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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Kickstarter

2050 Company Kickstarts Powdered Smoothies Made from Upcycled Produce

Ugly fruits and veggies can be pretty appealing (and delicious) when you grind them into dust. That’s the basic pitch for the 2050 Company, which launched its line of instant smoothies made from upcycled produce via Kickstarter today.

Sourced from farms and distributors across the West Coast, 2050 takes cosmetically imperfect fruits and vegetables and runs them through a proprietary drying process that removes the water but retains the nutrients in the items. The resulting dried produce is then ground into dust, which is packaged up and can be mixed with ice to make a smoothie.

2050 will start with three flavors: Rainier Berry, Seattle Summer, and Evergreen. A minimum pledge of $35 gets you 10-pack bag of smoothies with the first 350 backers getting Rainier Berry flavored smoothies in September and the rest being fulfilled in November.

Ugly produce has actually become quite the belle of the ball in recent years. In addition to it being turned into soups, sauces and ice creams, a number of startups are selling it outright. The aptly named Imperfect Foods (née Imperfect Produce) started off by selling surplus and ugly produce direct to consumers. Same goes for Misfits Market. And FoodMaven sells the ugly stuff to restaurants.

While we haven’t yet had a chance to try the 2050 smoothie, reducing ugly produce down to a powder is an intriguing idea. It’s lightweight, so it’s easy to ship, and will last on a shelf for up to one year.

Another company doing something similar is BlendJet, which sells a portable blender and packs of freeze-dried fruits for smoothies ($3.95 each).

2050 got its name because of its mission to improve the way we treat the planet before the environmental disasters (ice caps melting, rain forests gone, etc.) predicted to happen by the year 2050 arrive. We’ll see if that kind of foresight extends to its first year of business in 2020.

Cuzen Matcha Cruisin’ Through its Kickstarter Goal on its First Day

Part of the problem with this job is that I write about a lot of cool kitchen stuff. This, in turn, makes me want to buy a lot of the things I write about. Things like the Cuzen Matcha.

The Cuzen Matcha is a beautifully designed countertop machine out of Japan that grinds and mixes fresh matcha powder to create a delicious cup of matcha that you can drink straight or mix into another beverage like milk.

World Matcha, the company behind the Cuzen, launched it’s Kickstarter campaign today, and at the time of this writing had already raised more than $22,000 of its $50,000 goal. Early backers can get their own Cuzen Matcha machine, plus 40 cups’ worth of matcha leaves for $299, with a scheduled ship date of October of this year.

And therein lies the problem. I tasted the Cuzen’s matcha at our Food Tech Live event earlier this year (you can watch our video of the Cuzen in action to see for yourself how it works), and it was delicious. And the machine is more sculpture than appliance and now I want to buy one.

CES 2020: A Look at the Cuzen Matcha, a Home Matcha Making Appliance

But I don’t drink matcha with any regularity. But maybe I would if I paid $300 for a machine that makes it? I mean, colder months are coming and a hot mug of freshly ground matcha latté sounds pretty enticing. A matcha latté at Starbucks is around $3.00, and that’s for one that isn’t nearly as good. So I’d only need to drink a hundred homemade Cuzen matchas to break even? That’s not too bad…

Wait. Are we doing this? Am I buying a matcha machine?

Unlike a lot of Kickstarter hardware projects (Rite Press, we’re looking at you), having interviewed the World Matcha team and seen the product in action, I have more faith that this crowdfunded project will actually come to market.

Now the question is whether it will come to my kitchen counter.

Kickstarter: BeanBon Lets You Roast Coffee Beans on Your Countertop

If the first pandemic-spurred lockdown drove us all to bake bread, perhaps quarantine 2.0 will inspire people to roast their own coffee beans. If so, devices like the BeanBon could become all the rage.

