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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

kitchen tech

Podcast: Becoming a Kitchen Tech Reviewer With Wired’s Joe Ray

In this week’s episode of the Spoon Podcast, we catch up with Wired’s Joe Ray.

Here at The Spoon, we’re fans of Joe’s kitchen tech reviews, where he cuts through all marketing blather and hyped-up features and tells the reader exactly why he or she should (or shouldn’t) buy a product. 

In this episode, we take a look back at how Joe got started in food, why he picked up one day and went to France to become a writer, his tutelage under the famous restaurant reviewer François Simon, and his approach to kitchen technology journalism.

We also talk about the current state of kitchen tech, the smart kitchen, and where we see it all going.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking play below, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Smart Cutting Board is the Latest Kitchen Gadget to Make Its Way to CES

Over the years, there’s been no shortage of kitchen gadgets at CES. But next week, a new category will join the smart ovens, connected thermometers, and AI-powered fridges on the floor of the world’s biggest tech conference: the smart cutting board.

Yep, there will be not one but two on display in Vegas next week, each with a very different focus. First is Versaware, a company that makes a connected cutting board that works in tandem with a bowl as part of a system that helps users calculate and track calories and nutrition. According to Versaware, when a user prepares a meal, they scan the ingredient barcodes (for packaged food) or query an item (for fresh produce) on the touchscreen display before they drop it onto the cutting board. Then, the app takes the weight of the added ingredient and calculates the incremental calorie count and macronutrients (protein, carbs, fat) as you build your meal.

The other smart cutting board on display next week is BLOK, which its creators bill as a ‘Peleton for the kitchen.’ The idea with BLOK is users will learn to be better cooks through access to live and on-demand cooking classes viewable through the device’s video screen. When the cutting’s all done, the BLOK’s wooden cutting board detaches from the video screen and is washed. The assembled BLOK (wooden cutting board and video screen) is stored in a wireless charging station that fits on the countertop. The company will monetize through – what else – a subscription service for access to cooking videos.

Both devices beg the question of whether consumers will embrace technology being inserted into the most basic of kitchen mainstays, a category that – at least up to this point – has excelled in being nothing more than a reliable surface on which to slice and dice our food. While I think both companies will have an uphill battle selling the idea to consumers, I am more skeptical about the BLOK, primarily because I’m not convinced of any Peleton-for-kitchen business model. I’m also not sure the cutting board is the most logical place to put video playback, especially with most consumers’ easy access to smartphones, Alexa video screens, and tablets.

I plan to swing by and see both products next week. If you’re at CES and want to see a smart cutting board up close, you can find Versaware at booth 53414 and BLOK at booth 61706.

The Airhood is a Portable Exhaust Hood That Sucks up Smoke, Grease, and Steam

Kitchen exhaust hoods help trap airborne grease, steam, and anything else that rises up when you’re cooking on a stove or cooktop. But many smaller places like apartments, dorms, or camper trailers don’t have them, which often means splattered grease, smoke-filled rooms, and even tripped smoke alarms.

It’s these types of situations where the Airhood would be a perfect fit. The Airhood, designed by French designer Maxime Augay, is a portable exhaust hood that can be set on a countertop next to a cooktop and suck up smoke, grease and steam out of the air.

The Airhood features two filters. The charcoal filter filters smoke and fumes out of the air, while the oil filter captures grease from out of the air and helps avoid buildup of sticky film and grease odors from embedding itself into walls, curtains, or other cooking adjacent areas. I can also see the Airhood helpful for non-cooking applications where people want to eliminate airborne smoke (I’m looking at you cannabis enthusiasts).

Augay conceived of the Airhood while in college after finding the extractor hood in his home difficult to clean. He submitted it to and won the “Pure Talent Contest – Living Kitchen Selection” at imm Cologne, one of Europe’s largest furniture trade shows.

Below is a picture showing the evolution of the Airhood from early prototype to final product design.

Augay teamed up with Smart Product Concepts Ltd, a kitchen appliance design services and manufacturing company based in Hong Kong, to help bring the product to market. The product launched on Kickstarter on May 2nd and reached its target in just 99 minutes and, as of this writing, has raised over $76 thousand. The Airhood team has completed the final tooling and plans to start manufacturing in September and ship by October.

The unit is available in two forms: a wired version for $79 and a cordless version for $99. As always, buyers should be beware of any Kickstarter campaign. That said, with the campaign’s fast start and the tooling already completed, the chances of the final product making it to backers look pretty good.

You can see the Airhood in action in the video below:

AirHood® | The World's First Portable Kitchen Air Cleaner

Five Predictions for Consumer Food & Kitchen Tech in 2022

Food tech prediction week at The Spoon continues, and today we’re looking at the home. And if you haven’t already, make sure you check out my predictions on restaurant tech, food robots, and plant-based meat.

Meet The Smart Food Delivery Locker

For the last few years, companies like Walmart, Amazon, and others have been trying to figure out how to deliver food when we’re not home. Ideas have run the gamut, from delivering products directly to our fridges, onto our dinner tables, depositing groceries in our garage, to even dropping deliveries into our car trunk.

All this effort would be unnecessary if homes just had temperature-controlled storage lockers, something that – at least until lately – hadn’t existed.

Until now. This month Walmart and HomeValet announced a pilot program that will deliver fresh groceries to the HomeValet smart outdoor delivery receptacle. Another company, Fresh Portal, is building a temperature-controlled home delivery box that is accessible both outside (for delivery companies) and inside the home. And then there’s Dynosafe, who appeared on Shark Tank in the spring of 2021 and got an investment from Robert Herjavec.

While companies like Yale have been making smart boxes for delivery for a little while, there hasn’t been a widely available temperature-controlled smart storage box. In 2022, I expect we’ll start seeing more deals like the Walmart/HomeValet deal, as well as some integration deals with third-party delivery providers.

Steam-Powered Cooking Gains Traction

Although steam cooking has long been a fixture in pro kitchens, it’s never taken off in the consumer kitchen. However, that could change in 2022.

Consumer steam cooking picked up, um, steam in 2020, when Anova started shipping their countertop Precision Oven. At CES this year, LG showed off a new microwave with steam cooking. And then there’s Tovala, the food delivery and steam oven startup which has started advertising it on national Sunday night football broadcasts.

While steam cooking has followed a similar path to sous vide circulators – a pro tool making its way into the home – I think it has much wider appeal. Because they know the power of steam-cooking, some chefs have pined for an affordable home combi-oven. Now that they’ve finally got their wish, 2022 might be the year consumers take notice.

Amazon Debuts a Smart Fridge

Back in 2017 when I first asked if Amazon might build on a smart fridge, all the evidence I had to go on was a couple of patent filings. Since that time, we’ve watched as the online giant launched branded kitchen appliances and worked on making Alexa a capable home cooking assistant.

And then last fall, Business Insider wrote about Project Pulse, Amazon’s top-secret smart fridge project. According to insiders, the fridge would include machine vision and other advanced technology tell us when food’s about to expire, and automatically order & replenish through Amazon. The effort is reportedly being led by the same group that developed Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology and has been in the works for a couple years.

Truth be told, the smart fridge category could use Amazon. The market has grown stale as big US appliance brands have slowed down their efforts in this space, including market leader Samsung. While the South Korean appliance giant has historically been the most aggressive among the bigs in the category, Samsung didn’t make any substantive announcements about Family Hub at CES this year other than adding it to the Bespoke Fridge line. There are also signs that the company may be shifting its focus to its new Home Hub as the center of its smart home strategy.

Bottom line, if an Amazon smart fridge becomes a reality in 2022 (and I think it will), it would catalyze some much-needed innovation from other large appliance makers.

Home Food Waste Technology Comes Into Focus

Smart composting appliances are one nascent category within home food waste innovation coalescing into a legitimate category. Kickstarter darling Lomi has finally started shipping, Vitamix, known for lits blenders, is shipping its FoodCycler FC-50, and a variety of others are on the way.

But composting is the last stop on the food waste mitigation express, and everyone would be better off preventing food from heading to the compost bin. To do that, we need better food storage, something a startup called Uvera is working with its food storage system that uses UVC light to kill bacteria and extend shelf life. There’s also Blakbear, who is working on a food storage system that would measure gasses emitted from food to help measure shelf life. And though they’re long overdue, startup Silo has told me they should be shipping in 2022.

For their part, most appliance brands still don’t seem to have a cohesive strategy for helping consumers reduce food waste, but that didn’t stop them from talking up sustainability at CES year. I hope all the talk translates to more action in 2022.

AR Takes Guided Cooking to the Next Level

Ever since Thermomix pioneered the category of guided cooking with the launch of the TM5 (and more recently the TM6), there’s been an array of companies building tech to assist consumers as they cook. In the last few years, that’s meant voice assistants from TinyChef and Amazon, software and connected cooking hardware from Hestan and others, and we’ve even seen futuristic concepts like this one at SKS 2020 that monitors eye glances as a way to help a consumer manage meal-making.

But the biggest leap forward in cooking assistance might come in the form of augmented reality. Last fall we saw Snap release their food scanning app that utilizes their augmented reality bar to help provide contextual information for items scanned by the phone, and last month we wrote about a cool demo of how a pair of AR glasses could significantly level up the home cook’s capabilities in the kitchen. And while Lauren Cason’s demo was just that – a demo – I expect some appliance makers may have taken notice of how powerful the combo of cooking and augmented reality could be.

We have a couple more prediction posts to come, so make sure to tune in next week!

The Food Tech Show: The CES 2020 Food Tech Wrap-Up Episode

We’re back from Vegas after a week scouting out everything food and kitchen tech at the Consumer Electronics Show!

In this episode, Mike, Catherine, Chris and Jenn talk about everything we saw, tasted and who we talked to in the world of food tech for the big show.

In this episode we discuss:

If you enjoy this episode, make sure to subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. While you’re at it, give us a review because every single one helps!

You can listen to this episode by downloading direct, or on Apple or Spotify.

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The Complete CES 2020 Kitchen Tech Report

At this year’s big tech show in Vegas, there was no shortage of food tech. Everything from Impossible Pork to robot cooking assistants were on display, and so after spending five days in the desert checking out the latest and greatest, here’s my wrap-up of everything I saw in kitchen tech at the show:

Lots of Smart Fridges

It may be hard to believe in 2020, but Internet connected fridges have been showing up at CES for two decades. Of course, with powerful machine vision and food inventory tracking systems, today’s smart fridges are a lot more useful than these attempts from yesteryear even if they’ve yet to be widely adopted.

