immune system, and mood.

And no, you’re not drinking something that tastes like liquid drugstore. McIntosh and his team spend substantial time in the lab testing out the flavor of the coffee. Right now, pods are available in several different blends, including a House Roast, French Vanilla, and a Genius Blend that’s infused with turmeric and cinnamon.

Flavor isn’t the company’s only mission, though. Besides using Fair Trade sources for coffee, VitaCup also donates 2 percent of its profits to Vitamin Angels, an organization working to end global malnutrition. Its goal is to raise $20,000 for Vitamin Angels in 2018.

The company also keeps an eye to the environment. VitaPod’s San Diego-based production and fulfillment centers are all LEED certified. Meanwhile, all pods are BPA-free and fully recyclable at any Number 5 recycling center.

Right now, the pods are only available at the company’s e-commerce site. VitaCup will use this round of funding to expand sales and marketing and explore other retail options (brick and mortar, presumably). New products are also in the works, ones that combine the company’s main mission of finding the right brew—that is, one that tastes great and gives back.

Will a Combined Keurig Dr. Pepper Bring Back the Kold?

We have banned the headline “X company hopes to become the Keurig for Y” here at The Spoon. But perhaps we should make an exception since it could literally be applied to today’s news that Keurig Green Mountain plans to buy Dr Pepper Snapple Group in a deal valued at $18.7 billion. Will the addition of Dr Pepper make Keurig the, uhhh, Keurig of sodas?

It wouldn’t be the first time Keurig tried to pop into the soda market. In 2015, Keurig launched the Kold to use its pod technology to create name brand sodas, even lining up Coca-Cola as a partner. But the Kold was shut down just ten months later in June of 2016 amidst complaints that the machine was too expensive, too loud, and too big.

By bringing on Dr Pepper Snapple, Keurig now has its own full stack soda solution, as it were, with brands like Dr Pepper, 7Up, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, A&W Root Beer and more. And according to the analyst call Keurig and Dr Pepper held today for the announcement, merging of the two companies will expand distribution opportunities for Keurig into new markets like convenience retail (7-Eleven, CVS, etc.).

But even if the two companies can create new efficiencies and better technology, has the opportunity for a soda spouting Keurig passed? Sugary sodas have been the target of new taxes, and consumption has been declining. Bottled water sales surpassed soda last year, and millennials love their LaCroix, which leads the $2 billion and growing carbonated water market.

Then there are other factors to consider. People are used to putting in some “effort” when it comes to brewing coffee, so popping in a K-cup and waiting is not that big a deal. But is it the same for soda, where people just grab a can and go about their day? Additionally, with the proliferation of same day grocery delivery options, it’s easier than ever to make sure that your soda selection is fully stocked at all times.

Perhaps Keurig will be able to make a more environmental pitch for conscientious consumers. During the analyst call Keurig said it will be expanding the roll out of its recyclable K-Cup pods and is on track to have that completed in the U.S. by 2020.

By then, we’ll see if anyone can become the Keurig of soda machines.

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AB InBev & Keurig Team Up to Create Home System For Beer & Cocktails

While companies such as Picobrew and Whirlpool’s Vessi were showcasing their high-tech methods for brewing beer at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, two giants of the beverage industry confirmed a partnership that could shake up the market for home-based brewers. AB InBev, the world’s largest beer brewer, and JAB Holdings, the corporate parent behind the Keurig pod-based drink system, announced they are teaming up to create a home-brewing system that can deliver beer and spirits to consumers.

The deal should come as no surprise given that JAB Chief Executive Olivier Goudet is also the chairman of AB InBev.

The announcement leads to more questions than answers, but the partnership is likely to take advantage of the technology behind Keurig’s Kold machine which offered single-serve sodas. Considered a bust, Kold was discontinued in the summer of 2016 when customers who owned the product were given refunds. Some of the Kold features, such as “Party Mode,” which allowed a user to crank out more than 30 drinks in a row, will be useful for the new unit.

The new appliance will be able to serve beer, spirits, cocktails and mixers. Given that those beverages require vastly different brewing methods, In-Bev and JAB might be looking at two machines. Beer requires a lengthy fermentation process which would be challenging to distil into an on-demand dispenser. For beer lovers, the two companies could develop a popularly priced home-fermentation machine along the lines of Whirlpool’s Group W Indiegogo project, Vessi. Such a machine might carry the branding of AB InBev’s popular Budweiser or Stella Artois, targeting the fan bases of those already popular brands.

