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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Level oven

‘Office-Food-as-a-Service’ Startup Level Discontinues Hot Pantry Service

The Spoon has learned this week that Level (formerly known as Markov), a startup that offers a managed office-food-as-a-service offering combining both food delivery and an AI-powered smart oven, has started to pull out of customer installations.

According to our sources, Level employees have picked up the Level oven and fridge that combine to make the Level Hot Pantry service from customer locations this week, telling customers that things “haven’t worked out.”

I reached out to the company and was able to confirm the news.

“We are going to discontinue the Level Hot Pantry program,” cofounder and CTO Arvind Pereira told me via email. “We are working on a transaction and will have more to share in the future.”

Level is (or was) one of a number of different startups trying to rethink and innovate around the office meal. Other startups combining new cooking tech alongside food delivery include Genie and Kitchenmate, while a number of others like Byte and Chowbotics are offering up different spins on fresh food delivery and assembly.

Pereira indicated they are looking at selling the Hot Pantry offering (which presumably includes the food delivery business and the smart oven), but it’s yet to be determined if the company itself will continue as a going concern.

We will update this story as we learn more…

Video: Watch Markov’s Oven Cook at Two Different Temperatures at the Same Time

We like to point out cool things here at The Spoon. Things like this video Markov posted awhile back, showing how it’s Level oven can “steer” heat, essentially cooking two different things at two different temperatures at the same time.

For the uninitiated, the Markov Level oven is among a wave of new, connected countertop cooking appliances that use computer vision and AI for more precise cooking. The Level also has two patents that cover its use of infrared to help evenly apply heat as well as “reflective energy steering,” which helps it precisely apply RF energy in the cooking chamber.

You can see this steering in action in the video Markov posted at the end of January. In it, different cups of colored water are placed in the cavity; one is brought to a boil while the other is not. The video goes through a couple different permutations of this experiment with different placements and water volumes, but it illustrates how the Level is able to cook different foods (like proteins and vegetables) at the same time.

LEVEL oven – differential heating demo from Arvind Pereira on Vimeo.

This multi-zone cooking is part of the pitch Markov is making as it tries to break into the corporate catering space. Also in January, Markov launched the Level Pantry service that combines a Level oven with a special Level food service and fridge. The idea is that hungry office workers can mix and match different proteins, carbs and veggies and cook them all at once. Though definitely cool technology, The Spoon’s Mike Wolf wasn’t sure that the bells and precisely steered whistles would be enough to convince an office manager to invest in anything other than the reliable ole office microwave.

I’m interested in seeing the Markov’s heat “steering” in action. I tried the Brava oven, another in the cohort of newfangled cooking appliances, which uses light to cook. It too offers a multi-zone cooking experience, though I found placement of food within those zones to be imprecise and borderline unreliable.

With its move to corporate offices, Markov’s go-to market strategy is a little different than the Brava or the June. But as the connected oven space heats up, we’ll be writing plenty of stories about all of them (and if you work there, be sure to tell us when you have a cool video up).

Markov Rolls Out Hot Pantry Food Service, A ‘Google Cafeteria’ in a Box

Let’s face it: Not every company is a Google when it comes to profitability, technology prowess or lunch.

Wait, lunch?

Yep. Google’s food program has become the gold standard in the tech world and beyond for its healthy choices and focus on sustainability, and has played an outsized role over the past decade in raising awareness about how important food is in creating a productive work environment and satisfied employees.

The only problem is not every company has the resources of Google or a food service visionary like Google Food director Michiel Bakker to lead the charge, especially those small to midsize firms where food is sometimes an afterthought.

But now Markov, the company behind the Level smart oven, wants to change all that by providing the food service hoi polloi with a turnkey service that turns their break rooms or kitchenettes into mini-Google cafeterias. The San Francisco startup’s new service, called Hot Pantry, combines the Level smart oven with food delivery that keeps an employer’s fridge (also provided by Markov) stocked with healthy food choices ranging from breakfast items like red flannel hash to mix and match lunch offerings like Tuscan short ribs and kimchi fried rice.

The Level oven

According to Markov CEO Leonard Speiser, the company isn’t building out its own kitchen (unlike consumer-focused Tovala, maker of a smart steam oven), but instead is partnering with food companies to create the various food offerings.

“We took our technology and partnered with the food service industry to provide companies of 30 to 300 employees with a little slice of the Google experience in their own office kitchenette,” Speiser told me via email.

The move into office food service is an interesting one for Markov, which has largely been known to this point for its next-gen smart oven that utilizes a patented cooking technology to steer RF beams within the cooking chamber. But providing a turnkey food offering paired with its oven might just be a smart business move to differentiate itself from the increasingly crowded market of startups looking to reinvent the office cafeteria with fresh and healthy food options.

While the Level oven is an impressive device, I think one of the company’s biggest challenges will be communicating to office managers why an office food service needs something other than a standard microwave oven. Cooking tech nerds like myself can appreciate the uniqueness of a cooking box that can see its food, steer RF signals and heat different foods at different rates and temperatures within the same cooking chamber, but communicating that to an office worker is a different story. This is probably why Markov’s consumer-facing messaging puts a big emphasis on the oven’s interactive front-display touch screen, which provides visually rich information about Hot Pantry’s food offerings, ingredients and nutritional information.

Another key variable that will help determine the success of Hot Pantry is pricing, something the company is not disclosing at this time. While the corporate market is less price-sensitive than the fickle consumer market, oven or no oven, Markov will need to be price competitive with other corporate food service providers.

Today the Hot Pantry is only available in the Bay area, but Markov hopes to expand Hot Pantry eventually to new markets.

“It would be great if all companies could offer Google programs, but most don’t have the scale,” said Speiser. Markov hopes to change that, and the company’s CEO thinks they may even have a leg up on the search giant in one area:

Unlike Google, “the Level Hot Pantry experience is open 24/7,” said Speiser.