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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Max Elder

Nowadays Raises $2M and Launches First Product, a Plant-Based Chicken Nugget

Max Elder had a pretty good day job. As a former futurist for the appropriately named Institute for the Future, he got paid to look into a crystal ball.

Then he decided to throw that all away to make a difference in the world.

To that end, he left his job last year and went into stealth mode to start a company, the details of which he just unveiled this week.

Elder and his cofounder Dominik Grabinski, a long-time food industry executive, have founded Nowadays, a company which makes plant-based meat, specifically chicken. The company, which raised $1.5 million raised $2 million (editor note: while Tenacious Ventures indicated they’d raised $1.5M, Elder emailed to clarify Nowadays has raised $2 million in total) in pre-seed funding from a group that included Tenacious Ventures and other early stage venture firms, plans to roll out its first product, a plant-based chicken nugget with pea-protein as the primary ingredient, this year in California via direct-to-consumer channels.

To find out more about the decision to start a new career as a plant-based meat entrepreneur, I interviewed Elder yesterday on Clubhouse (where else?).

I asked him how Nowadays is different than other startups in this space. Elder pointed out that most consumers aren’t thinking about saving the world, but just about getting something on the table and, if they can do it in a healthy way, all the better.

“Nowadays was really born out of this assumption that most consumers don’t really want just plant based meat, that removing animals from these products isn’t enough,” said Elder. “The majority of people who are flexitarian, who are looking for an occasional plant based meat alternative, are doing it for health. And nowadays was really started to make plant based meat that is as good for you as it is for the planet.”

In the announcement, Nowadays made clear they would be focused on making healthier, plant-based versions of what is typically categorized as “junk food”. Nuggets clearly fit, but still I wondered why Elder decided to start off in a category where there are already a couple players offering plant-based products.

“Nuggets have a very emotional pull on a lot of American consumers, but they’re also full of junk,” said Elder. “And everyone knows that people who feed their kids nuggets know that they’re junk food. People eat nuggets despite what they are not because of what they are, and to me that’s the best type of category to enter.”

When I asked him directly about rivals like Rebellyous and Nuggs, Elder pointed to Nowadays’ emphasis on a simple and clean ingredient list, while also making clear he doesn’t see these companies as his primary competition.

“I think what we have is a nugget that has the best nutritional profile, and the cleanest ingredient list of any nugget,” said Elder. “I don’t think of our competitor set as Rebellyous and Nuggs. If you’re fighting for 1 percent of the market, you’re in the wrong ring. We’re going after chicken nuggets.”

One of the things I was wondering about is whether Nowadays plans to create other types of meat analogs, and what that might be. Elder made clear that they’ll be sticking with chicken.

“We’re focused on chicken,” said Elder. “I’m deeply concerned about chicken. I’m deeply concerned about the suffering of broiler chickens around the world. We kill about 66 billion of them globally. I also just think that there is a huge environmental crisis.”

Elder said they plan on creating a gluten free version of their nuggets, but then will also explore other types of plant-based chicken products beyond the nugget.

“We are focused on other formats of chicken products using our proprietary blend of of pea protein and ingredients to extrude whole cuts of meat. So the next product is going to be a tender. “

Beyond that, Elder said Nowadays is exploring plant-based chicken breasts and products like schnitzels.

The company raised $1.5 million and Elder said they plan on raising a bigger seed round at the end of this year as they scale beyond their initial direct-to-consumer phase in the California market.

You can hear my full conversation with Max by clicking play below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get our podcasts.

Gaming, Glass Houses, and Other Signals of Restaurant Recovery

Everyone’s talking about Just Eat Takeaway’s acquisition of Grubhub this week, so let’s talk about mannequins in restaurants instead.

