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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Kickstarter

PicoBrew Z Breaks Record For Top Food Crowdfunding Campaign In Just One Day

Well that was fast.

According to PicoBrew, they’ve broken their own record for food crowdfunding in a little over 24 hours after the start of their latest campaign.  A company spokesperson has told The Spoon that PicoBrew sold over $1.1 million worth of the new pro product in the first four hours of the campaign and, just a day later, has broken their record with $2.2 million in presales.

What makes this record all that more impressive is the company is deviating from a formula that’s worked in the past by hosting the campaign directly on its website instead of Kickstarter. Company CEO Bill Mitchell told the Spoon that the company was inspired by the success of Glowforge’s 2015 campaign for its 3D printer which, like the PicoBrew Z, was conducted on the company website.

Does the success of PicoBrew with its direct-to-backer campaign spell trouble for platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo? My guess is no. Instead, I’d interpret this as a sign of where a company like PicoBrew (and Glowforge) are in their lifecycle.  Because PicoBrew has built a solid brand and following in the homebrew space and has a proven track record of delivering new products on time to backers, it’s not a surprise they could tap into a built-in base of backers to buy their new product. Combine all this with what appears to be pent up demand for a more robust pro-grade product that goes beyond what the company offered with its original Zymatic, and it looks like the company had all the stars aligned for a huge campaign.

Suvie, The Four-Zone Cooking Robot, To Sell For $599

I’m usually pretty good at guessing prices for new products, so when I wrote about the forthcoming Suvie last week, I expected the four-zone cooking appliance to come in around a thousand bucks. After all, the cooking box from the founder of Reviewed.com combines a whole bunch of functionality into a single box, including a steam oven, broiler, sous vide device and pasta/rice cooker. To top it all off, the uber-box will have a built in refrigeration compressor to keep food cool.

Based on what I’d learned, my internal price guesstimator pegged the Suvie at between $800-$1000 retail. Certainly high or a countertop cooking appliance, but I didn’t think it was crazy for a first-gen product with lots of functionality. So color me surprised when the price, announced yesterday, will be $599 retail.

If I had to guess, this likely means the pricing for the Kickstarter (Robin Liss, company CEO, indicated the Kickstarter will kick off on Tuesday, February 6th) is probably going to come in around $399-$499. Don’t bank on that though since, as we now know, my internal price guesstimator appears to be on the fritz.

Like another next-gen cooking appliance, Tovala, Suvie likely expects to increase their margins by selling food subscriptions for the box. The Tovala announced recently they will offer a discount of $100 off the full $399 retail for new consumers who commit to four meals, and will price their appliance at $199 for new customers who buy 24 meals.

The June Oven – one of the first smart cooking appliances to ship and a product that does not come with accompanying meal kits – is still priced fairly high at $1,495. If Tovala and Suvie are any indication, it appears companies pairing food delivery with hardware have an opportunity to be more aggressive with pricing since they can make some of it up on the back end.

Want to talk about this story and other foodtech news? Join our foodtech Slack community and jump into the conversation.

Fork + Spatula = Forktula, for the (Scraped) Clean Plate Club

We at the Spoon aren’t just about high-end, wi-fi-enabled, AI-powered, connected kitchen appliances. We also appreciate the low-tech approach to solving food problems. And one problem eaters everywhere have encountered at some point is the best way to get every bit of a delicious sauce off the plate and into your mouth.

But now, two dudes from Canada have come up with a solution by combining the fork and a spatula to create: The Forktula! Basically, the Forktula is a small silicone sleeve that goes over half the tines of your fork. After you’ve finished eating your food, simply slide the spatula part over any remaining sauce to scrape up every last bit of deliciousness.

Like the food scale + cutting board combo, Nutriscale, before it, there is a “that doesn’t already exist?” obviousness to the Forktula. Also like Nutriscale, The Forktula is using Kickstarter to get to market and also hails from Canada.

The creators of the Forktula admit that they are solving “The world’s smallest problem.” But there is something to reducing food waste, reducing a mess scraping sauce into a compost bin, and reducing your carb intake by using a Forktula rather than a piece of bread.

If the Forktula intrigues you, a pledge of $7 on Kickstarter can get you a four-pack with delivery anywhere in the world this December — just in time for the holidays. And who wouldn’t appreciate that?

Nomsly Looks to Kickstart its Kids Lunch Delivery Expansion

Nomsly is out to get your lunch money… in the healthiest way possible. The Boston-based startup offers delivery of healthy kids lunches to your door, and has now launched a Kickstarter campaign to help it expand into new geographic locations on the East Coast.