Launching on Kickstarter today, the BeanBon is a countertop home coffee roasting appliance system that can roast up to 120 grams of raw coffee beans at a time. Users can choose from three modes:

  • SmartMode: Select from one of eight pre-set profiles to roast coffee with the push of a button. Adjustments can be made in the accompanying app.
  • Creator Mode: Lets users manually control different roasting parameters such as heat, exhaust levels, roast time, etc. Settings can be saved and shared with the BeanBon community.
  • Guru Mode: Allows users to experiment with the roast profiles created by professional coffee roasters.

Any raw coffee bean can be used, and BeanBon offers a curated selection on its site for purchase. There is even a special “BeanBon X Champs” variety that includes a QR code to use special Guru Mode roasting instructions.

The Kickstarter for the BeanBon launched today, and you can pick one up for $699. Company materials say the device will start shipping in September of this year.

The BeanBon is the creation of a Taiwanese company called avigo, and we reached out to them because there were some details left out of their English-language press materials. Namely, they also didn’t include any information about the availability/cost/shipping of coffee beans to the U.S.

The BeanBon device and raw bean market is very similar to the Kelvin home roaster, which costs just $249 for for pre-orders (though the Kelvin doesn’t have a connected mobile app). The Kelvin is supposed to ship to backers next month, that’s almost a two year delay from the original ship date.

That’s good to know if you are interested in the BeanBon. Backing hardware projects on Kickstarter is definitely buyer beware because there are many risks associated with moving a prototype to production.

But given that this pandemic tragically doesn’t show any signs of slowing, there’s a good chance you’ll still be stuck at home (in the U.S.) whenever the BeanBon ships.

Pico, the Mini Indoor Garden that Can Grow Herbs and Tomatoes, Busts Through Kickstarter Goal

With quarantine keeping us all at home, people are growing plants both for mental health and as a food source. But even if the enthusiasm is there, there are still plenty of pitfalls to accidentally kill your plant friends — overwatering, underwatering, not enough light, etc.

For those reasons, plus a growing (ha!) interest in food sovereignty, coronavirus could actually present a real market opportunity for smart gardens; automated indoor grow systems to manage the health of your plants. But, as Mike Wolf noted in his piece last month, one big hurdle standing in smart gardens’ way is their cost. The systems can range in price from hundreds to even thousands of dollars.

That’s where Pico, a new automated indoor garden currently making a splash on Kickstarter, could really distinguish itself. Early Backers can secure a Pico for only $32. The intended MSRP is $45.

When we say Pico made a splash on Kickstarter, we’re not exaggerating: at the time of writing the company has raised $1.3 million on Kickstarter (its initial goal was $10,000). The small self-contained grow system that can be affixed to walls and features an LED light mounted on an adjustable arm, which can be moved up as plants grow. It can also self-water, provided someone fills up its tank once a week.

Like most indoor garden systems, Pico is limited in terms of what plants can grow. The Kickstarter says it can be used for decorative plants, like succulents, as well as to grow herbs and leafy greens. It even claims it can grow cherry tomatoes and chili peppers, though its small size could limit the amount.

Photo: Pico’s grow system, by Altifarm

Pico may be extremely affordable, but it doesn’t have quite the same stramlined user experience as some of the pricier home gardens. For one, Pico has to be plugged in to work. It’s powered with a USB Type-C cable, so it can plug into a phone or computer charger. Pico comes with a 3-meter long cable with magnetic organizer loops to more easily route around kitchen appliances, so that helps. But it still seems like kind of a pain to set up. That said, Pico is small enough to fit pretty much anywhere, and can also be mounted on walls to position it closer to a wall outlet. You can also connect three Picos together at a time and power them with the same charging cable.

The Pico price only includes the device. Users have to add in their own soil and seeds. To be fair, that’s not a huge lift, but it does mean the Pico isn’t a straight plug-and-grow option, like Aerofarm or Click & Grow.

It also isn’t 100 percent automated. Users have to manually turn the LED light on and off to imitate the rise and fall of the sun. They can also purchase a timer to automate the process for an additional cost.

Altifarm, the company behind Pico, has some experience making automated grow systems. They’ve already launched Herbstation, an indoor farm that was also funded by Kickstarter. The company has just concluded fulfillment of Herbstation preorders after a self-admitted “share of delays, mixups, and drama.” Buyer beware.

