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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food Tech News: Samsung Heads Into the Kitchen, Robot Meets Artisan Pizza

The Spoon is back for another week of food tech news, and this week Michael Wolf and Allen Weiner talk about what’s going on in the smart kitchen, alt protein, CRISPR and more.

Here are the stories we talk about:

  • Samsung and LG play nice in the kitchen, and Samsung launches food app. 
  • MOTO Pizza, where you wait a month for your pizza order, is crazy about Picnic’s pizza robot
  • Pairwise reups partnership with Bayer for CRISPR-based innovation
  • GFI says plant-based meat sales were up in 2022
  • DoorDash is bringing AI to their apps and call centers

As always, you can just hit play below to listen to the podcast, head to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or listen on your favorite podcast app.

As mentioned in the show, the Spoon is once again leading the charge for food tech at CES, the world’s biggest tech show. If you are interested in showcasing your future food or food tech innovation, head over to The Spoon’s CES page for more info.

Also, on October 25th, we’ll be bringing leaders at the intersection of food and AI together for a day of conversation. Please use the discount code PODCAST for 15% off tickets to the Food AI Summit.

Watch LG’s Server Robot Bring Dishes to Customers at Popular Korean Restaurant in Georgia

One year ago, LG announced the debut of its new hospitality server robot, and now the Korean tech giant’s CLOi Servebot is showing up at restaurants like the Airang K in Johns Creek, Georgia. Since June 2022, four “LG CLOi ServeBot” robotic assistants from LG have been assisting wait staff by accompanying them to guests’ tables while carrying multiple dishes at once.

Initially, Arirang K had deployed two of the Servebots to help their employees but soon upgraded to four. “Everybody liked the first two so much that we upgraded to four LG ServeBots to maximize service levels and guarantee that every customer gets to see the robots in action,” said Miok Kim, general manager of Arirang K.

The LG Servebot has 11 hours of operating time and three shelves that hold up to 22 pounds. They also feature sensors and cameras that enable autonomous driving, obstacle avoidance, and recognition.

“As the CLOi Servebot is cruising down the path to deliver food to a table, if a chair is pulled out a little bit too far, It will notice the surroundings in the settings and direct to a different route,” said Brittany Marubio of LG.

If you haven’t seen a server bot in one of your favorite restaurants, chances are you will soon as the server-bot market pioneered by Bear Robotics is becoming more crowded. In addition to LG and Bear, solutions from Pudu Robotics and Keenon Robotics are also beginning to be deployed. Restaurants are using these robots to not only deal with understaffing but to take the burden off of employees and make their jobs safer.

“The main dishes that come on in our restaurant are mostly hot, and it can be dangerous,” said Taylor Robinson, a server at Arirang K. “So the LG Servebots are able to help us by bringing those dishes up for us and all we have to do is hand it right off at the table.”

You can see the LG Servebot in action in the video below:

LG ServeBot at Arirang K Restaurant

CES 2022: As LG and Others Embrace Steam, Could 2022 Be The Year of Steam Cooking?

When asked at Smart Kitchen Summit in 2017 what appliance he was waiting for to make its way to the consumer kitchen, award-winning chef Philip Tessier said, “the combi oven.”

As it turns out, Tessier wasn’t the only chef that day who thought a steam-powered consumer kitchen was a good idea. When asked the same question a couple of minutes later, Serious Eats’ Kenji López-Alt agreed.

“I was going to say combi ovens too,” said López-Alt.

The combi oven, also known as combi steamer, combines traditional convection (dry) heating and moist heat using steam to enable the cook to do all sorts of things they can’t do with traditional ovens: Sous vide cooking, steaming vegetables, and baking moist delicious bread to name a few.

While steam cooking has been a long-time fixture in pro kitchens, it has never taken off in a big way in the consumer kitchen. But that might be changing. In 2020, Anova finally started shipping their countertop Precision Oven, and the critics embraced it. Since that time, the company has had trouble keeping the $599 appliance in stock.