The company is looking to take the hassle out of preparing kids lunches every day without sacrificing quality for convenience (i.e. no prepackaged, processed junk). For $35 a week, Nomsly will send you five prepared, healthy lunches. All meals are cold, so they can be stored in the fridge for a week and packed into lunchboxes with no further preparation needed.

Keeping things cold is actually important for Nomsly. According to Co-Founder Christopher Buck, Nomsly lunches stay fresher longer because the entire process is refrigerated. Food arrives cold, is prepared cold and shipped cold. This way, when your package arrives on Saturday, all the lunches will stay fresh throughout the week. The company even uses a Vitamin C and Calcium wash on the fruits and veggies to keep them from turning brown.

Nomsly is currently bootstrapped with funding from friends and family. Just Buck and Co-Founder Andrew Macauly are full-time with the company, with six other contractors providing additional help. The company currently only serves the Boston area, and wouldn’t reveal any customer numbers.

Nomsly just launched a Kickstarter campaign to try and raise $30,000, the proceeds of which will go towards equipment and materials that would allow the company to expand into New York and Philadelphia.

Which is a bummer for this blogger as it’s another kid meal kit that doesn’t service my area. And I really like the idea of Nomsly. Like Yumble, Nomsly is differentiating itself in the meal delivery space by focusing only on kids. What I really think is smart on Nomsly’s part is to focus even further by providing only lunches, and even further, only cold lunches.

First, grabbing a prepared, balanced meal out of the fridge and throwing it in my son’s backpack would save me lots of time in the morning. At $7 a meal, that’s roughly twice what I pay for a school lunch, but it’s for menu items like grilled chicken and rice with peas and plums, turkey wraps and other fare that seem better than cafeteria tater tots. Plus, it beats the repetition of me slapping together a PB&J everyday.

Buck said the company had looked at going the VC route, but wanted to go with Kickstarter because it was interested in fostering more of an engaged community that was actively participating in their mission. This is admirable, but it leaves open the opportunity for other, better funded companies to come in and replicate what Nomsly is doing on a larger scale.

And if that’s the case, there’s a chance I’ll never get to hand Nomsly my lunch money.

GardenSpace Will Water Your Plants and Squirt Away Pests

Move over garden gnomes. GardenSpace, a new smart watering-camera-deterrent device for your garden on Kickstarter, is looking to stake a claim in garden beds to help home food growers improve their bounty (hat tip to Digital Trends).

You “plant” this solar-powered stationary device in your garden, connect it to a hose and the accompanying app to tell it what you are growing. GardenSpace has a 360 degree camera and thermal sensors to determine how much water each plant needs. The swiveling head and spout rotate and angle waterings to deliver the precise amounts of water required to keep everything in your garden healthy. The “smart” camera can even detect a pest such as a rodent and squirt water to shoo it away.

The people behind GardenSpace say they created the device to help aspiring gardeners yield better crops by taking the guesswork out of watering. Ideally, GardenSpace will reduce water consumption by eliminating over watering, while keeping plants more healthy through proper hydration.

What we can’t tell from the video is how much area one GardenSpace can handle, and how many you’d need to cover larger garden areas.

Regardless, helping people grow their own food is an admirable goal, and one that many companies are getting into. Elsewhere on Kickstarter, the creator of Roomba has Tertill, a mobile robot that goes through your garden to whack down weeds.

One trend we’ve seen up close and personal here at the Spoon is moving the whole garden process indoors. Both AVA Byte and Verdical were in the Startup Showcase at our recent Smart Kitchen Summit (Verdical even won the top prize). Each company creates self-contained indoor gardening systems that basically do all of the growing work for you.

With the campaign just a hundred or so dollars shy of its $25,000 goal, things are looking good for the GardenSpace. And anything that helps people grow their own food is a good thing (especially if it can replace those gnomes).

Home Yogurt Machine Yomee Blows Past its Kickstarter Goal

I am addicted to Ellenos greek yogurt. It’s thick, rich and delicious and I would eat it for every meal if… it wasn’t sold out all the time. But after speaking with Ashok Jaiswal, Co-Founder and CEO of Yomee, I’m hoping that soon I can just make it at home. We’ve written before about Yomee, the countertop device that does all the work of making yogurt. Now the company has surpassed its Kickstarter goal, raising an additional $62,500 on the crowdfunding platform, bringing its yogurt machine for the masses one step closer to reality.

Yomee had already raised $350,000 in angel funding and was using Kickstarter both to raise additional money needed for tooling production parts and as a test market to gauge market interest.

Given the response, there is a market. In fact, Jaiswal said people wanted Yomee to make more than just yogurt, they wanted to make Kefir and other fermented products at home. To sate those appetites, the company announced an expert mode for its device last week.