Photo: Altifarm

As of now, Pico is slated to begin shipping in May/June, though a small disclaimer at the bottom of the campaign notes that that could be delayed due to stay at home orders. Buying a product off a crowdfunding site is always a risk — especially now, when COVID-19 is disrupting manufacturing supply chains across the globe. However, Altifarm states that since Pico is their third global product launch, they’ve learned how to efficiently get a hardware product to market.

Despite the risks, Pico couldn’t be hitting the market at a more opportune time. With COVID nudging consumers to be more aware of where their food comes from — and people consequently gaining an interest in food sovereignty — home gardening is blooming (okay, last plant pun).

Pico’s stellar Kickstarter campaign illustrates just how enthusiastic consumers are about finding ways to easily grow their own food at home. Now we’ll have to see if they can follow through to make all those backers happy home gardeners.

Review: BLOOM is a Speedier Pourover Coffee Maker for Homes and Cafés

When I worked as a barista, my absolute least favorite drink to make was a pour over. Essentially a single-serving cup of coffee made individually, the process was fussy and usually took five minutes, which held up the line and stressed me out.

Coffee design company ESPRO has developed a new single-serve coffee brewer called BLOOM meant to improve on the traditional pour over method. BLOOM is currently wrapping up a successful Kickstarter campaign. This week I got to try it out myself to see what all the fuss is about.

Based in Vancouver, ESPRO had already made its own versions of several tried-and-true coffee brewers, including French Press and Cold Brewer. “Now we’re tackling the pour over,” ESPRO’s co-founder and President Bruce Constantine told me over the phone last week.

The main innovation by the BLOOM brewer is its flat bed — that is, the base of the brewer where the coffee comes out. BLOOM’s is larger than average and has 1,500 tiny holes, which means it can brew coffee faster than a traditional pour over device. According to Constantine, this shape also means that the coffee extracts more evenly, so the end result is more consistent. “It’s the first time the pour over has been reinvented in 30 years,” he told me.

Since the BLOOM has a non-traditional shape, it also requires specialized paper liners. ESPRO currently has patents out for both the paper and the BLOOM brewer itself. 

Photo: The parts of ESPRO’s BLOOM brewer [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

Constantine says he expects that the BLOOM will be a 50/50 product in terms of customers: 50 percent consumer, 50 percent foodservice in coffee shops and cafes. With COVID keeping more people at home, however, he said that they’re going to focus on the consumer market first. 

Home brewers certainly seem to be interested in the BLOOM brewer. ESPRO launched the Kickstarter for BLOOM on April 15 with a goal of $20,000. It was fully funded after eight hours. At the time of writing this, the Kickstarter had raised over $63,000 with eight days to go.

Kickstarter backers can get the BLOOM and 50 papers for $35. Constantine said when the device debuts in retail, it will cost $50 for the device and 10 papers. Packs of 100 papers will sell separately for $10 each. The company plans to sell the BLOOM directly through their website, and have already confirmed placements at retailers like Williams Sonoma, Sur La Table, and Nordstrom. 

Constantine said they expect to start shipping BLOOM to backers in July. As with any crowdfunded hardware product, there’s no guarantee that ESPRO will be able to hit that timeline — especially as COVID is disrupting manufacturing supply chains around the globe. But Constantine said that since they’re producing in China, which is over the worst of the virus, they actually aren’t experiencing any manufacturing slowdowns right now. 

In these uncertain times, things can change moment to moment. But it is comforting that ESPRO has already helmed four Kickstarter campaigns, all of which successfully shipped their products.

I got to give the BLOOM a try to get my caffeine fix this week. The process is extremely simple: put a filter into the brewing cone, place it over a coffee mug, add your ground coffee, then pour in the water. Coffee convention recommends that you “bloom” your coffee first (hence the name), which basically means pouring just a little bit of water into the grounds and letting it sit for thirty seconds to make space and let bitter carbon dioxide escape. After the bloom, I poured in the rest of the hot water and had a tasty cup of coffee in a minute and a half.

The BLOOM brewer ready for hot water. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

A minute and a half is a speedy brew time for specialty coffee. My typical Chemex routine takes around six, and regular pour overs take four to five. The coffee itself was delicious, and cleanup was a snap thanks to the paper liner, which gives it a definite edge over the French Press for me.

There’s no question that the BLOOM is easy to use and looks beautiful. However, after trying it out I was left wondering: “Is it really worth it?”

Sure, a traditional pourover and Chemex both take a few extra minutes to brew. But the amount of required active time is essentially the same. A Chemex costs around $45, on par with BLOOM, while a regular ceramic pourover is roughly half that. I’m not sure if a slightly faster brew time justifies purchasing a BLOOM in addition to these other brewers.

I think that the bigger opportunity for BLOOM is in cafes — where time actually is of the essence. But since COVID-19 has basically nixed pour overs from the menu — and might shutter some coffee shops for good — that might not happen for a while.

Until then, if you’re looking to speed up your morning coffee routine, or just add a fun new gadget to your collection to spice up quarantine, BLOOM could be a good fix.

Kickstarter: Koup is a Shirt Infused With Cinnamon

I’m currently on a diet and one of the things I miss most is cinnamon rolls. Between the smell and the sticky sweetness, they are the perfect morning treat (that is so not perfect for you).

While I may not be able to eat my cinnamon fix any longer, a project on Kickstarter will let me wear shirts made from my favorite spice. Koup has raised nearly $70,000 on the crowdfunding platform to make shirts partially out of recycled polyester and infused with . . . cinnamon.

The Koup campaign page claims that cinnamon is anti-microbial and anti-odor while being 100 percent natural. They do not say whether or not your sweat will smell like a food court Cinnabon — which, I would 100 percent endorse.

Whether or not the cinnamon really is a wonder ingredient when it comes to keeping your clothes fresh, the shirts are also partially made from recycled plastic bottles and people who purchase them are encouraged to send the shirts back to Koup so they can be recycled into new yarn.

All this cinnamon-y, eco goodness doesn’t come cheap. To get one Koup T-shirt, you need to pledge $36 plus shipping. Which, in the grand scheme of things isn’t that ridiculous for a shirt anymore.

Koup’s campaign comes at a moment when the world is reflecting on and taking action against our growing plastic waste problem. So kudos to them for considering this issue and adding a little, err, spice to it.

The company is using a Taiwanese manufacturer, so perhaps it can sidestep some of the impacts the deadly Coronavirus is having on other Kickstarter projects manufacturing in mainland China.

Coronavirus Hits Kickstarter as Projects Run Into or Anticipate Delays

One of the problems that many crowdfunded hardware startups encounter is manufacturing and scaling. That’s because for many startups, it’s their first time working with manufacturers, not to mention working with manufacturers half a world away in China.

And if vastly different time zones and frequent visits to China weren’t tough enough for n00b entrepreneurs, the deadly Coronavirus epidemic is now currently tearing through China. This is creating even more problems for manufacturers as the country implements strict measures to combat the disease’s spread.

The Coronavirus now appears to be impacting projects backed on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms. This came to our attention today when ChopBox, the high-tech cutting board, sent out the following update:

As per the previous update, we confirmed that the first batch of 500 units were to be finished by February 10th, but because of the coronavirus, most factories have been shut down until around February 15th as a precaution only. We have contacted the factory and they cannot confirm the exact day or time they will be allowed to reopen, but we have the rough schedule. It should be around February 20-25th. As soon as they are open again, we will use express shipping for the super fast shipping pledge backers and get your ChopBox to you right away.

It should be noted that ChopBox was already experiencing production issues, and had delayed is shipping once from December to Mid-January. So while there’s never a “good” time for an outbreak, this definitely bad timing for ChopBox.

Over on the BRÜ Kickstarter page, there was an exchange with a backer concerned that the virus might get into the device being made there:

And over on the BEERMKR campaign page, backers are asking questions about how the Coronavirus will impact their device’s shipment:

We reached out to both BRÜ and BEERMKR to see how the virus is impacting their production.

UPDATE: BEERMKR Co-Founder, Aaron Walls emailed us the following statement:

We’re waiting on an update from the factory now. Prior to the virus being so expansive, we were planning on a week delayed start, twice the time to produce parts, and not have our engineers return to China in the month of February, which would also slow things down. Now that the virus is a pandemic and the Chinese government shutting down transportation and large scale preventing the movement of people, there is a possibility that there won’t be any workers present in Shenzhen to begin work at all. I’m hoping to get some sort of a response from our factory by the end of the week, so I can follow up with more details then.

Whether or not people have to wait to brew their own beer, make a single cup of tea, or weigh their vegetables as they chop them is the very least of the problems caused by the Coronavirus.

But it is emblematic of our increasingly connected world and another reason those creating Kickstarter hardware campaigns need to make sure they raise enough money to weather unexpected crises, and be as transparent with backers as possible.

COFFEEJACK, the Handheld Espresso Maker, Crowdfunds $1.1M on Kickstarter

Last week on The Spoon Editorial podcast, Head Editor Chris Albrecht discussed his recent look back at food- and drink-related crowdfunding successes and failures of 2019. He noted that some of the biggest success stories from the year were around gadgets geared towards two beverages: beer and coffee.

When it comes to the COFFEEJACK, that analysis seems accurate. The product, from Bristol, UK-based company HRIBARCAIN, launched a $13,081 Kickstarter for its single-serve portable espresso maker back in October. As of this writing, the campaign has raised over $1,093,000.

The COFFEEJACK is a handheld device that brews a single serving of espresso directly into your cup. Put finely-ground coffee beans in the base, fill it with hot water, and press the pump a few times to get a DIY espresso.

COFFEEJACK’s co-founders Ashley Hribar-Green and Matthew Cain (Get it? HRIBARCAIN!) met when they were engineers working on the cordless vacuum at tech company Dyson. They began developing an idea for an affordable portable espresso machine three years ago. Almost 400 prototypes later, they filed a patent on the current COFFEEJACK device, which creates high-pressure coffee extraction without the use of pods, filters or electricity.

As a one-time barista, I know that making espresso is far more difficult than, say, brewing up some joe in a french press. The key is to apply the exact right amount of pressure on the beans to extract all of the flavors. Cain told me that most espresso makers rely on air to create said pressure, which is why they’re often large and heavy. COFFEEJACK, however, relies on hydraulics to exert the necessary pressure, which requires far less space. That’s how the engineers came to develop a portable espresso maker small enough to hold in your hand, but forceful enough to extract an optimal shot.

Traditional espresso makers are not just unwieldy — they’re also expensive. An average home espresso maker — a real espresso maker, not the stovetop kind which essentially makes concentrated brewed coffee — will set you back around $500. By contrast, prospective backers can pre-order a COFFEEJACK for £70 ( around $91 USD). That’s on par with other handheld espresso makers on the market, though COFFEJACK’s founders told me their machine’s hydraulic extraction made it stand out from the rest.

Hribar-Green and Cain haven’t decided how much the device will cost once it hits the market. They expect to sell the COFFEEJACK both through traditional brick and mortar retail partners and online through their website. 

If you missed out on the COFFEEJACK Kickstarter campaign but really want a handheld espresso maker, don’t panic. HRIBARCAIN plans to keep the crowdfunding a-rollin’ with a six-month IndieGoGo campaign, launching soon.

The COFFEEJACK is set to ship in May of 2020. As always with crowdfunded hardware, there’s no way to guarantee that you’ll actually get your hands on the thing you forked over money for. However, HRIBARCAIN already has two successful Kickstarter campaigns under their belt, for a magnetically controlled pen and pencil, both of which are still shipping today. So the pair clearly has at least some experience with the hardware crowdfunding world. 