Other upstarts such as Tovala and Suvie are also bringing different spins on steam-powered cooking to consumers. And LG, which introduced steam cooking into their convection ovens in 2018, is now adding Steam Cook functionality to the microwave.

In some ways, steam cooking is following the same early path pioneered by sous vide circulators. Like sous vide, steam cooking is a technique long-embraced in the pro kitchen, and it is also finally reaching consumer price points and showing up in friendlier form factors.

However, while sales of sous vide circulators eventually hit a wall because most consumers didn’t have the patience to cook meat in water baths for hours on end, my guess is steam cooking has a much wider appeal. A big reason is that unlike sous vide, steam cooking arrives in the kitchen via traditional-looking appliances (not to mention steam ovens like Anova’s allow you cook sous vide without the water bath or the plastic bag).

If 2021 was the year air-fry was everywhere, I suspect in 2022 we might begin to see the year the chefs get their wish and steam cooking begins to enter the mainstream.

Will LG Make a Meal Out of its new Outdoor/Indoor Delivery Robot?

Consumer electronics giant LG unveiled a new indoor/outdoor rover robot at the Ubiquitous Robot 2021 conference yesterday in South Korea. The company aims to test the new robotic platform at the end of this year.

Though a number of Korean news outlets reported the story, there weren’t a ton of details available about the new robot. We know it was developed in conjunction with MIT Associate Professor Sangbae Kim at LG Boston Robotics Lab, and that the four-wheeled robot can adjust the gap between its wheels to adapt quickly to uneven terrain for a smoother ride.

But there are still plenty of questions unanswered questions. We don’t know what level of autonomy the robot has. For example, is it completely self-driving or is it teleguided? Will it be available outside of Korea, and if so, when? What industries is LG looking to sell this robot to? Given the robot’s ability to minimize jostling as it travels, food and meal delivery seems like a no-brainer. Additionally, the Aju Business Daily reported that LG released the following statement along with its new robot: “The integrated next-generation delivery robot is the result of our preemptive response to customers’ increased demands for non-face-to-face services.” Meal delivery was among the first services to go contactless during the pandemic last year, so it makes sense that such delivery would be on LG’s roadmap.

This isn’t LG’s first foray into robotics. In January of this year the company debuted its BaristaBot to serve coffee to workers at LG’s headquarters in Seoul. Last December, the company began using its CLOi robots to make deliveries from convenience stores to people inside its LG Science Park in Seoul. And in July of 2020, LG partnered with Woowa Brothers and the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement to develop robot waiters.

What makes this latest robot more interesting than its previous robo-plays, however, is how it could alter the existing robot delivery market. Startups such as Starship, Serve and Kiwibot have been making robo-deliveries for years at this point, but what neither of those companies have is scale. LG is a giant electronics company that is better equipped to mass produce these rovers and bring their costs down. With its global reach, LG could then sell or lease robots more cheaply than existing robot companies to third-party delivery services (Uber Eats, DoorDash, etc.). You can kind of see a blueprint for such a deal in the recent Grubhub/Yandex partnership. Additionally, a company with the brand recognition and reputation of LG could also help spur adoption from reluctant potential partners and get more robots making deliveries.

NOTE: The LG image featured in this post is via The Korea Bizwire.

See (Through) LG’s Transparent OLED Display on Crown Coffee’s Robotic Kiosk

When it comes to robot baristas, the robot itself usually takes center stage. I mean, those articulating arms are doing the actual work of making a latte. But with Crown Coffee’s Ella robot coffee kiosk, the wall in front of the robot is just as cool because it is actually a transparent display.

The transparent OLED display is made by LG, and shows off full motion video and graphics. But because of the transparent nature of the display, you can also see through the video action to watch the robot concocting your drink.

We actually covered Ella and its transparent display last year, but this week, LG Information Display Singapore posted a (promotional) video to LinkedIn giving us a better, more polished look at the technology.