Some of the companies showing off smart fridge tech at this year’s CES included LG, Samsung, Bosch and GE. Bosch showed off a two-camera smart fridge powered by Chefling, a partnership that shouldn’t be all that surprising given BSH Appliances’ investment in the smart kitchen software startup.

LG’s latest smart fridge, which includes the popular Instaview transparent front door feature, now reorders food when inventory gets low. Samsung’s latest smart fridges use Whisk technology (a company they acquired last year) to suggest recipes based off of your in-fridge inventory. Smarter was also in Vegas at FoodTech Live showing off their retrofit fridge cam.

Home Grow Systems Get a Look

For the first time at CES, big appliance brands showed interest in allowing home grow systems to take root in the kitchen. Both Samsung’s BeSpoke grow system and the LG’s system were evolved proof of concepts that utilized sensors and allowed the home gardener to monitor the status of their plants within the form factor of a standup fridge.

GE’s Home Grown took the home farm out of the fridge and made the entire kitchen a multilayered food grow system. You can watch a video of a booth demo of the concept below:

CES 2020: A Tour of 'Home Grown', the GE Appliances Garden Kitchen Concept

All of the grow systems on display by big appliance brands were more proof of concepts than shipping products. I’ll be interested to see if any of them roll out these products in the next year. Of all the systems, the Samsung Bespoke home grow systems seemed to be the closest to a market-ready product.

Intelligent And Adaptive Surfaces

One of the big trends sweeping food tech is personalization, so why not apply the principle of personalization to our physical space as well? GE did just that with a concept called Shift, an adaptable kitchen that, well, shifts to adapt to each person’s specific requirements. The idea isn’t new. The first winner of the Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase, a German startup called Tielsa (now KimoCon), makes an app-controlled, adjustable kitchen platform that adjusts the height of the surface space to the specific user.

The Wireless Power Consortium had a full kitchen built out at CES 2020, showing off how their Ki kitchen standard using induction heating and wireless charging worked. Speaking of induction, one of the most innovative entries in intelligent surfaces at CES 2020 was from design firm GHSP, who showed off technology for a video-enabled induction cooktop. I know Americans are in love with their fire cooking, but hopefully new ideas like this will generate interest in what is clearly a superior (and flexible) technology in induction. You can check out a quick video of GHSP’s concept below:

Drink Tech Was EVERYWHERE

Drinks have always been a little easier to serve up in the future kitchen than cooking technology, and this year was no different as we saw well over a dozen next-gen beer, booze, coffee and tea machines sprinkled around the show floor.

On the booze front, CES 2020 had offerings from Drinkworks and Bartesian, while on the beerbot side, we saw offerings from PicoBrew, BEERMKR, MiniBrew and INTHEKEG to name a few. Noticeably absent was LG’s HomeBrew, the automated beer making appliance concept they debuted a year ago at CES 2019.

When it comes to coffee tech, longtime Spoon readers shouldn’t be surprised at my excitement over seeing a working production model of the Spinn coffee maker, a product I’ve been covering since I pre-ordered one way back in 2016 (we’ll have a video of the Spinn later this week). Terra Kaffe had a TK-01 on hand at FoodTech Live to demo the machine’s grind and brew (and milk frothing) capabilities, while MoJoe Brewing was showing off its portable coffee making system.

You can watch Chris’s interview with Spinn CEO Roderick de Rode and take a look inside the Spinn in the video below:

CES 2020: A Look at the Spinn Grind and Brew Coffee Maker

DNA & Microbiome Driven Diets

With DNA testing now fast and affordable, it’s not all that surprising to see offshoot concepts that capitalize on the information provided by a person’s profile. One of CES’s most buzzy startups in this space was DNANudge, a French company that is offering a wearable that tells a person whether that CPG product they picked up in the grocery store is a good fit for them. On the microbiome front, Sun Genomics was at FoodTech Live to show off its personalized microbiome kit.

Food Waste Reduction & Sustainability

One area that has traditionally lacked innovation is in the management of food waste in the home. While we still didn’t see a whole lot around food waste prevention tech outside of ever-more-advanced machine vision making its way into our fridges, there was a scrappy Canadian startup was showing off a cool new concept for home composting. The Sepura, made by British Columbia based Anvytech, automatically routes your solids into a food compost bin and disposes of your liquids.

You can see CNET’s video tour of the Sepura composter below:

Food Inventory Management

In addition to a number of food recognizing fridges, there are also a few other products on display showcasing how we could better manage our food. The Ovie smart food tracking system was on display at FoodTech Live, while a new entrant into the smart food tracking space, PantryOn, showed off a new dry pantry tracking system that will notify you and reorder an item when the product is low. While the PantryOn is a bit pricey with a retail price of $900, I am glad to see some companies think about innovating in the pantry.

Smart Schnozzes

Long-term, more intelligent sensors – and the software and AI that stitches together all the information gathered from these technologies – are going to make the kitchen truly sentient, which is why I always make sure to check out the new digital nose technologies every year while at CES.

While there was no shortage of electronic noses at CES this year, one digital schnoz that stuck out Cyrano de Bergerac-style was that from Stratuscent. The company’s technology, originally developed by NASA, can be used in a variety of verticals, but the company’s initial focus is food applications. Company CEO David Wu told me they are currently talking to appliance manufacturers about the possibility of including Stratuscent tech in their products.

