• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Skip to navigation
Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

  • Home
  • News
    • Alternative Protein
    • Business of Food
    • Connected Kitchen
    • COVID-19
    • Delivery & Commerce
    • Foodtech
    • Food Waste
    • Future of Drink
    • Future Food
    • Future of Grocery
    • Podcasts
    • Startups
    • Restaurant Tech
    • Robotics, AI & Data
  • Spoon Plus Central
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Connect
    • Send us a Tip
    • Spoon Newsletters
    • Slack
    • RSS
    • The Spoon Food Tech Survey Panel
  • Advertise
  • About
    • Staff
  • Become a Member
The Spoon
  • Home
  • News
    • Alternative Protein
    • Business of Food
    • Connected Kitchen
    • Foodtech
    • Food Waste
    • Future Food
    • Future of Grocery
    • Restaurant Tech
    • Robotics, AI & Data
  • Spoon Plus Central
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Jobs
  • Slack
  • Advertise
  • About
  • Become a Member

Minnow

October 21, 2020

SKS 2020: Watch the SKS Startup Showcase Finalist Pitches

At last week’s Smart Kitchen Summit, ten finalists made their case on the virtual stage why they should be chosen as winner of the Startup Showcase competition.

The Startup Showcase, which started back in 2015 and is one of the longest running dedicated food tech startup pitch contests in the world, had its most diverse and interesting mix of companies yet, with products ranging from cultured seafood to a food robots to a taste-enhancing cutlery.

While SKS attendees got to see the finalists from the main stage last week, we figured Spoon readers might also like to see the pitches.

Here’s how the Showcase worked: The pitch sessions were one of two portions of the showcase. After the founders pitched from the virtual stage on the first day, the next day they headed to their virtual breakout rooms where they showed off their products and answered questions from the judges.

The judges for this year’s Startup Showcase included Wired’s Joe Ray, Good Housekeeping’s Nicole Papantoniou, test kitchen expert Jane Freiman, Modernist Cuisine author/ChefSteps founder Chris Young and rlTLK/Pieshell founder Cheryl Durkee. The judges went into virtual “exhibit” areas where the founders could show off their wares and answer questions.

Since contactless pick up pod startup Minnow was declared the winner, we thought we’d also include a clip from the Minnow booth explaining how the product works.

October 17, 2020

Food Tech News: Bee-Free Honey, Menu Items With Low Carbon Footprints

It was an exciting week in food tech with the annual SKS Summit happening earlier this week (if you missed it, check out the highlights of day one, day two, and day three). Outside of this week’s virtual event, a few other stories stood out to us, including bee-free honey, low carbon footprint menu items at Panera, Minnow partnering with two restaurants, and anti-stress nutrition bars.

Melibio is creating bee-free honey

Melibio is using microbial fermentation and synthetic biology to create honey without the use of bees. The process will mimic the process a bee would take to create honey and will use real flower nectar. Honey is often touted for its health benefits, and Melibio’s honey will contain small amounts of the amino acids, minerals, and enzymes found in real honey. The company plans on launching a product for food and beverage companies by late 2021.

Panera Bread releases climate-friendly labels on menu

Starting this week, Panera Bread’s menu will include “cool food” badges that signify which of its menu items have a lower carbon footprint. Around 55 percent of the chain’s existing menu items will have a cool food meal badge. Ingredients that are considered to have a low carbon footprint include vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes. Medium carbon impact ingredients include fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, and poultry, and beef has the highest carbon footprint. Last month, Just Salad also released a Climatarian menu that shows menu items with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions.

Minnow launches pilot program in fast-casual restaurants

Minnow, the recent winner of the SKS Startup Showcase, launched a pilot program for its contact-free delivery and pick-up solution. The Minnow Pickup Pods will be located at Crisp Salads in Portland, Oregon, and bNatural Kitchen in New Haven, Connecticut. Similar to the design of an Amazon locker, the pods disrupt the use of expensive third-party delivery services like Doordash or Postmates. Additionally, the pods have a touchless interface for pick-up, and the cubbies are insulated to keep food fresh.

myAir releases stress-reducing nutrition bars

Tel-Aviv-based startup myAir makes nutrition bars infused with different herbal compounds to manage stress. The personalized nutrition company offers a short three-minute quiz on its website to determine a customer’s level of stress, and then the customer’s heart rate, sleep quality, physical activity is tracked through smartwatches. This data is then used to determine what combination of bars would be most beneficial for the customer. The gluten-free and vegan bars cost $3 each, and are available in flavors like Calm Green (infused with lemon balm extract) and Sleepy Gray (infused with hops).

September 20, 2020

Ghost Kitchen, Meet the Automat

Inexplicably, I’ve always wished I could have experienced the Automat in its heyday. Created at the tail-end of the Nineteenth Century, Automats consisted of a wall of cubbies containing simple food and beverage items users could unlock for a nickel. It was essentially fast food before fast food existed.