One thing I personally like about the COFFEEJACK is how it cuts down on coffee waste. Keurig and Nespresso machines rely on tons of disposable pods to make espresso. While some of those pods can technically be recycled, they usually end up in landfills. COFFEEJACK isn’t reliant on pods or even filters, so it’s relatively waste-free.

HRIBARCAIN is based in the U.K., but they plan to ship COFFEEJACK globally. Down the road, Cain told me they would probably focus on the U.S., since Americans have, in his words, a “real appreciation for gadgets and great coffee.”

At least when it comes to crowdfunding projects, he’s got a point.

Newsletter: Why Blue Bottle Coffee is Like the Tesla Cybertruck

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The new Tesla Cybertruck is a polarizing vehicle. People seem to either really like or hate the triangle-shaped truck. (I’m squarely in the like side because I’ve always wanted a vehicle from Megaforce.) Tesla CEO Elon Musk is definitely a polarizing figure in his own right, but between electric cars, solar powered roof tiles, and hyperloops, Musk isn’t waiting patiently for the future to arrive. He’s shooting it full of harpoons and trying to drag it towards us right now.

I thought of Mr. Musk when I read about Blue Bottle Coffee’s big announcement last week that the coffee company was trying to make its locations have zero waste by the end of 2020. Not 2024 or 2022. But twelve months from now.

As my colleague Jenn Marston wrote, Blue Bottle is achieving this by having people bring in their own containers for coffee beans, their own reusable cups for coffee (or pay a “modest deposit” for one of Blue Bottles reusable cups), and packaging grab and go items in reusable containers.

This is a bold move that even Blue Bottle’s CEO concedes is risky. In a blog post last week announcing the change, Bryan Meehan wrote: “We are proud to announce an experiment that may not work, that may cost us money, and that may make your life a little more complicated.”

Good for him for not sugar-coating this experiment. Also kudos for pushing the plastic-free movement forward. Big companies have been doing little things to reduce their plastic waste output over the past year: Burger King phased out cheap toys in kids meals in the U.K., Live Nation banned single-use plastics at music festivals, and Ben & Jerry’s eliminated single-use plastic cups and spoons.

But Blue Bottle is going one step further and actually “inconveniencing” its customers by pulling them out of their normal routine. As Jenn wrote, the result could wind up being that busy people get pissed and take off for Starbucks. But I’m hopeful that people and other businesses will be inspired by Blue Bottle’s actions, and buy a Cybertruck-load of coffee from them.

Nomiku’s new RFID-scanning circulator

RIP Consumer Sous Vide?

Spoon Founder Mike Wolf broke the news last Friday that Nomiku, one of the early pioneers of the home sous vide movement, was shutting down all operations.

Last year Nomiku had pivoted from a hardware company to become a meal delivery service that used the company’s sous vide technology. But while growth in that sector was strong, it wasn’t enough.

As Mike pointed out, Nomiku’s demise isn’t an isolated incident:

The exit of Nomiku from the market marks the end of what has been a fairly rough of couple years for the first wave of startups in the connected cooking market. Sansaire, which started around the same time as Nomiku, shut down in February of 2018. Hestan Cue, maker of a guided cooking system, downsized its team in April, and just a few weeks later ChefSteps, another sous vide startup, had to layoff a significant portion of its team before it got acquired by Breville.

The bloom is definitely off the consumer sous vide rose at this point. The only question is whether the carnage will continue and expand into other parts of the connected cooking appliance market in 2020.

The Year in Kitchen Tech Crowdfunding

Speaking of hardware: If you are an entrepreneur looking to crowdfund an idea, may we suggest creating some gadget around beverages? I took a look back at our 2019 coverage of Kickstarter projects and there were five drink-related projects that crowdfunded more than $100,000 this year:

Mosi Tea mobile tea brewer – $458,200
uKeg Nitro cold brew coffee maker – $643,498
Stasis Glycol homebrew chiller – $184,369
Travel Decanter cocktail tumblers – $377,071
Ode coffee grinder – $609,094 (with 55 days to go in the campaign)

However, it hasn’t been all good news for the companies that made a bunch a moola on Kickstarter. Mosi Tea will miss its Dec. ship date, Stasis has encountered production issues, and some people who have received their Travel Decanters have complained about it leaking.