Countertop Cooking

On the counterop cooking front, Anova was at CES showing off its Precision Oven, which is slated to appear sometime this year. The company was demoing the benefits of steam throughout the show, including showing off how steam can help make much better bread. You can watch a walkthrough of the Anova oven from food tech innovator Scott Heimendinger below, who has been helping Anova with the oven.

CES 2020: A Look at the Anova Precision Steam Oven

One product that seemed to get lots of buzz at CES was a multicooker called Julia from CookingPal. The device looks and acts in large part like a Thermomix, with the main difference being a separate touch screen interface in the form of a 8.9″ display. The touch screen has a camera on it that, according CookingPal, will recognize food and suggest recipes. From there, the Julia offers video-powered guided cooking, and afterwards has a self-clean mode.

Cooking Robots

Much like big appliance brands caught home garden fever, many also seemed bitten by the food robotics bug. Chris covered much of what was on display, most of which struck me as futuristic visions of how robotics could be implemented in a consumer or professional kitchen to make our lives easier. Not that futuristic or far off is a bad thing – what seemed crazy ten years ago often seems pedestrian in the present, and I expect at some point some of these products will be commercialized.

One that’s worth a look is the Samsung Bot Chef. While a bit reminiscent of the Moley robot arm kitchen robot, the Samsung bot’s fine motor movements and handling of kitchen utensils was impressive, suggesting that maybe a home robot chef isn’t as far off as I might think.

Samsung Bot Chef first look at CES 2020

Key Takeaways

When I was doing my research on what to expect at this year’s CES for foodtech, I was surprised at some of the big ideas that were debuting at the show.

While CES normally is where gee-whiz technology debuts, this year appliance and home brands seemed to thinking bigger with concepts that could potentially solve real-world problems like reduce food waste or help those with special needs.

There also seemed to be a big focus, generally, on the kitchen as a place to employ cutting edge technologies ranging from AI, robotics, virtual reality and more. Big appliance, it seems, has realized what we’ve long believed: the kitchen is the heart of the home.

Finally, it seems personalization is grabbing hold in a big way. Everything from personalized nutrition to physical cooking spaces to meal plans is on the menu, something that I think aligns well with the broader push towards more personalized worlds in this era of data abundance.

We’ll be continuing the conversation about personalization at Customize, our Food Personalization Summit, in NYC on Feb 27th. Join us!

The 2019 Kitchen Technology Year in Review

2019 was an action-packed year in world of food tech. Among other things, we saw an explosion in new products that promise to change what we eat, rapid change in food delivery models, and something of a slow motion food robot uprising.

The consumer kitchen also saw significant change, even if things didn’t move as fast as some would hope. As we close out the year, I thought I’d take a look back at the past twelve months in the future kitchen.

It’s An Instant Pot and Air Fryer World and We’re Just Living In It

Here’s an experiment: Next time you’re making cocktail-party conversation, ask someone about their most recent cooking gadget purchase for the home. Chances are its either an Instant Pot or an air fryer.

The above chart shows why this should come as no surprise, as it plots consumer interest in the Instant Pot and air fryer categories (as determined by Google searches) over the past five years. It also shows the seasonality of that interest (both spike during the holidays) and how air fryers have closed the gap with Instant Pot.

Regardless of how the two products perform relative to one another, the big takeaway is that the Instant Pot/pressure cooker and air fryer represent the two breakaway categories in countertop cooking over the past few years, and that trend continued strong in 2019.

Why? Because both products give consumers lots of cooking power to create a variety of meals at a low entry price point. Add in what are large and vibrant online recipe communities for both product categories, and you can see why both only became more popular in 2019.

Next-Gen Cooking Concepts See Mixed Results

Outside of pressure cookers and air fryers, 2019 was a decidedly mixed bag of results for next-gen countertop cooking concepts. June and Tovala both plugged along selling their second generation ovens, Suvie started shipping its four-chamber cooking robot and Brava’s “cook with light” oven tech sold to Middleby. But unlike the air fryer and Instant Pot, none of these new products have gone viral.

Why?

First, most of these products are fairly expensive, often coming in at $300 or above. That’s probably too high to convince enough consumers to take a chance on a new product in a new product category they don’t know much about.

Second, consumers need to better understand these new products. While I don’t expect Thermomix to replicate the success they’ve found with direct-sales in Europe in North America, there’s a reason such a premium priced product has succeeded in Europe: it has made consumer education and evangelism core to the business model.

Finally, the market has yet to see a product with just the right mix of new technology and high-value user-focused features that supercharges consumer interest. That said, there are some new products like Anova’s steam oven or the Miele Dialog’s solid state cooking (I’m told most big appliance makers are working on a similar product) that could potentially capture the imagination of consumers.

Large Appliance-Makers Continue to Dabble in Innovation

So here’s what some of the big appliance brands with resources did in 2019: Whirlpool came out of the gate fast with a lineup of new smart cooking appliances at CES 2019, including a pretty cool modular smart oven concept in the SmartOven+. Electrolux launched a new Drop-powered blender and partnered with Smarter to add machine vision and connected commerce features to its smart fridge camera platform. Turkish appliance giant Arcelik debuted a combo cooking and washing product concept under the Grundig brand.

Overall though, it wasn’t a big year for appliance-makers on the innovation front. Many of us waited for these companies to launch some of their more promising technologies, like Miele’s Dialog or BSH Appliances Pai interface, but neither effort seemed to move forward much, at least in any public way, in 2019.