Aside from being cool, it’s easy to see how this type of display could help robot baristas generate additional revenue. The colorful displays will undoubtedly attract eyeballs and could run sales for particular drinks and snacks, upsell items after you place an order, or even run third-party advertisements, without impacting how the actual robot operates.

While robots are very cool, they still have yet to fully prove themselves in the marketplace. Cafe X shut down all of its robot baristas last year (though the airport locations are starting to open back up), and Briggo was quietly sold to Costa Coffee with no fanfare or indication of what the sale price was. That’s typically not a good sign.

I still think there’s a bright future for robotic kiosks (we’re actually hosting a full day virtual summit to discuss food automation — you should join us!), especially in high-traffic areas like airports and malls where people want drinks quickly. Robots can churn out consistent drinks all day and night, and they are also contactless, which will most likely remain important even as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes.

The transparent displays make even more sense for co-branded robotic kiosks. It’s not hard to imagine how a Starbucks branded robot would take advantage of this technology to run a steady stream of ads and promotions.

Right now, the only place to see Ella’s transparent display in action is at its installation in Singapore. As it rolls out more locations, Crown Coffee plans to have a mix of owned and operated machines as well as licensed kiosks. As more robots come online, it’s apparent how cool the transparent display will be.

CES 2021: LG to Unveil New Knock-Knock Fridge with UV Cleaning and Voice Control

In a normal year, right about now we would be busy packing and prepping for the annual trip to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas. Even though we won’t be boarding a plane to attend, CES has gone virtual and there is still a bunch of news that will be coming out of the show.

News like LG’s announcement today about its new InstaView fridge that will be officially unveiled at CES. The new fridge features an enhanced knock-knock see-through door, UVNano technology for the water dispenser and voice controls.

The InstaView has always been a fun fridge because of the knock-knock capability, which allows you to knock twice on the fridge to make the glass panel built into the door change from opaque to transparent. This handy feature lets you see what you have inside the fridge without opening the doors and letting all the cold air out. The new InstaView panel is 23 percent larger than previous models allowing users to see even more of what’s inside.

LG has also outfitted the new fridge with UVNano technology to the built-in water dispenser. The new feature uses light to create a more hygienic water dispenser, with UVNano operating “once every hour to remove up to 99.99 percent of bacteria” on the refrigerator’s tap.

Voice control is also coming to the new LG InstaView fridge. Hands full of groceries you need to put away? No problem. Just tell the InstaView to “Open the refrigerator door” and the fridge pops open. Users can also their voice to check the status of ice and water dispensers and order more filters.

If all that isn’t enough to entice you, the new InstaView also comes with a craft ice maker, which makes 2 inch, slow-melting ice balls that won’t water down your craft cocktail.

All this InstaView news is, err, cool, but considering CES is just two weeks away, stay tuned. The kitchen appliance space is just warming up.

Speaking of kitchen tech and events, you’ll want to be there for the third annual Food Tech Live. Since we can’t be in Vegas for CES, we’re taking our annual food tech innovation showcase virtual on Jan 11th, so you can join us from anywhere in the world. Register here.

South Korea: LG’s Robots to Ride Elevators and Make Convenience Store Deliveries

Delivery robots are making their way indoors. At least, they are starting to in South Korea. ZDNet reports today that LG has started using its Cloi Servebots to make deliveries from a local convenience store to anyone within the LG Science Park in Seoul.

The Serve bot, which features a series of shelves to hold food and drinks, will be able to get on the elevator at the Science Park and navigate nine above-ground floors as well as the basement to make deliveries to people there.

Typically, food delivery robots stop outside of a building, requiring the recipient to come out to retrieve the order. But robots in South Korea are starting to cross that threshold, as it were, to venture inside office and residential buildings to make deliveries more direct.

Earlier this month, Woowa Brothers announced that it was working with HDC I-Controls and Hyundai Elevator to allow Dilly robots to enter a residential complex and autonomously work the elevator.