The AB InBev/JAB Holdings partnership will have little impact on the higher-end home beer brewing market. Entrepreneurs looking to build DIY systems are focused on experienced hobbyists who want to create highly customized brews. Home brew masters are rarely novices and are more likely to want machines that allow them to focus more on the art of brewing rather than the mechanical process. The brewing appliance created by the new partnership will target those wanting to up their home entertaining game rather than sophisticated drinkers.

The Keurig for the cocktail set is an easier play for the two companies, with a retooled and improved version of the Kold (a 2.0) ready to tackle that segment. The robotic bartender market is already well established with such companies as Barbotics, Blend Bow and Bartesian already creating interest with early adopters.  Bartesian is making cocktails in second utilizing a proprietary cocktail capsule. Neither InBev nor JAB owns any companies in the spirits business, but plenty of brand names in that space would be eager to partner with someone able to crack the mass market with an adult beverage Keurig machine.

On the surface, building a market for home beer making could appear to be a conflict for In Bev. In actual practice, companies such as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and even JAB’s Peet’s Coffee did not lose branded-store customers when they expanded their reach to include retail channels and Keurig K-Cups. In fact, by allowing beer drinkers to enjoy a fresh Bud or Stella from their home taps could extend customer brand loyalty to bars and restaurants. The challenge for the two companies will be to create an easy-to-use set of ingredients and recipe to replicate the branded brews while allowing the advanced home brewer the opportunity to put his or her signature touch on the final product.

One thing is certain—anything proprietary that results from AB InBev/JAB alliance will be more closely guarded than Keurig’s original K-Cup design. The patent for Keurig’s single-serve pods expired in 2012 because of the ambiguous wording of its original claim. Failure to protect its IP cost the company billions as competitors lined up to create pods for the popular machine.

Here’s Why the Keurig Model Is So Successful

Lately it seems like every time a new kitchen-related appliance appears on the scene, it’s deemed the new “Keurig for X” model: beer, wine, juice, smoothies, cocktails, and now even cookies. What is it about the idea of a plug-and-play model that appeals to both customers and budding businesses?

On the consumer side, people want something easy and intuitive to use (call it the Apple-ification of our world). Further, calling a new device the “Keurig for X” boils down the high-level technology to a digestible sound bite, reinforcing how easy the tech will be to use.

On the business side, these devices feel like they’re tailored for each individual’s tastes but in fact are pretty standardized and right out of the box. Even though they differ in vital ways, each has mastered the idea of recurring revenue, so important for Keurig’s success. For example, in 2010 it made $330 million by selling brewers but $800 million in K-Cup capsules. That makes this model less like a hardware company and more like a tech company (with constant software upgrades and the associated fees).
chipcookieoven

But in order to master success, companies need to keep the customers’ attention beyond replacement packs. “You have to understand, we’re a one-trick pony,” Keurig’s Dick Sweeney told Boston.com a few years go. “We have a brewer and a K-Cup. We don’t have a cellphone or a flat-screen TV or a microwave to fall back on if the brewer doesn’t make it.” In other words, there’s more opportunity when the devices are connected to smartphones and other tech, but in the long run, to stay ahead of the game, companies need to continue to innovate.

They also need to figure out how to get costs down. A $700 juicer works in a Silicon Valley office environment and is a great initial business model, but to expand that success and customer base to the home market, prices need to drop. An entry-level Keurig model will only set you back about $100, which means every home could have one.

Or maybe, just maybe, we need to stop creating gadgets that resemble the Keurig in any way and instead focus on involving people in the everyday process of growing and making food and drinks so that it’s fun and exciting rather than a chore to be simplified.

Meet The Self-Cleaning Keurig For Smoothies

LivBlends was a perfect food startup for Silicon Valley – a no-mess, high tech, healthy snack solution that fit nicely into the cadre of employee perks offered by the area’s companies. A Y Combinator smoothie startup, LivBlends was founded in 2013 as a delivery-based business, selling containers of fresh smoothies to the chefs at popular tech companies like Twitter and Stripe. Some questioned the business model and overall sustainability of fresh smoothie delivery, but LivBlends was quietly working on a much bigger product – at the time, an unnamed device that made smoothies and cleaned itself.

Fast forward to 2016 – meet Replenish. The evolved, renamed company formerly known as LivBlends, Replenish is still a food startup, but instead of delivering smoothies, they’ve made a machine that blends them for you. The Replenish machine is a self-cleaning blender that takes prepackaged fruit and vegetable cups and produces ready-to-drink smoothies. Dubbed the “Keurig for smoothies,” the group is going after the commercial market and inviting businesses to place Replenish machines in their break rooms and cafeterias for free. Then, for a fee, customers can order pods in a variety of flavors and forms, including fruit, coffee, spice and vegetable based. According to TechCrunch, each pod costs between $3.50 and $5.00 depending on what’s in them.