A Sputtering Consumer Sous Vide Market

It was a bad year for those who make sous vide gear. In mid-year we learned that ChefSteps, maker of the Joule sous vide circulator, would be laying off a significant amount of the team after they ran into money problems. And, just a little over a week ago, one of the first consumer sous vide startups in Nomiku announced it would be shutting its doors.

Why did the consumer sous vide market lose steam? My guess the primary reason is because sous vide cooking is just too slow as an everyday or multiple-time-per-week cooking method. While some like Nomiku wanted to position the sous vide as a replacement for the microwave, it just isn’t convenient enough and requires too many steps for culinary average joes accustomed to the push-button cooking of the microwave. The reality is over time many sous vide circulators ended up stuck in the kitchen drawer.

Software Powers The Meal

At Smart Kitchen Summit 2017, Jon Jenkins said we will all someday “eat software” as it becomes more important in how we create food in the kitchen. Evidence of this was everywhere in 2019 as companies rolled out new software features to do things like cook plant-based meat to companies like Thermomix and Instant Brands betting big on software for the future.

We also saw kitchen-centric software players like SideChef, Drop and Innit loaded up on more partnerships with appliance and food brands to better tie together the meal journey, while Samsung NEXT acquired a digital recipe and shopping commerce platform in Whisk.

In short, it’s fairly obvious that for a kitchen appliance brand to survive, it’s becoming table stakes to have something of an evolved software strategy.

Amazon Continues Its Push Into Kitchen

If there’s been one takeaway from watching Amazon over the past few years, it’s that they see the food and the kitchen as an important strategic battleground. This past year did nothing to dispel this belief as the company introduced their own smart oven and continued to file weird food-related patents. Amazon also pushed forward with new delivery concepts for the home that bring together the different parts of the Amazon portfolio (voice ordering, smart home, grocery and more).

Grocery Delivery Space Race

Amazon wasn’t the only one looking to connect the smart home to grocery delivery this year. Walmart also debuted a new in-fridge delivery service called InHome. Meanwhile both companies and big grocery conglomerates like Kroger continue to invest in robotics and home delivery.

The reason for this growing interest in innovative home delivery concepts is pretty simple: more and more consumers are shopping online for groceries. Big platform players like Amazon and Google see a massive new opportunity, while established grocery players are forced to innovate to play defense.

No One Has Recreated The Success of the Keurig Model (Yet)

While much of the early focus for new kitchen startups has been on copying the Keurig model of pairing a piece of kitchen hardware with a robust consumer consumables business, unfortunately none have really been able to emulate the model for food products. There’s been no shortage of cocktail making robots, coffee, 3D food printing, chai tea and others attracted the the concept of recurring revenue that food sales bring, but as we’ve seen it’s hard to emulate the pod model approach.

Some, like Tovala, look to have had some limited success on pairing cooking hardware with food delivery, while others like Brava, Nomiku and ChefSteps weren’t able to create sustainable models. Genie and Kitchenmate are making a go of it in the office environment, while Level couldn’t and had to shut its doors earlier this year.

I expect kitchen hardware entrepreneurs to try to continue to pair food sales with products, but I expect that it will be tough sailing unless the company land upon very compelling, easy-to-use solution that turnkeys the cooking solution.

Cooking Media: A Peloton For The Kitchen Emerges

Forget Buzzfeed Tasty quick-play cooking videos. In 2019, we saw the emergence of other players providing deeper, more personalized cooking guidance that emulates what Peloton or Mirror have done with home-fitness instruction. Food Network made the biggest splash with its Food Network Kitchen concept while others like FET Kitchen are creating their own hardware platforms.

For Buzzfeed’s part, they haven’t given up on Tasty quite yet. Instead, they partnered up with Amazon to push their recipes onto the Echo Show, complete with step-by-step guidance. The combo creates essentially what is a fairly quick and easy guided cooking product.

Food Waste Reduction Comes Into Focus — Everywhere But The Home

If any place is lacking in innovation when it comes to reducing the amount of food we throw away, it’s the consumer kitchen. Sure, some startups are trying to rethink how we approach cooking by helping us to work with the food we have, while others are rethinking the idea of food storage, but innovation in home food waste reduction is lacking when compared to what we are seeing in restaurants and CPG fronts. We hope this changes in 2020.

True Home Cooking Robots Remained A Futuristic Vision in 2019

While single-function taskers like the Rotimatic did significant volume and others like Suvie positioned itself as a “cooking robot” for the home, the reality is we saw no significant progress towards a true multifunction consumer cooking robot. Companies like Sony see the opportunity to create a true home cooking robot, but for now food robots remain primarily the domain of restaurants, grocery and delivery.

Bottom line: It was an exciting year in the connected kitchen and we expect 2020 to be even more exciting. Stay tuned next week for my outlook on what to expect!

The Spoon 2019 Food & Kitchen Tech Gift Guide!

With our bellies full of delicious food and leftovers just waiting to be, well, gobbled, it’s time to turn our attention from gluttony to giving presents. And if you’ve got a foodie in your life, or a techie, or some kind of foodie techie, then we have compiled the perfect gift guide for you!

The Spoon staff has gone over all the gadgets, gizmos and other great stuff we’ve encountered throughout the year and assembled them into one handy-dandy list. Take a look and let us know what you think!