Crowdfunding food tech will surely continue through the next year. Hopefully those inspired by the Kickstarter successes will learn from the crowdfunding failures.

The 2019 Winners and Losers in Kitchen Tech Kickstarter Campaigns

We at The Spoon often head over to Kickstarter to see what kinds of crazy/cool kitchen tech products entrepreneurs are looking to crowdfund.

But as we’ve seen (repeatedly), raising tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars via Kickstarter does not mean that a product will actually make it to market.

Given that it’s the end of the year, we thought we’d go back and take a look at the crowdfunding campaigns we wrote about in 2019 to see if they got fully funded, and more importantly, if if they actually shipped their product. (All funds raised below are from Kickstarter only. More could have been raised on other platforms.)

Fromaggio connected countertop cheese maker – Funded ($416,409 ), though it looks like the company has run into development issues, so who knows if it will make its promised ship date of May 2020.

Rite Press no mess French Press – Raised $1,086,974 in 2018. The company asked for more money from backers this year and still hasn’t shipped the product to everyone yet.

Mosi Tea mobile tea brewer – Funded ($458,200). Was supposed to ship in Dec., but that has slipped.

uKeg Nitro cold brew coffee maker – Raised $643,498 and shipped!

Verdeat home hydroponic garden system – Funded ($74,124), supposed to ship in Feb. 2020.

Travel Decanter cocktail tumblers – Raised $377,071 and shipped! But there seem to be some issues with the product leaking for the people who got one.

Stasis Glycol homebrew chiller – Funded ($184,369), though production issues have delayed shipping past the original November estimation.

Rise Mrkt plastic-free grocer – Funding unsuccessful.

Chopbox cutting board + scale + timer – Funded ($1,794,958). Shipping delayed from Dec. to Jan.

Ark reusable food containers – Funding unsuccessful.

The Mellow Duo connected sous vide appliance – Funded ($185,799 with 11 days to go in the campaign). Supposed to ship October 2020.

Heatbox heated lunchbox – Funded ($80,743 with two days to go in the campaign). Ships July 2020.

Neoven high-tech heated lunch box with expansion modules – Funded ($95,730 with six days to go in the campaign). Ships July 2020.

Ode coffee grinder – Funded ($609,094 with 55 days to go in the campaign). Ships August 2020.

iGulu home beer making machine – Raised $701,416 and shut down without delivering.

GoSun Cutlery that’s reusable and the size of a credit card – Funded ($310,283). Ships Feb. 2020

Chime – Funded. Shipping Jan. 2020.

From this list it seems like one of the best ways to get your project crowdfunded is to make something for a drink. Coffee, tea, beer, booze. Find a need (or make one up) and people will flock to fund you.

What’s interesting/sad is that the two projects on this list that didn’t get funding this year were around waste reduction. People it seems weren’t ready to give up their plastic for grocery shopping at Rise MRKT and didn’t want reusable lunch containers from Ark (an idea we were big fans of here at The Spoon).

With big crowdfunding successes like the Ode coffee grinder, Chopbox and GoSun’s cutlery, Kickstarter will continue to be a siren song for would be entrepreneurs everywhere. Hopefully they can learn from the wreckage of those that didn’t deliver this year to make delivery of crowdfunded projects more consistent in 2020.

Kickstarter: Fellow Launches Campaign for New Ode Brew Grinder

Fellow, the company behind the Stagg EKG Kettle, today announced their latest product, the Ode Brew Grinder. The company launched the Ode on Kickstarter, where it is looking to raise $200,000 to fund its production. UPDATE: In mere hours, the Ode campaign has already exceeded it’s $200,000 goal.