As with the Woowa deal, there are still some details left unclear by ZDNet’s report about LG’s machines. To use the Cloibot, a user places an order through the KakaoTalk chat app. A human at the GS25 convenience store packs the order into the robot and sends it off. Then, as ZDNet writes:

The robots will then depart and send their destination information to a nearby elevator wirelessly. Once the robots arrive at their destination, they will call and text the customer to notify them of their arrival.

As with Woowa, which didn’t mention how its robots would navigate to a specific apartment after getting off an elevator, we don’t know how far the LG bot will go. Will it travel to a lobby, or a conference room or to a specific desk? Hopefully we’ll see more details from LG soon.

The bigger point is that delivery robots are gaining the ability to traverse indoor settings at the right time. The pandemic has businesses looking for a way to reduce human-to-human contact to reduce potential virus transmission. Having a robot means that a store or restaurant doesn’t have to send one of its workers out to make deliveries, and office/residential buildings can cut down on the number of different people coming in and out its doors.

Fighting Consumer Food Waste at Home Means Rethinking the Refrigerator

What’s the most effective way to fight food waste in the home? Take a look at your fridge.

Most consumers at this point are aware of the world’s multibillion food waste problem. A great many more now understand that, at least in North America and Europe, the bulk of that waste happens at consumer-facing stages of the food journey, including our own homes. What we’re less certain of is how to curb that excess.

Researching solutions for “The Consumer Food Waste Innovation Report,” which you can read on Spoon Plus, I came across a number of different methods for reducing food waste in the home. But after sifting through the many storage and preservation options out there, the meal-planning and meal-sharing apps, I’m left wondering if the trick to reducing at-home food waste isn’t just re-envisioning the refrigerator itself.

The appliance hasn’t changed much over the last several decades. But in 2020, the pandemic is keeping more folks at home, we have more information about how much food we’re actually wasting (it’s a ton), and more investment in the food tech sector in general. The convergence of those factors makes now an ideal time to change that point and introduce more innovation into the world of refrigerators. Here are a few ideas:

Smarter Features That Are Actually Affordable

By now, many consumers are at least aware of high-tech refrigerators that can track items placed in the fridge, alert owners when those items are running low, and scan and identify foods to help consumers plan meals and find recipes. LG’s ThinQ and the Samsung Family Hub are two appliances that lead the smart fridge market.

They also cost thousands of dollars, making them out of reach for most consumers. True, having cameras and image-recognition technology inside the fridge is a relatively new concept, so a higher price point is to be expected. But in order for the new applications of those technologies to be most effective, they’ll need to get cheaper. By that I mean, we’ll need to see options for them build into most fridges.

Another option is add-on tech for the fridge. As we note in the report, Smarter makes a device can be retrofitted for any fridge and recognize the items inside. Fridge Eye has a similar device.

Smaller Fridge, Bigger Freezer

“Everyone loses something in the back of the fridge,” food waste expert Dana Gunders told us when interviewed for the report. Her point is that the sheer size of most modern refrigerators means older items will get pushed out of view and forgotten as newer ones are placed in the fridge.

High-tech fixes like the ones mentioned above can help, but the fridge design itself seems ripe for an upgrade. Or downgrade, as it were, since a smaller fridge compartment with a bigger freezer might be a surefire way to reduce food waste. Much of our food, even items like milk and bread, can be frozen until we need to use them. And research shows that things like frozen fruits and vegetables maintain more or less the same nutrients as their fresh counterparts. 

Better Storage to Accompany the Fridge

Back in the 1930s, when the electric refrigerator was just starting to get popular, General Electric sold fridges by promoting the then-newish concept of leftovers to consumers. Along with tips and cookbooks, the appliance-maker sold food storage containers designed to stack up in the fridge and hold leftovers. 