CATHERINE LAMB’S PICKS:

Silicone Straws
We all know that we shouldn’t be using single-use straws because they end up in landfills and oceans. But many reusable straws are large, tricky to clean, and too awkwardly shaped to carry around with us to the office or our favorite lunch spot. That’s why these colorful silicone straws from Food52 are such a win. Not only do they look pretty; they’re also flexible so you can bend and store them in their accompanying carrying cases. Bonus: They come with a squeegee for easy cleaning. A four-pack is $25, so that shakes out to four holiday gifts for under 10 bucks each!

Photo: Willie’s Remedy.

Willie Nelson CBD Coffee
If you need a gift for someone who loves country music, coffee, and is a slightly adventurous (or just two of the three), a bag of beans from Willie’s Remedy may be just the ticket. The coffee from Willie Nelson’s company is infused with CBD, the trendy wellness ingredient that’s the non-hallucinogenic chemical compound in the cannabis plant. It’s meant to promote relaxation and focus, giving you that caffeine boost without the jitters. (Bonus: It’s tasty stuff.) Buyer Beware: While Willie’s Remedy coffee may ship openly around the U.S., CBD-infused food and beverage is technically not approved by the FDA.

Photo: Bright Cellars.

Bright Cellars
There are those people who are really hard to buy gifts for because they already have everything. But one thing that no one (alright, hardly anyone) has enough of is wine. Especially if it’s personalized to their tastes. Bright Cellars is a wine subscription service that uses a short quiz to curate monthly wine deliveries tailored specifically to the recipient’s preferences. It uses feedback to further personalize the wine selection — so it’s also a tool to teach you more about what wines tickle your fancy. Prices are flexible and start at $100.

JENN MARSTON’S PICKS:

GoSun Reusable Cutlery
I’d bet money that for most people who do the whole stocking stuffer thing (raises hand), only about 10 percent of the gifts involve items that are actually useful. But if you want to branch out from chocolate coins and lip balm this year, consider investing in a few pairs of GoSun’s portable utensil packs. The set of reusable cutlery comes with a stainless steel fork and spoon nestled in a metal case roughly the size of a credit card. Pieces are dishwater safe and, in theory at least, can help us curb the amount of disposable cutlery used at QSRs and fast-casual restaurants. The sets are available for $20 each, which is pricier than chocolate coins but exponentially more useful. The only drag is that they don’t actually ship until February 2020, so a photo of the product in someone’s stocking will have to do for the holidays.

Ember Mug 2
Ember released the second-generation version its temperature-controlled mug in October of this year, which makes it an obvious candidate for our 2019 guide. Dubbed the Ember Mug 2, the ceramic “smart” mug keeps your coffee or tea heated to an exact temperature for hours by talking to your phone, which controls the temperature via an app. Yes, the new version is pricy: $99.95 for the 10 oz. mug, $129.95 for the 14 oz. version, and $179.95 for a travel mug. But if you have a loved one who particularly hates microwaving lukewarm dregs of coffee, the Ember Mug2’s longer battery life and touchscreen interface on the mug might just be worth the price hike.

Ponix System Herbert Farm
Got health-conscious family members on which you’re willing to splurge this holiday season? Consider buying them a vertical farm that hangs on the living room or kitchen wall. Ponix System’s Herbert farm uses LEDs and software to grow plants directly in water, with no need for soil. The unit can grow up to 15 plants at once, which is more than enough to provide fresh greens to a single household. The best part of this product is that you can save additional space by mounting Herbert onto the wall. The system goes for €490.00 right now. If you’re outside of the EU, expect additional shipping fees that are determined on a case-by-case basis.

MIKE WOLF’S PICKS:

Image credit: Equal Parts

Equal Parts Cookware and Coaching
No matter how much you cook at home, it’s always good to have a friend you can rely on for cooking advice. If you (or someone in your life) haven’t found that person yet, you might consider a cookware set from Equal Parts. Each set of cookware from this new cookware brand targeted at millennials comes bundled with two months of coaching provided through text messaging, which allows the home cook to ask about anything from techniques to recipe recommendations. I’ve been trying out the coaching service in preparation for Thanksgiving and find my coach responsive and knowledgeable. The cookware+coaching bundles start at $65 and go up to $500 and can be found on the Equal Parts website.

Terra Kaffe TK-01 Grind and Brew Coffee Machine
If you or a loved one has been looking for the closest thing to a coffee robot for the home, the Terra Kaffe TK-01 might just be it. This grind and brew coffee machine allows you to make pretty much any coffee drink under the sun with a few touches of the button. With the ability to optimize your favorite drink and save a specific formulation using the user friendly touch screen, the TK-01 could be the perfect gift for the coffee snob who thinks (s)he has everything. And because it grinds from whole beans stored inside an internal reservoir, it’s more environmentally friendly than that old Keurig, and could be a good gift for someone looking to put pod-based coffee behind them. Priced at $775, you can pick up a TK-01 for $675 using the discount code BF2019 for a limited time.

Sparkel
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, unless of course it’s adding bubbles to a beverage. That’s my and my family’s attitude at least since we’ve been testing out the Sparkel home carbonation machine and add fizz to everything from sweet tea to cold brew coffee to golden milk. The Sparkel, which is available in a starter pack for $99 (or $119 for a Smeg-ish color like pink or light blue), is a good gift option for anyone in your family who loves to try out new types of beverages or just consumes tons of sparkling water.