In its early days, Replenish had to prove itself to the market and would set up pop up smoothie giveaways in office buildings. Eventually, the service got so popular, the company moved to subscription models with early clients like Uber. Now, Replenish hosts machines in some of the most popular tech employers in San Francisco and has set its sites on the broader B2B market in the U.S.

How big is the market for fresh, in-office smoothies? “Our first sweet spot is the small, medium size office of 10-100 people. There are about 1.1M offices in the U.S. in that range,” the company wrote in an early blog post. Using those numbers along with average cup revenue and daily penetration, Replenish estimates their market size at $8.2 billion. Beyond medium sized office-based companies, the startup hopes to go after other on-the-go places where the convenience of a smoothie is an easy sell, including gyms, hotels, malls and airports. The ingredients in the pods are healthy – the founders’ mission was to create a better alternative to the traditional office snack – and contain no added sugar and are often organic. The pods themselves are even good for the planet and 100% recyclable.

The creation of the Keurig has spawned all kinds of pod-based beverage companies, including food tech darling Juicero – or, the Keurig for fresh juice. Juicero has raised $70 million in startup funding so far, and unlike Replenish has gone after both the consumer and B2B market with a consumer kitchen model currently on sale. However, in an early blog post, the Replenish founders did add, “The second phase of the company is building a consumer machine that can sit on any kitchen counter.”

Replenish just completed a $3.8 million round of funding and is currently taking pre-orders from companies who want to be early adopters of the self-cleaning smoothie machines on their website.

Smart Kitchen Notes: Juicero In Restaurant Biz, Keurig Gets Kold Feet

In This Edition…

  • The early success of Juicero in the pro market
  • Keurig kills the Kold
  • America’s Test Kitchen launching new food science site
  • PicoBrew ships the first Pico
  • Alchema connected cider maker brewing over at Hax
  • A podcast interview with Hestan Cue chief scientist Darren Vengroff about the furture of cooking

It seems like foodtech and the connected kitchen are gaining momentum, and nowhere is that more evident than in NYC in the first half of June. Not only will the Innit debut at Pirch SoHo next week (we’ll see you there!), the Big Apple is home to the Food Loves Tech event this week.

Around the rest of the country we also saw some interesting developments in kitchen and food tech, including the news that Keurig Green Mountain will kill the Keurig Kold, growing interest in the intersection between cooking and science from America’s Test Kitchen and, here in the NorthWest, PicoBrew just shipped their first Pico unit to a super backer (who wrote a review!).

That and we investigate how Juicero is making significant headway in the restaurant and business market, a new connected cider maker that’s incubating over at Hax, and we also tell you a little about our venue for Smart Kitchen Summit 2016.

Speaking of SKS16, you have just a little while longer for early bird ticket prices, so you might want to hurry on over and get your ticket today.

And oh yeah, we have a great podcast interview with Hestan Cue’s chief scientist, Darren Vengroff! We talk about the early days of the sous vide movement and the emergence of guided cooking. Make sure to check it out (and subscribe!).

The Juicero, A $700 Home Juicer, Already Finding A Home In The Pro Market

Like many, I initially got sticker shock when I saw the price of the Juicero, a pod-based connected cold-pressed juicing machine. At $700, the device is a bit spendy for all but the most dedicated juicers or those with lots of discretionary income.

The Juicero

The Juicero

Which is why I had lots of questions when I sat down with the company’s CEO, Doug Evans, when he visited Seattle this spring to discuss the home juicer.  A natural salesmen, he didn’t blink at the question and insisted he’d easily find a market for the product. I suspected he could be right, particularly since there was likely a market among upper-income home juicers who are tired of the mess and work it requires to get to athe single glass of juice. In many ways, home juicing is in the same primitive stage of expense and mess that the homebrew space has been in the last few decades prior to the arrival of new home brewing systems such as PicoBrew and Brewie. Read More

 

Podcast: The future of cooking with Darren Vengroff

This episode of the Smart Kitchen Show features the Chief Scientist for Hestan Cue, the division of cookware giant Meyer creating a next-generation smart cooking product called the Hestan Cue.

Darren was there in the early stages of sous vide, helping to run eGullet when Nathan Myhrvold and others started frequenting the site and forming a community that would provide the foundation of what would eventually become the modern sous vide market.