But blowing past a Kickstarter goal is one thing. Meeting the harsh realities of hardware production and delivering actual products to market has been… difficult for many Kickstarter projects. The platform is littered with dashed hopes and broken promises of failed gadgets and gizmos. Jaswail believes he can avoid a similar fate because he is based in Hong Kong, closer to where the manufacturing will take place. This proximity makes it much easier to address any issues that come up in production.

Kickstarter backers are scheduled to receive their Yomee units in April of next year. The rest of us will have to wait until the end of 2018. Jaswail said the Yomee will be available for $149 at select retailers and through its web site. Until then, I guess I’ll be stocking up on Ellenos whenever I can get it.

Maker Of A Much-Changed SmartPlate Hopes To Ship This Summer

When the Sharks bite, sometimes you just have to pivot. Or, at the very least, tweak your hardware design a bit.

That’s what happened with Fitly and their product SmartPlate.

The original SmartPlate, which managed to raise $110 thousand on Kickstarter, included three embedded cameras, a weight sensor, and wireless connectivity. The product worked like this: the plate’s embedded cameras would analyze the food using image recognition software and, combined with the embedded weight sensor, spit out a nutritional analysis in the associated smartphone app.

If that sounds like an overly complicated and expensive solution, that’s because it is. And when Fitly employee Martin Dell’Arciprete appeared on Shark Tank in the fall of 2015 (the show aired in February 2016) to pitch the SmartPlate, the Sharks were quick to smell blood in the water. Cuban and company echoed what many others had thought: why would someone buy a $200 plate with embedded cameras and sensors when you could do much of the same with a phone app?

Kick Calorie Counting with SmartPlate - Shark Tank

It was a brutal showing. Not long after the appearance, Dell’Arciprete was fired by company CEO Anthony Ortiz. A partnership with former Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee, announced about the time the company was going on Shark Tank, was never mentioned again.

But less than a year after the episode aired, Ortiz and the SmartPlate were back raising funds, this time with a much different product. Now called the SmartPlate Topview, the product was now modular and included a base with all the embedded electronics and separate plastic plate that looked much like the previous tri-portion plate, but only this time without any embedded electronics. Gone were all of the cameras, as all picture taking duties and image analysis were now performed by the smartphone and the SmartPlate app.

For the new campaign, Ortiz and company moved the revamped SmartPlate to Indiegogo. The pitch was much the same, including some of same original video clips and backstory as told by Ortiz on the Kickstarter campaign. However, the price for the new SmartPlate were also lower this time around, with estimated retail for the revamped product at $149 (with three plates and a base), compared to the $199 for the original SmartPlate.

Most would look at this changes and say they were necessary; after all, one has to wonder why a plate would ever need its own camera, let alone three.

Still, even now, I am not sure why an actual plate system is necessary. While the company states that the base and associated plates together give the best overall performance, they admit that you can use the app by itself to analyze food without the plate.

But after a long journey which included two crowdfunding campaigns, the company looks like they may accomplish what looked pretty impossible just a year ago: shipping product. According to a recent update by Ortiz on their Indiegogo page, Fitly has ordered 10 thousand units for production.

And sure, with all the bumps in the road, it’s easy to be skeptical. But the company has someone vouching for them this time. According to an Arrow spokesperson, the new SmartPlate’s electronics and software are ready for manufacturing. My guess is that Arrow probably wouldn’t put their name on this campaign if they didn’t think it could ship, so it looks like backers may actually soon getting their SmartPlates.

Want a sneak preview of SmartPlate? You can download the app and check it out. And who knows? Maybe you’ll like the app so much you’ll buy the plate.

PicoBrew Surpasses Anova To Become Top Food Kickstarter Campaign Of All Time

With just one day to go, PicoBrew’s latest Kickstarter campaign surpassed Anova to become the top campaign of all time in the food category. The company’s Pico C campaign reached $1.812 million to eclipse Anova’s $1.811 million campaign for the Anova’s 2014 Precision Cooker campaign.  The company announced the milestone in a livestream update on the campaign page.

While the Pico C reached its initial funding goal of $350 thousand within hours of launch, breaking the record was no sure thing. After an initial surge of backers who gobbled up the best backer rewards that offered a $279 price on the company’s latest model beer brewing appliance, momentum slowed. Earlier this week, the campaign still stood more than a $100 thousand away from the record.

But thanks to a last minute surge of backers in the waning hours of the campaign, the Pico C is now tops in the the food category on Kickstarter.