CHRIS ALBRECHT’S PICKS:

Cinder
A sous vide cooked steak is delicious, but it can be a hassle. You have to bring the water to temp, then seal up your meat in plastic (yuck), heat it in the bath for a long time, and then after all that you have to get a pan or grill ripping hot so you can sear it. Ugh. Who wants to deal with all that? The Cinder grill is like a George Foreman grill on steroids that does all of the above in one device. It offers precision sous vide style cooking with no water bath, no plastic bags, and you can sear it on the same device — and the results are delicious. At $429, the Cinder is a lot more expensive than a sous vide wand, but the time you’ll save will make up for it.

Freshly Meal Plan
I tested a lot of prepared meal delivery services this year and while Freshly wasn’t the cheapest, it was the tastiest. Freshly offers a wide range of meals like Sicilian Style Chicken Parm, Sausage Baked Penne, and Coconut Green Curry Chicken. They arrive already made and packaged up so all you have to do is pop them in the microwave, plate and enjoy! Perfect for busy folks and families looking for a little variety in the weekly dinners. You can gift four meals for $50.

Magically delicious

Magic Spoon
Sugary breakfast cereals are delicious, but also… packed with sugar, which is a no-no. Enter Magic Spoon, the “healthy” sweet breakfast that is reminiscent of your childhood but accommodates your adult lifestyle. It’s gluten-free, keto-friendly, packed with protein and most importantly, SUPER TASTY. So you can eat like a kid without any adult guilt. It does, however, come with an adult price, costing $40 for a four-pack, but having gone through four boxes myself, it’s worth trying at least once.

Those are our picks! What do you want for the holidays? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Podcast: How Tech is Changing The Job of the Kitchen Product Reviewer

No matter what publication a kitchen product reviewer writes for, one thing they all have in common nowadays is the need to consider is how technology is changing the way people cook. At SKS 2018, I sat down with four of the leading reviewers in the business to talk about just that.

On the panel were:

  • Lisa McManus – America’s Test Kitchen
  • Joe Ray – Wired
  • Ashlee Clarke Thompson – CNET
  • Wilson Rothman – Wall Street Journal

Among the topics we discuss are whether you should control everything through an app (or just be able to turn the thing on), how to tell when a new category is about to break out, and just what qualifies as kitchen tech?

Bottom line: If you make kitchen products for a living, this is a must listen.

You listen to the podcast by clicking play below, downloading it directly or on your favorite podcast apps such as Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. And oh yeah – if you’re a visual person, you can watch the video of the panel here.

Lisa McManus Wants To Prevent Buyer’s Remorse In The Smart Kitchen

The Smart Kitchen Summit is the first event to tackle the future of food, cooking and the kitchen with leaders across food, tech, commerce, design, delivery and appliances. This series will highlight panelists and partners for the 2017 event, being held on October 10-11 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. 

America’s Test Kitchen has been helping people learn to cook better food at home long before the word “smart” was attached to the kitchen or home. Originally a TV series started in 2001 by famous chef and editor-in-chief of Cook’s Illustrated Christopher Kimball, the brand has grown to include a digital empire of TV and web shows, online recipe content, cooking classes and kitchen equipment reviews.

Lisa McManus is the executive editor of equipment testing and ingredient tasting and the on-air “gadget guru” for ATK – which means her mission includes testing various types of kitchen tech and determine its worthiness as a tool for the home chef. As gear in the kitchen becomes more high-tech and connected, McManus and her team test “smart” cooking equipment alongside traditional versions. “It adds an extra challenge to assess how the technology enhances – or doesn’t – the experience of using that product,” she says.

McManus herself is a self-proclaimed obsessive researcher and hates the feeling of buyer’s remorse. When she bought her first car, she read exhaustively about the auto industry, studied different models and designs, watched crash-test dummy videos and even joined Zipcar for a year to be able to drive different cars without a salesperson sitting next to her. That dedication to finding the best solution spills over into her job at America’s Test Kitchen every day.

“I try to stand in for the home cook, and prevent other consumers from feeling stuck with sub-par products. I design and conduct tests, and share what I’ve learned, to help people find the most practical, functional gear.”

Interestingly, America’s Test Kitchen, which is owned by Boston Common Press, has built a powerful model for food media without resorting to heavy advertisements. There are no ads in the brand’s magazines and they have over a million paid subscribers between Cook’s Illustrated and Cook Country. McManus says the lack of advertisers allows the company to freely discuss products – the good, bad and the ugly – and be the strongest possible advocates for consumers, only recommending devices and gadgets that will really make cooking easier and food taste better.

As more startups look to capitalize on the digital craze around food videos and recipes, America’s Test Kitchen seems to have built a brand that’s adaptive to changing consumer demands and interests. Turning their eye to how technology is impacting the consumer kitchen is one way to do that.

“I’m really excited about the direction of the smart kitchen; right now I see a lot of creativity and energy in this field as it develops, not all of it practical, but that will happen over time,” McManus adds. “I’m sure tech is going to change how we all use our kitchens and prepare our meals, and what looks very futuristic and exclusive right now will become commonplace.”