Maybe to curb food waste, we need a kind of rebirth of that concept, this time geared towards curbing food waste and with a high-tech twist. Major appliance manufacturers could team up with startups like Mimica, BlakBear, or Silo to sell smarter storage options — think smart labels and temperature sensors — alongside their appliances. They could also find ways to integrate some of those new technologies into fridge doors, drawers, and other compartments.

For more thoughts on the reinvention of the refrigerator as well as how else we can fight food waste at home, check out the full “Consumer Food Waste Innovation” report at Spoon Plus.

Knock-Knock. Who’s There? LG’s New InstaView Oven with Air Fryer Now Available

I don’t want my current refrigerator to break, but if it should happen to accidentally fall out of a second story window, I know what I’ll replace it with: The LG InstaView fridge. The InstaView fridge comes equipped with knock-on technology that lets you see what’s inside by knocking on its surface, without ever having to open the door.

Now it looks like my current oven may become another victim of a precipitous and totally accidental defenestration. LG announced yesterday that its new InstaView Ranges with Air Fry, also outfitted with the knock-on technology, are now available for purchase nationwide.

LG said in this week’s announcement that it’s sold more than 1 million units of its InstaView fridges, and now we’ll see if the ovens prove equally popular. Like the fridge, the new LG oven lets you peek inside simply by knocking twice on the glass. From the press announcement:

Simply knock twice on the oven’s glass window to illuminate the interior and visually monitor cooking progress. And if you’re hands are full or dirty, the range will light up if gently tapped twice with an elbow, knee or even foot.

Aside from the “neat-o” factor of the InstaView, there is a practical application. Being able to check on your dinner without opening up the door means all the heat stays inside the oven and doesn’t escape. And sure, just about every oven comes with a light switch to do the same thing, but come on! This is so much more fun.

In addition to the knock-knock, the new LG ranges also come with the popular Air Fry option, so you can brown and crisp food without the need for a separate countertop device.

There are also a number of smart features such as remote monitoring and control of the oven via the LG ThinQ mobile app, as well as recipe and guided cooking functionality via SideChef, Innit, and Tovala integrations.

The LG InstaView ovens can be purchased now and cost between $899 and $1,299 depending on the make and model.

LG, Woowa Bros. and KIRIA to Develop Robot Waiters

Consumer electronics giant LG is teaming up with Woowa Bros and the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA) to develop robot waiters for restaurants, The Korea Times reported over the weekend.

This deal expands a partnership formed between LG and Woowa earlier this year. According to the Times, the two companies have “joined a project chaired by KIRIA, a Daegu-based state-run agency that supervises Korea’s robot industry.”

LG is developing robots and artificial intelligence that can be used across Woowa Brothers’ food delivery and robot rental businesses. Last November, Woowa launched a program that rents out server robots to restaurants. The Times reports that Woowa currently has 85 robots operating in 68 restaurants across Korea.

The LG robots developed through this program will not carry the LG CLOi branding. In February of this year LG announced its CLOi server robot would be used by Korea restaurant chain CJ Foodville.

Robot servers are gaining new attention during this pandemic because they reduce human-to-human interaction. There are plenty of companies betting on a bright future for server robots. Bear Robotics, Keenon Robotics and PuduTech are all creating similar, autonomous plate carrying robots.

Restaurants are re-opening, but following strict guidelines while doing so, including reduced occupancy, socially distant table setups, temperature checks and masks worn by staff.

Whether or not restaurants can survive under these limitations or whether people will want to dine in at restaurants again in the near future remain to be seen. But a robot server could be a more appealing, contactless alternative for restaurants looking to keep whatever customers they have at ease.

Rise Gardens Raises $2.6M in Fresh Funding for Its At-Home Hydroponics Platform

Chicago-based startup Rise Gardens has raised $2.6 million in seed funding for its indoor grow system, according to TechCrunch. The round was led by True Ventures. 

Rise is one of a growing number of companies making self-contained indoor farms designed not for mass production of leafy greens, but for the average person’s home or apartment. The hardware-software system looks like a piece of furniture, requires minimal setup by the user, and is controlled via a smartphone app. In theory, at least, that means you don’t need a degree in agricultural studies or even a good track record with gardening to grow herbs and lettuces for your own personal meals.