Darren and Mike discuss the early days of sous vide, the evolution of precision cooking, the emergence of a new appliance category called guided cooking systems and much more. If you’re interested in the future of cooking, this is a good episode to check out.

Keurig Kills The Kold

This week we learned that Keurig Green Mountain was discontinuing the Keurig Kold home soda machine. The company would be laying off 130 workers, mostly from the pod production side of the business.

Our Take: Like the more popular Keurig coffee machines – now, somewhat awkwardly, called Keurig Hot – the Keurig Kold used a pod-based system, only instead of coffee they made soft drinks. The problem with this idea is that unlike coffee, consumers haven’t been trained to pay high prices for homemade soda, particularly home soda that doesn’t taste as good as the pre-bottled stuff from Big Soda.

My feeling was the Keurig Kold would have done better if it positioned itself as a home pod-based cocktail machine, partly because consumers are used to paying more for cocktails, and most consumers don’t really know how to mix cocktails themselves all that well. Whether or nor the company takes another swing at cold drinks is unclear but, if they do, they might want to make the Keurig Kold the home bartender instead of the home soda fountain.

America’s Test Kitchen Wants to Bring Science to Cooking

Launched over two decades ago, America’s Test Kitchen has become the go-to resource for kitchen cooking instruction for home chefs. Now the group is looking to help take cooking to the next level, and bring new cooks into the mix, with the launch of the Cook’s Science website. The group recently announced its launch, led by executive editors Molly Birnbaum and Dan Souza and aim to add an element of narrative in order to tell stories about the intersection of science and food.

Our Take: This initiative to look at science and technology and examine how they are changing how we cook is part of a growing trend. With the emergence of Guiding Cooking Systems, meal delivery services, app-based cooking gadgets and hands-off appliance functionality, we continue to see efforts to reinvent the core concepts in cooking and appeal to the next generation of cooks in the kitchen. There is a gap in concentrated reporting around this and other related subjects, including food technology, smart kitchen, the convergence of science and tech with food and more. We hope this and other similar efforts will help tell interesting stories and spark a movement that drives the kitchen of the future.

PicoBrew Ships First Pico Unit To Superbacker

PicoBrew recently shipped its Pico unit off of the production line to one of its most ardent backers, Luke Murphy. Murphy, a long-time homebrewer based in North Bend, Washington, backed the first PicoBrew product in the Zymatic, and in a recent blog post discussed his experience with his first brew with the Pico.

From the post:

Set up was a breeze. Really fast and easy. Plug in, turn on, find and log into Wi-Fi, and then register the device on your PicoBrew account. That’s it. 

As for brew day, it’s just about as simple. 1) Fill up the water reservoir and the keg to the defined water level 2) Hook the keg up to the device 3)You pull out the step filter, load in the grain box and hop box, and load the step filter back in. 4) The Pico automatically recognizes the Pico Pack and loads the recipe into the machine. 5) Hit go (after giving a prompt if you want more or less hoppy and more or less ABV). This took less than two minutes.

Clean up was pretty spectacularly easy too. 1) unhook the keg 2) pull out the step filter and dump the grain and hop box into the compost 3) rinse the step filter, this is really easy as there is no residue from grain or hops 4) attached the ball lock adaptors to the line in and line out ball locks 5) have a pitcher of clean water to draw from and an empty pitcher to deposit to. The clean cycle took all of 3 minutes.

All in all, from start to finish, 2 hours and 20 minutes, only 5 minutes that needed a human.

Our Take: We think the Pico is probably one generation away from being a true mass market “Keurig for Beer”, the second generation brewer from PicoBrew will certainly be important in opening up the market beyond hard-core home brewers to casual early adopters and beer enthusiasts. While Murphy is definitely a super-early adopter, his post describes an important ease-of-use around the experience we think will be important as this market expands.

Alchema Home Cider Machine Brewing at Hax Accelerator

The Hax hardware accelerator is an interesting incubator for a variety of hardware startups, but one in particular recently caught our eye. TheAlchema home cider maker is just another example of a growing trend we’re seeing around connected drink makers, including the FirstBuild cold brew coffee maker and the Chime home chai maker.  Whether or not the addressable market is big enough for all of these devices is yet to be seen, but we’re encouraged to see innovation around home beverages. The Alchema is hitting Kickstarter in July.

If you haven’t subscribed to our newsletter, do so today to make sure you don’t miss out on getting this analysis in your inbox every week. And while you’re at it, make sure you get your tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit soon to make sure you don’t miss your opportunity to meet the leaders of the connected kitchen revolution in October.