The America’s Test Kitchen team might be excited about tech playing a bigger role in the kitchen, but there’s also a healthy dose of skepticism mixed in. McManus says she’s constantly looking how connectivity is going to solve a real problem instead of becoming a useless feature that renders the product more expensive but not more functional. Often, she says, things like the app might have been worked on for a while, but the actual cooking device is sub-par, or the database of recipes is limited and an afterthought. “How long before this product is no longer useful? Has the practical day-to-day usage been fully considered or does it make more work? Bottom line: Is the connectedness offering a real benefit that will become second nature, or is it just frills, bells and whistles?” 

Don’t miss Lisa McManus, executive editor at America’s Test Kitchen at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit. Check out the full list of speakers and to register for the Summit, use code ATK to get 25% off ticket prices.

The Smart Kitchen Summit takes place thanks to our sponsors; if you’re interested in sponsorship opportunities, reach out to the SKS team to discuss options. 

If you’d like to attend the Smart Kitchen Summit, you can still buy early bird tickets and get an additional 25% off by using the discount code SPOON here. 

Kickstarter Entrepreneurs Ride the Popularity Wave of Probiotic Foods

Probiotics are a budding segment of the food part of the crowdsourcing world. While most new efforts are focused on pickles, fermented sodas and kombucha, a team of Slovenian Kickstarter veterans are showcasing the wonders of probiotic cheese.

Kefirko Cheese Maker comes on the heels of the successful 2015 launch of Kefirko, a device that makes homemade kefir. Kefir is a fermented milk drink made with special grains that act as a fermenter/starter. The process can be laborious done in a traditional manner. The kefir is extracted from the grains by hanging a cheesecloth-like bag over a shallow bowl, allowing the liquid to separate from the starter. In recent years, this fermented beverage, which originated in the Caucasus Mountains, has grown in popularity with a renewed focus on healthy eating and the role of probiotics.

The team of Marko Borko and Andrej Glažar, with backgrounds in engineering and design, have extended the value of their kefir maker with their new probiotic cheese maker. The new appliance makes probiotic cheese from the kefir created by the Kefiroko or any other store-bought or homemade kefir. Beyond probiotic cheese, consumers can use the cheese maker to create mozzarella, mascarpone other non-probiotic varieties using milk that has been which has to be curdled with rennet or lemon juice.

There is no waste in the process which starts with pouring the kefir into the cheese maker and allowing it to strain into the attached glass bowl. The company says the whey liquid that results from the kefir-to-cheese process I is very rich with proteins, primarily of α-lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin, bovine serum albumin and immunoglobine. It also contains vitamins and minerals and a very low level of fat. When whey is derived from kefir, it does not contain lactose, because it is already gone (99 %) during fermentation of kefir.

The length of the fermentation process determines the type of resulting cheese. The company says that fermenting overnight will result in a creamy style cheese while allowing the fermentation to go for one to two days will yield a semi hard cheese. When the cheese reaches the desired taste and consistency, users can flavor it with herbs, spices, oils or roasted vegetables.

The Kefirko Cheese Maker comes with a recipe book which also offers alternative uses for the device which includes tips on how to use the appliance to make tea, iced coffee and even almond milk. The company says it does not know whether the cheese maker will work to create nut-based cheeses, made with pureed soaked and peeled nuts instead of kefir.

As of June 9th, the Slovenian company has exceeded its “all or nothing” goal of $15,000. Some 1,740 backers have contributed more than $91,000. The company’s stretch goals include a larger jar and a spring-loaded lid to enhance the fermentation. At the same time, Borko, Glažar, and their team are introducing a new and improved version of their original kefir maker. According to their Kickstarter site, the new model has an easier-to-grip lid and improved airflow. They also added a Scrapper – a tool for mixing kefir grains during straining to make sure they easily separate from kefir drink. Also, by covering the hole on the Kefirko lid with the Scrapper the straining of kefir also becomes more practical and fast. Depending on pledge amounts backers can get the cheese maker, the newer kefir maker or both products. Delivery of the cheese maker and Kefirko 2 is Dec. 2017.

Make sure to check out the Smart Kitchen Summit, the only event about the future of food, cooking and the kitchen. Also, make sure to subscribe to get The Spoon in your inbox. 

Does The Shape Of Your Spoon Impact Taste? Apparently, Yes.

We write a lot about high-tech solutions to change the way food is cooked and consumed, but there is interesting, science-driven work being done to explore how design and form impact food taste as well. Fast Co Design writes about the work of designer Andreas Fabian – who has a PhD in spoons – and scientist Charles Michel to use design and scientific principals to enhance how cutlery can improve the perception of food’s taste.

Together they created the Goûte, a glass spoon modeled using biomimicry, the process of using design in nature to inspire manmade products. In the case of Michel and Fabian, their natural inspiration was the thing all humans use at one time or another to taste food – the finger.

The two began to think about the intimate experiences people can have with food when they’re unconcerned about proper manners—licking your finger while cooking, licking your plate when finished. What if they could create a new kind of utensil that mimicked that feeling, bringing a new level of mindfulness and joy to eating?

After developing the Goûte, the team paired up with Oxford University’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory to test the utensil’s impact on flavor perception. Participants used both spoons and the finger-inspired tool and found “participants reported perceiving the food as tasting significantly better than when eating with a conventional spoon.” People reported that the yogurt even tasted sweeter when using the Goûte as compared with the spoon.

The processing of using low-tech design principals to change the way food tastes is a fascinating undertaking. You can read more about the Goûte and the impact of design on taste here.