That’s where the Rise Gardens app comes into play. When we spoke in January of this year, Rise’s Head of Product and Strategy, Diego Blondet, explained how the app automates tasks in the growing process a farmer would normally do, such as calculating the temperature of the farm, determining nutrition and pH levels, and figuring out when to water. Rise’s app works with a sensor that automates those calculations and notifies users when it’s time to water or feed their plants.

Blondet also said he believes automated indoor farming will make its way into the design of most kitchens at some point in the future. In fact, that’s already happening, with 2020 so far being a year when startups and large appliance-makers alike have unveiled indoor farming devices designed for the average home. Seedo, Verdeat, the Planty Cube, LG, and GE are all on that list. 

As The Spoon’s Publisher Michael Wolf pointed out not long ago, the COVID-19 pandemic could accelerate average folks’ adoption of indoor farming. The recent panic buying spree reminded us that grocery store supplies aren’t infinite, and that there are glaring issues with our current food supply chain. As Mike said:

“As the coronavirus has forced all of us to think more about our food supply, some consumers have gone beyond just buying a little extra food to store away. Now they are thinking about how we could ensure access to food independent of breakdowns in the system.”

Rise Gardens’ founder Hank Adams told TechCrunch that since shelter-in-place orders landed in the U.S., the company has seen a 750 percent increase in sales. 

Heads of lettuce won’t feed a family of four, of course, but according to Adams, Rise looks at itself as more of a supplement to your weekly groceries, rather than a replacement. Which is, frankly, one of the more honest takes on indoor vertical farming, an industry that’s often been praised as being the future of agriculture but still can’t grow a root vegetable. 

Since leafy greens are difficult to ship because of their delicate nature, they’re an obvious area for vertical farming to target. Few at-home systems currently allow for the volume of greens the average family, or even the average person, would need in a given week. Since Rise’s system is a little bigger as well as modular (you can add shelves to it over time), it could provide a good blueprint for what at-home vertical farms should look like when they start to become the norm in kitchen design.

LG and Woowa Bros. to Develop Food Delivery and Serving Robots

South Korean companies LG and Woowa Brothers announced today that they will work together on developing robots that deliver food to tables at restaurants as well as to your front door (hat tip to The Investor).

The companies didn’t provide many specifics, just saying that there were synergies between the two and they looked forward to making a better world where robots and humans coexist.

The move isn’t surprising given that both companies have made numerous robotic moves in parallel up to this point. Just earlier this month South Korean restaurant chain CJ Foodville started deploying LG’s CLoi ServeBots at its locations to serve food and shuttle empty dishes.

For its part Woowa Brothers, which operates Baedal Minjok, South Korea’s largest food delivery operation, launched a robot rental program for restaurants in November of last year. And last summer, Woowa partnered with UCLA to develop cooking robots. Woowa was acquired by Delivery Hero for $4 billion last December, but prior to that, Woowa’s CEO had talked openly about how delivery robots should be multi-taskers and do things like take away trash and recycling.

The announcement comes amid the backdrop of the deadly coronavirus. Cases in South Korea have spiked, and as the disease becomes a global pandemic, robots are one measure being taken to reduce human-to-human contact. As we saw early in the virus’ spread, a quarantined hotel in China used robots to serve food to stranded travelers. In fact, robots could wind up being instrumental in the contactless method of food delivery, if proper sterilization procedures can be put into place.

LG certainly isn’t alone in its food robot endeavors. Sony has a big vision for cooking robots and partnered with Carnegie Mellon University to research them. Sony also recently launched a dedicated artificial intelligence unit that would work on “gastronomy.”

All of this is to say that with the intense focus from companies like LG, Woowa, Sony and more, the world of food delivery and restaurant robots is being primed to undergo massive advancements in the coming years.