At a virtual workshop for The Spoon this week, Max Elder, a Research Director at the Institute for the Future, referenced restaurants that are currently using mannequins to fill up tables left empty by social distancing rules. The example is what he calls a “signal.” Signals are, as Elder explained, “small or local innovations happening today, with potential to grow in scale and geographic distribution.” They are one small thing happening right now that can eventually accelerate into a widespread trend that changes an industry or, as Elder suggested, the entire food system.

The restaurant industry is full of these signals right now as businesses struggle to adjust to the new reality of reduced capacity in the dining rooms, an emphasis on to-go orders, and social distancing guidelines. Some things, like curbside pickup, have already become full-on trends everyone is doing. But plenty of restaurants are innovating on a much smaller scale, whether it’s through a new technology, product, or creative approach to social distancing. See the mannequins example above.

Will all of the signals currently out there in the restaurant industry become widespread trends? It’s too soon to tell, but they all provide some specific, granular detail on about new restaurant experiences and unique ways businesses are working to change the way we eat. In the spirit of that, here are a few noteworthy signals that may or may not become widespread but show us that innovation is alive and well in the restaurant biz.

Gaming gatherings. Fancy a little D&D with your to-go latte? Hex & Company, a board game cafe in NYC, set up an online gaming service to keep customers in touch with its brand (and also probably give them something to do) during shelter-in-place restrictions. 

People in glass houses. A shoutout to virtual workshop attendee QQ for bringing this up during the session. A restaurant in Amsterdam is making it safer for diners to eat out by enclosing them in tiny greenhouse-like glass structures while they eat. (See image above.) The concept is compelling because it serves up a unique restaurant experience that’s socially distanced at the same time.

Virtual tip jars. We’ve written about this one before. Out-of-work servers and bartenders can receive Venmo tips from folks they may never have served, thanks to efforts like this one in Chattanooga. The contactless aspect of these virtual tip jars could make the concept at attractive sell even once we’re past the pandemic.

Restaurant relief kitchen. When fine-dining restaurant Alma Cocina Latina had to close its doors because of the pandemic, owner Irena Stein turned it into a relief kitchen for food-insecure individuals around Baltimore. The concept was so attractive it eventually got the backing of José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen.

If eating inside a glass greenhouse or playing Magic the Gathering via your local coffeeshop’s server seems kind of strange, that’s good. One of my favorite moments of this week’s workshop was when Elder said, “Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous.” As the restaurant industry enters a new era, we’ll need as many left-of-center ideas as we can possibly get.

Another Day Another Grubhub Rant

OK let’s actually talk about Grubhub. Or rather, let’s talk about what Just Eat Takeaway inherits if its deal to acquire Grubhub is approved by shareholders and goes through.

To quickly sum up the news, this week Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway confirmed its $7.3 billion deal to acquire Grubhub. The sale creates a combined 360,000 restaurant clients across 25 countries, and roughly 70 million customers. 

Just Eat Takeaway, which is itself a newly formed company, also gets an automatic in with some of the strongest food delivery markets in the U.S., New York City and Grubhub hometown Chicago among them. It gets access to other markets across North America and therefore can take a hefty swipe at U.S. market leader DoorDash, and it will become the largest food delivery service in the world outside of China.

The deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021, also means Just Eat Takeaway will inherit the many (many, many) highly controversial aspects about Grubhub.

Over the last year alone, Grubhub has been accused of using misleading websites and phone numbers to charge restaurants extra fees, listing restaurants on its site with which the service doesn’t even have a deal with, and it’s stood behind the arguably unethical commission fees it charges restaurants. When he pandemic struck the U.S. in full force and restaurant dining rooms closed down, Grubhub didn’t waver from those fees. It merely offered a vaguely worded announcement about deferring fees for a temporary period, and the company spoke out against the mandatory caps many city governments have placed on those fees.

Uber, a former Grubhub suitor, reportedly balked at these shady business practices, which were one reason among many that deal went south. Just Eat Takeaway hasn’t made any mention of them in official statements or interviews so far, though in an interview with NRN this week the company said it was attracted to Grubhub’s business model. It’s too soon to know what that means for restaurant clients, but it doesn’t exactly instill confidence that things will change.

Unless consumers themselves opt out of using those services. One of the things Elder mentioned in his talk today was that everyone has a stake in the future of food. For restaurants and delivery, that means customers can help dictate the direction of the industry by the places where they eat and and the services they order from. No, every consumer that reads about the above controversies won’t delete their Grubhub and/or Just Eat Takeaway apps. But it’s worth remembering, as we’re forced to redesign the food system, that everyone’s actions, right down to the $5 sandwich order, will have lasting impact on the future of food.

Tune Into The Spoon’s Startup Pitch Session

Let’s end on a non-rant this week by highlighting the wealth of startups out there working around the clock to help change the food system for the better. Next week, The Spoon will host a Startup Pitch Session you can tune into via CrowdCast to see what some of these companies are up to.

For this first-ever Food Tech Pitch Sesh, Better Food Ventures’ Brita Rosenheim and Sansaire founder Scott Heimendinger will judge three food tech startups pitching their products. It’ll be great fun, with lots of constructive feedback you’ll likely be able to take and apply to your own business.

Join us next week, on June 18 at 10 a.m. PST. Register here to save your spot.

This is the web version of our newsletter. Sign up today to get updates on the rapidly changing nature of the food tech industry.

Dining With Mannequins: Max Elder on How to Think Like a Futurist About Our Food System

“Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous.”

So said Max Elder, Research Director at Food Futures Lab for the Institute for the Future. Elder joined The Spoon yesterday for a virtual workshop on how to think like a food futurist during these uncertain times, and he had a wealth of tools and advice to offer attendees.

Besides the aforesaid quote, one of those nuggets was that you might be dining beside a mannequin next time you go out to eat. Sounds a little William Gibson-esque, right? Personally, I thought immediately of the ’80s film Mannequin, and some folks are no doubt creeped out by the whole idea.

But whatever images it conjures in your head, the concept actually already exists in some places. During yesterday’s workshop, Elder highlighted a Michelin-star restaurant in the Washington, D.C. area, The Inn at Little Washington, that is using mannequins to fill empty tables now that social distance guidelines require restaurants to run at reduced capacity in the dining room. 

This isn’t a widespread trend — yet. It’s what Elder calls a “signal.” Signals, as we discussed at the virtual workshop today, are facts about the present we can use to make predictions about the future. They’re especially important at a time when there’s so much uncertainty about so many parts of the food system, from the supply chain to restaurants to how we’ll get our groceries in future.

So how does one restaurant seating its empty tables with mannequins become an actual trend in the restaurant biz? For that matter, do we want it to become a trend? To answer these questions, Elder led the group in discussing the consequences, good and bad, of restaurants using mannequins as stand-in customers.

Ideas included:

  • Monetizing mannequins with ads
  • Mannequins becoming an extra item in the restaurant to clean and sanitize
  • Creating a Walking Dead-themed restaurants with mannequins
  • Ensuring mannequins are inclusive from racial, gender, and cultural angles
  • Mannequins becoming robots and therefore potential diner companions that could talk to you
  • Said robot-mannequins becoming holograms

The list goes on and on.

As a side note, mannequins and other doll-like figures aren’t just at the Washington Inn. A restaurant in Tokyo, Japan has strategically placed them around its establishment and even partnered with a clothing brand to make the mannequins as stylish as possible. And restaurant in Thailand uses stuffed animals, because who doesn’t want to eat across from a giant stuffed panda bear? 

If it all sounds a tad ridiculous, that’s the point. And as Elder and the workshop audience showed, seemingly ridiculous ideas can sometimes lead to us pondering the bigger implications of signals poised to become trends.

That’s just a smidgen of what we talked about at the workshop. To learn more about what signals are and how they become trends, what a future wheel is and why it’s important to making forecasts, and a bunch of other tools, watch the full video.

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