This is not your grandpa’s coffee grinder. Fellow, which is known for its high-end design (and high price tags!), is going after hardcore coffee connoisseurs. The Ode grinder features 64 mm flat burrs, 31 grind settings, a magnetically aligned cup catch, a knocker to shake out grind remnants and an auto-stop direct drive motor.

What’s also notable about the Ode is what’s not there, namely a hopper on top to hold a bag’s worth o’ beans. For Fellow, this is definitely a feature not a bug, as it refers to the lack of bean storage as “single dose loading” of coffee beans, and it says the lack of hopper allows it to grind quietly (something I would gladly pay handsomely for as our grinder wakes up the whole house).

All of this high-tech coffee wizardry doesn’t come cheap, however. Super early backers can pick up an Ode for $219, with the device shipping in July of 2020. Those that don’t want to risk crowdfunding will pay $299 at retail.

This is the part of any Kickstarter story where we write about how you should proceed with caution when backing any crowdfunded hardware. Caveat emptor applies here as well, though Fellow has a proven track record of getting products to market (like the aforementioned Stagg), so that makeS shelling out for the Ode a little less of a grind.

A Tale of Two Kickstarter Campaigns I Backed (One is Delayed)

If you are my wife or my parents, please don’t read this, there are Christmas gift spoilers ahead. Everyone else — I didn’t get you anything so please continue!

Call it hubris, but after writing about various Kickstarter campaigns that never made it to market, I thought I had a certain Spidey-sense when it comes to crowdfunding hardware. That I knew how to spot a winner and avoid a dud.

But then I backed the ChopBox, a multi-function cutting board that featured a built-in scale and timer and knife sanitizer all in one. It cost $100, but our cutting boards are getting raggedy and this one looked so cool, and how hard could it be to build a cutting board?

Evidently, harder than the Yes Company, the company behind the campaign, thought. Though the campaign zoomed past it’s $10,000 goal and went on to raise nearly $1.8 million dollars, evidently that wasn’t enough to keep the original shipping date of December 2019 on track. In an update sent on October 8, The Yes Company wrote:

We are on schedule this month to have our first production run of 50 units to test around October 20th. After that trial production run, around October 26-30th, we will start with a larger production run of 2000 units to start shipping out.

We plan to start shipping out Kickstarter orders between November 15-20th. Amount are 50000 units maximum before December we can produce.

Then on Oct. 19, the company sent out:

We expect all rewards to ship in the month of December 2019 (the “Super Fast” pledge will ship out in November).

They also promised that the shipping survey would be sent out “in a few weeks.”

Then on Nov. 21, the Yes Company sent out another update saying:

The time frame has delayed slightly, as during the one-time trial test, we found that there are 2 things that could potentially slow down the process and make the Chopbox in a mess.

They also wrote:

You’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey soon.

Then today, another campaign update was sent out saying:

The first batch is for the backers who selected super fast shipping, which will ship by the end of the month and come to you in January.

The second batch will be sent out around the middle of January

They also said that the survey was sent out. But I never received one and a quick look at the comment section of the Kickstarter page shows that neither did a lot of other backers.

This delay is obviously a bummer for anyone ordering this as a Christmas gift (I did not), but honestly, a month delay for a Kickstarter project is not that bad. Plus, the company offered to send a card that you could presumably hand to someone during the holidays as a placeholder. Think of that what you will.

I’m not super worried about my ChopBox purchase (yet). The company is at least posting updates and photos of the product in progress that I’ll assume are legit. But it serves as another reminder that the first rule of Kickstarter is caveat emptor. Buyer beware.

Contrast this with my other recent Kickstarter purchase, a set of GIR silicone straws. They’re meant to be a li’l stocking stuffer for my wife, who travels a lot, so she doesn’t have to use plastic straws at airports and such.

I got the notification this week that my straws have been shipped, and not only that, they are coming out ahead of schedule. I recognize that mass producing a silicone straw is not the same thing as manufacturing an electronics-packed cutting board, but still, it fills my heart with holiday cheer.

Hopefully that cheer and crowdfunding karma will continue with the BRÜ tea maker that I backed…