“We picked the Pico Model C as a Project We Love early on and are thrilled that, with the help of over 4,100 backers, it broke the record for Most Funded campaign in our vibrant Food category,” said  Clarissa Redwine, Kickstarter’s Design and Technology Outreach Lead for the West Coast in an announcement.

PicoBrew seemed to have its sights on the becoming the top food Kickstarter from the beginning. The company announced new backer rewards throughout the campaign, including some fairly surprising new hardware add-ons. First came the PicoStill, a device that can be used to make essential oils and even whiskey, and last week the company announced the PicoFerm, a fermentation monitor. The company also announced the Pico would be able to brew kombucha and offered free PicoPaks as additional incentives throughout the campaign.

Anova was unseated after holding the #1 spot in the food category for almost three years. Of course, both campaigns are a long way from the top when looking at top Kickstarter campaigns of all time, with Pebble (now owned by Fitbit) claiming two of the top three spots and the troubled Coolest Cooler claiming the #2 spot.

PicoBrew Breaks Kickstarter Record In Food Category

You do this crowdfunding thing for a while, you start to get the hang of it.

Especially when you’re a company like PicoBrew, which has had three successful previous campaigns for its beer brewing appliance products. According to a statement made by the company, this time around they reached their target funding goal in just seven hours, making the campaign for the Pico C brewing appliance the fastest funded campaign ever in the food category for Kickstarter.

From the Kickstarter update:

Our campaign goal of $350K was achieved in a mere 7 hours? WOW! OK, we were hoping the Model C would be popular, but this is insane! This is a faster start than any Kickstarter Food campaign in history!

The company is also on pace to break their own previous Kickstarter record for backers.  As of this writing the Pico C has 1807 backers, compared with a total of 1898 backers for the original Pico.

Breaking the total funds raised might be a bit more of a challenge. That’s because the Pico C pledge tiers are for smaller dollar amounts, the result of lower-cost product (For this campaign, the Pico C was available at a starting point of $279, while the original Pico pledges started at $499). However, with 37 days left in the campaign and lots of interesting new incentives for backers yet to be introduced, there’s a good chance this campaign could also easily become the company’s biggest in terms of funds raised.

Related: PicoBrew Debuts All-You-Can-Brew Subscriptions With New Lower-Priced HomeBrew Appliance

Want to meet the leaders defining the future of food, cooking and the kitchen? Get your tickets for the Smart Kitchen Summit today.

Inirv Retrofit Kitchen Kickstarter Surpasses Goal

The 2016 Smart Kitchen Summit’s startup showcase was home to many exciting new companies showing off connected and high-tech devices for kitchens of the future.

One of those companies, Inirv, had a safety system designed for stoves that highlighted the importance of retrofit solutions in the smart home. While many are building connectivity and smarts into their ovens, stoves and fridges, the team at Inirv is tackling a common problem with an add-on system. With a wireless sensor that can detect the presence of gas, the absence of motion for prolonged periods of times and smoke coupled with retrofit stove knobs that can control your stove’s burners, Inirv is designed to prevent overcooking and fires from unattended food.

Credit: Inirv

The Inirv knobs give you remote control of your burners via the smartphone app so you’ll never burn your food – but the sensor will actually remind you if it senses a lack of motion around the stove for too long and left your food unattended. The product is designed to be less of a reactive solution (aka smoke alarm goes off because something is burning) and more proactive to prevent your food from turning into a house fire.

Inirv’s Kickstarter ends on Wednesday and backers can be pretty confident they’ll get a product as the campaign is fully-funded and already passed a few of its stretch goals, including adding Amazon Echo functionality. Alexa, turn off the stove! At $229 for four knobs and a sensor, it’s not the cheapest smoke alarm solution on the market, but it is much smarter than most.

The Inirv team plans to ship the product in December, hopefully in time for the holidays.

Are These Crowdfunding Projects the Next George Foreman Grill?

We talk a lot about the high-tech kitchen here at the Spoon, but we’re also fascinated by low-tech kitchen sensations, and no low-tech kitchen gadget has been more successful than the George Foreman Grill.

A few weeks ago we interviewed the inventor of the George Foreman Grill, Michael Boehm, who told us the story behind the infomercial sensation. But that was back in the ’90s. These days blossoming startups don’t take to TV but rather connect on crowdfunding sites to make their fortune.

Here are seven low-tech projects that might just be the next George Foreman Grill:

Empanada Maker

Simplify the process of making empanadas by using this tortillas-press-like device that would make Boehm proud. No muss, no fuss, no electricity. It’s even got a snappy name: the margariteña. The company wants to make the device lighter, which is why they’re raising funds.

Portable Keg

Unless you’re in college, it’s absolutely unacceptable to keep your keg cold by floating it in a trash can full of ice. DraftPak has a cooler solution: Put the DraftPak (which looks suspiciously like a cooler/trash can) on top of the keg and add ice! On the positive side, it uses CO2, so you don’t need to pump the keg.

Hipster Ice Cubes

You know how when you go to a fancy cocktail bar these days, it takes the mixologist about 30 minutes to make your drink? Well, part of that is the bespoke ice cubes. Skip the line and make your own ice and cocktails at home with the Ice Ball Press, which makes a 2.5-inch sphere. (Note: It would also make a killer snow ball to throw at that neighbor you hate.)

Edible Non-Drip Ice Cream Cones

No more melted ice cream dripping down your arm! More importantly, no more melted ice cream dripping down your kids’ arms! Halo Cone stops that in its tracks, with a weird plastic device that catches the liquid. We’re not exactly sure how it’s edible, but we believe in the future.

Water Purifier

This one is essentially a plastic bag that harnesses UV light to kill bacteria in water, making it safe to drink. The company is aiming to help during and after natural disasters like the hurricane in Haiti, and they’re raising funds to scale production of the bags.

Manual Espresso Makers

There are actually two crowdfunding projects right now that do the same thing: help you make espresso the “old-fashioned” way. With both the PREXO and the Flair makers, you tamp the coffee grounds yourself; in the PREXO a piston extracts the espresso, and in the Flair you push down on a lever with your hand. It seems like a fair amount of work, but both are small devices that can easily be stored, not like the massive La Marzocco machine.

So what’s the takeaway here? There’s much innovation in the kitchen that doesn’t necessarily have to do with technology. In particular with the espresso makers, it’s clear that people are interested in returning to making food “by hand.” Does that mean it will taste better? Not necessarily. It’s about both accessibility and the desire to be involved in the food-making process. Even if that means ridiculous sphere-shaped ice for your craft cocktail.

Kick Charting: 7 Crowdfunding Food-Delivery Services

Delivery services aren’t just for David Chang and Martha Stewart. While food delivery investment has cooled this year (see chart) as venture capitalists question the economics of these capital intensive businesses, that hasn’t stopped enterprising startups from heading to crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter to fund a unique take on food delivery.

Here are seven companies trying to become the next Blue Apron via crowdfunding campaigns:

Beer-Making Kit

Every three months Bierbox sends you the ingredients you need for a new recipe: think liquid or dry malt extract, hops, and yeast, as well as detailed instructions to make these homebrew-lab-tested recipes. Pair it with the Zymatic and you’re a 21st century kind of home brewer.

Meat

Forget your local butcher or meat CSA. Grass Cow wants to deliver grass-fed beef, grass-fed bison, and wild hog to your doorstep. Right now it looks like these are onetime deliveries, which on the surface seems like they are using the same business model as Omaha Steaks. However, the quality is much better, and for people in areas without access to grass-fed meats, this could be a game changer.

Supper Club

Are you an “aspiring entertainer” (read: millennial) who wants to throw a fancy hipster supper club (read: dinner party) but hates planning (read: is lazy)? The Caramelized Supper Club might be for you. Every other month it delivers décor and nonperishable items along with recipes, grocery lists, and wine pairings. No one will ever suspect your dinner party came out of a box.

Fresh Herbs

Don’t worry about growing basil or rosemary on your porch anymore, because Herbly will deliver whatever you need. The startup partners with small-scale farmers to deliver those herbs on a monthly basis. Choose from everything from basil to stevia to chocolate mint “and indulge” with (non-medical) herbs, as their Kickstarter page says.

Mini Cocktails

Let’s be clear. SaloonBox is basically a box of mixers, delivered to your door. You have to add the alcohol. That said, they provide crafted recipes for fun drinks like mulled cider and even the ubiquitous Moscow Mule. The new mini line includes enough for four to six servings of one cocktail, so to get through the holidays, you might need, oh, about 10 of these.

Craft Beer

If you live in the U.K., Black Market Beer will send you a case of beer from a craft microbrewery each month. We’re talking seriously small microbreweries too: The goal seems to be as much to help those folks stay in business as expose you to the great beers they’re making.

Dogs

No, unfortunately, this is not a service that delivers adorable dogs to your door. But it is a service that delivers treats for your dog to your door. Each kit includes three to four types of healthy treats with real meat, chews, toys, and functional accessories. For my super anxious shih tzu, that functional accessory would probably be a Thunder Shirt.

Clearly not all of these projects will make it to the funded stage, but the high level of interest in delivery services confirms that it’s an area poised for growth. Over the next few years the space will become more and more crowded, until the few who have mastered their business model win out over the weaker offerings and the rest move on to the newest trend.