Fast forward to 2020, and it looks like I may yet be able to experience the concept, albeit a higher-tech version of it.

As we chatted on this week during our Editor podcast, the Automat is making a comeback. That’s thanks to restaurant companies launching cubby systems that are equipped with temperature control functionality and that can be unlocked with a user’s own smartphone. Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is the latest to iterate on the old concept, following in the footsteps of Minnow, Brightloom (née Eatsa), and others.

The resurgence makes sense, given the restaurant industry’s sudden shift to off-premises formats and simpler foods that travel well. Which is why I can think of no better location for Automat 2.0 than outside a ghost kitchen.

One of the major selling points for ghost kitchens is that they allow restaurants to operate without incurring the costs of a front-of-house operation. The ghost kitchen as we know it is also specifically designed to serve off-premises formats. Up to now, that’s been primarily delivery, but the pandemic has generated so much interest in ghost kitchens that we’re now seeing different styles of the concept emerge, including those that offer pickup. Kitchen United lists both options on its website, as does DoorDash (for its DoorDash Kitchens facility). Having a pickup option means restaurants can still take advantage of the ghost kitchen format without necessarily coughing up the sky-high commission fees associated with delivery orders.

At the same time, the pandemic continues, and even if it were to magically disappear tomorrow, our heightened expectations around cleanliness and “contactless” restaurant experiences are here to stay. Which is to say, customers are going to want minimized human contact for restaurant transactions for a long time to come. 

It doesn’t get more minimized than the Automat. By way of a hypothetical example, imagine a virtual deli that has a kitchen space from which it fulfills online orders. It would fulfill delivery orders, but also maintain a cubby system outside to hold any pickup orders. Throw a few tables and chairs near the machine where those who want can eat onsite. Other than the smartphones and the digital ordering, the setup isn’t hugely different from the original Automat concept.

Of course, some ghost kitchen companies choose to locate their facilities in former warehouse districts that don’t get much foot traffic. But as we outlined in our recent Spoon Plus report on ghost kitchens, that’s the exception, rather than the norm right now. Most ghost kitchen operators will tell you location matters, and the closer you can locate one to customers, the better.

And actually, we’re already trekking towards this automat-in-a-ghost kitchen future. Besides the above examples, Starbucks launched its Express stores in 2019 that act as ghost kitchens for nearby locations and include a wall of pickup lockers onsite. Other fast food chains have whittled their dining room concepts down to more to-go-friendly formats, and many of these orders are now being fulfilled in ghost kitchens.  

Automats were originally a precursor to fast food. These days, it seems like fast food may yet prove to be the forerunner to Automat 2.0.

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

Location-based Picnicking

You may remember a year or so ago when I wrote about Domino’s partnering with a company called what3words to delivery food to street corners, parks, and other non-traditional addresses. 

It seems what3words is at it again with food delivery, this time partnering with Honest Burgers in London to deliver to random swaths of grass in the city’s Clapham district.

What3words’ platform divides the entire world into 3m x 3m squares, which are GPS coordinates. An algorithm then converts the coordinates into three-word addresses to give each a unique (and often bizarre) name (see image above). With this technology, you could literally choose a random patch of a park sans any notable landmarks or other identifiable items and get your burger delivered to your exact location.

The program with Honest Burgers is only running for a few days and restricted to Clapham. But with more of the restaurant experience taking place outside the four walls of the business, a technology like this could become huge. That’s assuming the restaurant biz makes it through winter and and once more heads to outdoor spaces.

Cracker Barrel’s gone the ghost kitchen route. The company said at its earnings call this week that it plans to convert one of its locations in Indianapolis, Ind. to a ghost kitchen that will handle large-scale catering orders as well as some individual orders placed via third-party delivery services. The store will also be used to help fulfill delivery orders from other nearby Cracker Barrel locations during busy times, like the upcoming fall/winter holiday season.

Meanwhile, Shake Shack said this week it has expanded curbside pickup to 40 percent of its stores, and that roughly one third of all app orders are being placed for curbside. The company has plans to extend curbside to 50 of its locations by the end of September, and is also exploring the possibility of more drive-thrus and walk-up windows.

The New York City Council passed a bill that lets restaurants add a “COVID-19 surcharge” of up to 10 percent to a customer’s bill for up to 90 days after indoor dining reaches full capacity. In other words, for the foreseeable future. The bill is an attempt to help restaurants generate additional revenue as the struggle to keep the lights on continues.

August 4, 2020

Minnow Raises $2.2M Seed Round for Contact-Free Delivery Pods

Minnow Technologies, which make IoT-enabled, contactless delivery lockers, announced today that it has raised a $2.2 million seed round led by Elevate Capital with participation from Portland See Fund and the venture capital arm of Lincoln Property Company. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Minnow to $3.4 million.

With the pandemic still raging across the country, contactless delivery is basically table stakes for food operators and consumers alike. Minnow’s pods are installed in high-traffic locations and allow food deliveries to be stored in specified cubbies and unlocked by customers using their mobile phones.

Minnow’s go-to market strategy (and company name) has evolved since its inception back in 2017. The company was first called Veebie and the food locker was meant to be mobile. When the company changed its name to Kadabra, it took the wheels off the locker, installing them in locations and added IoT capablities. When it re-branded as Minnow (and moved headquarters from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon), and officially launched in March of this year, it installed seven Minnow pods in office buildings in the Portland, Oregon area.

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, meant that office buildings weren’t exactly bustling any longer, so the company started looking at apartment and other multi-family residential buildings as installation locations. In today’s funding announcement, Minnow added that its pods were also available for ghost kitchens and other cafeterias (a la Brightloom) to act as a contactless intermediary between kitchen and delivery people or customers. Minnow even added UV lights to the interior of its cubbies to further help with sterilization.

Minnow is certainly raising money at the right time. With restaurants going back and forth between opening and closing, off-premises eating is the really the main way for them to stay afloat. Delivery cubbies like Minnow’s also have the added benefit of flexibility for the customer. Instead of having to be at the door when the delivery person comes, food can be dropped off in the insulated cubby and picked up when its most convenient (the Minnow FAQ says that the cubbies are designed to hold food for 90 minutes).

With its move into residential buildings, having Lincoln Property Company, which has buildings in 28 states, is a good investor to have. Even after the pandemic recedes (whenever that will be), people will still be getting food delivered, and having a special locker in your lobby will be a nice perk for residents.

March 2, 2020

Minnow Launches its Lunch Delivery Pods in Portland, OR

Minnow, which makes IoT-connected cubbies for lunch deliveries in office buildings, is swapping one Portland for another as it officially launches its business.

Though the company began in Portland, Maine back in October of 2017, when it came time to go live, Minnow picked Portland, Oregon as its launch city, where it has installed its pods in seven different locations. The company has also moved its headquarters from Maine to Seattle, where it believes it will have access to more talent and capital.

As my colleague Mike Wolf wrote previously (when the company went by the name Kadabra), Minnow essentially makes an Amazon locker for food. You could also think of it as an Eatsa/Brightloom service, but for offices. Minnow installs their pods, which house 20 different cubbies, in office buildings. Office workers use either SMS or the mobile web to pre-order their lunch from a rotating menu of local restaurants. Once the restaurant completes the orders, Minnow then delivers all the orders at once at a designated time, putting each order in its own cubby. To collect their lunch, the recipient just goes to the Minnow pod, clicks in a special mobile link and the cubby housing their food is opened.

There are actually a few benefits to this office cubby approach. For the restaurant, it consolidates a bunch of orders first thing in the morning, so they start the day with some revenue and can more easily manage fulfillment since all the orders are being picked up at the same time.

For the building locations, it serves as a tech-forward amenity to attract tenants, and it can help reduce the number of delivery people coming in and out of the building. Instead of ten different delivery people for ten different lunch orders at ten different times in the morning, there is just the one drop off.

For office workers, this type of asynchronous approach means that they don’t have to wait around for a lunch delivery person, or have that delivery person arrive during an important meeting. Lunch is delivered at a set time and waits in the cubby until pickup. Additionally, the delivery fee for Minnow is just $1 and there’s no tipping or extra service fees that often come with other third-party delivery services, so it can be a more economical way to get your meal delivered.

There are limitations to Minnow, however, especially as it gets started. It offers a rotating menu featuring just one restaurant a day per location, so there isn’t a ton of variety. And you have to lock in your lunch order early on in day, so there isn’t a lot of wiggle room if plans change. Also, with just 20 cubbies available (for now), the service can sell out in busy offices with lots of people, and those cubbies aren’t temperature controlled, so your hot stuff can get cold if you don’t grab it in time.

But as noted, Minnow is just starting out and will be ironing out some of these bumps as it grows. The company has raised more than one million dollars in seed funding, and has three revenue streams: it collects an amenity fee from the office building, it takes a cut of the sales it gathers for the restaurants, and it gets that delivery fee.

Minnow’s approach is similar to the Outpost delivery system Sweetgreen put in place a couple years back. Though the advantage to having a Minnow system is the ability to order from more than just Sweetgreen.

And like Byte Technology, Minnow is staking its territory in the middle ground of office lunches. It’s a meal solution for offices that can’t afford full-on catering or an on-site chef, but still want to provide an easier way for workers to eat on-site. It would be great if Minnow could work with offices to enable meal subsidies to provide an extra perk and incentive to workers (Minnow says this feature is on its roadmap).

If Minnow takes off, it’s next step will be raising more money so it can grow beyond PDX, PDQ.

Primary Sidebar

Footer

  • About
  • Sponsor the Spoon
  • The Spoon Events
  • Spoon Plus

© 2016–2021 The Spoon. All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube