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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

OneRare

The Spoon Breaks Ground on New HQ in the Metaverse in Partnership With OneRare

Here at The Spoon, we are excited to announce we are breaking ground on a new company headquarters.

In the metaverse, that is.

That’s right, we’re building a new (virtual) HQ in partnership with OneRare. OneRare, an India-based startup building a food-centric metaverse, is busy laying pixels and helping us create a our new outpost in Web3, a multi-use gathering spot for all things Spoon. The Spoon HQ will include a virtual event space, a watering hole, and a desk or two where we can tap on our virtual typewriters to document the stories of innovators building new things in the world of food tech.

The idea for the new Spoon HQ first surfaced after talking with OneRare cofounder Supreet Raju in preparation for SimulATE, the Spoon’s Web3xfood summit. Supreet suggested that OneRare could help The Spoon build a virtual space in the metaverse and, not being one to pass up becoming a virtual land/media mogul, I decided to take her up on it. I mean, who doesn’t dream of having their own HQ in a virtual world?

We started the process by looking for specific building designs in the real world that could approximate what our new HQ in the metaverse could look like. Being partial to mid-century American architecture – and with a fondness for Seattle landmarks – I figured what better inspiration to model The Spoon HQ than the old Seattle Post-Intelligencer building?

Above: The Seattle P-I Building on July 14, 1956.

The Seattle P-I was one of Seattle’s two major print newspapers for over a century. The paper got its start in 1863 as the Seattle Gazette (it was renamed the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1867), and though it ceased its print edition in 2009 (the P-I is still available online), the classic P-I is still a fondly-remembered and storied part of Seattle’s media history.

As for the P-I’s famed circling globe, it’s still there, only a few blocks closer to the Seattle waterfront. The paper relocated to a new location in 1986 and moved the globe along with it, where it remains one of Seattle’s most recognizable landmarks, second only to perhaps the Space Needle.

And now, The Spoon will have its own globe-topped HQ in the metaverse. The building, which you can see at the top of the page in an early rendering, will also have two bar areas (we figured one isn’t enough for thirsty Spoon event attendees), the event space, and a TV where we can stream Spoon videos and content.

We’re excited. We’ve become pretty good here at The Spoon at hosting virtual events, trade shows, and meetups, and we look forward to throwing the doors open at our new HQ to welcome our community to connect in new and exciting ways. Once the art team has finished with the design renderings, the OneRare coding team will get to work, and we are hoping to have the space ready to visit in October.

We’ll keep you updated and hope to welcome you soon to The Spoon HQ in the metaverse!

OneRare and Honeybee Burger Partner to Bring Plant-Based Food to the Metaverse

OneRare, the first dedicated food metaverse platform just announced a collaboration with LA-based Honeybee Burger to make plant-based food “more desirable, accessible and available everywhere.”

The vegan burger, founded by former Wall Street execs, is considered a mini-chain in Southern California but has grown in popularity alongside the plant-based movement and is planning to open locations in NYC and Chicago. Honeybee plans to leverage OneRare to enter the metaverse and create a virtual location accessible to anyone around the world.

It’s a good move and one that smaller restaurant groups should watch carefully; as giants like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Chipotle unveil their proprietary “metaverse” environments that will act like virtual storefronts and communities (Wendyverse, anyone?), taking advantage of already established platforms like OneRare will be important to compete in the fast-casual dining space in the future.

Adam Weiss, CEO of Honeybee commented, “we like to think of Honeybee as an innovator, redefining the potential of vegan food in order to increase the appeal of plant-based dining globally. On the food side, that means bringing new and exciting plant-based products to our customers, including things like Nowadays chick’n nuggets…and also Akua kelp patties, which we were the first QSR to serve. This innovation extends to our business and marketing, where we were one of the first to use Regulation CF to raise funds, and now we want to be one of the first to market in the metaverse.”

For now, Honeybee will use the OneRare “foodverse” to promote plant-based food and sustainable dining and feature an NFT menu created by the vegan chain. OneRare has been busy since raising its first funding round in November 2021, announcing dozens of partnerships with food and restaurant brands along with partnerships with NFT and cryptocurrency platforms.

Ready or Not, OneRare’s Supreet Raju Wants to Welcome You to the Foodverse

While we can’t (yet) enjoy food in all its multisensory glory in the virtual world, Supreet Raju thinks connecting food to the metaverse makes perfect sense.

“Food has to be eaten in the real world,” said Raju, co-founder OneRare, a food-centric metaverse. “But there’s a lot of things that can happen in the virtual world apart from tasting it.”

Raju, who spoke last week at SimulATE, the Spoon’s Web3 food summit, pointed to the popularity of Instagram and TikTok videos and how people love cooking shows, even if they can’t taste the food being made on their screens.

“We as audiences, we never eat that food, but we look at that food, and we are so tempted to tune in. So I think virtual food also makes a connection with people.”

Raju and her husband started OneRare during the lockdown of the pandemic. They began with the idea of food NFTs, where users would collect ingredient NFTs and would use them to claim a dish NFT. The vision grew quickly, and soon they were thinking of a full metaverse with in-world games, chef and brand partnerships, and exchanges of virtual assets for real-world utility. Adding to the momentum was the $2 million-plus raised in November via an NFT drop.

“It was supposed to be a simple project where you collected ingredients to claim your dish NFT. But from there, we’ve added layers. We started thinking about games. Then we started thinking about the utility of NFTs. And here we are, creating the first foodverse in the world.”

Part of the vision includes working with food brands, chefs, and restaurants to bring them into the metaverse and offer residents of OneRare real-world utility in the form of coupons for food, unique recipes they can use, and more.

This week, the company struck its first brand partnership with Urban Platter, an India-based ingredient provider. OneRare players will be able to use tokenized Urban Platter ingredients in in-game recipes and eventually will be able to exchange them for ingredients in the real world. Over time, the ingredient company plans to launch a virtual store in OneRare’s Foodverse where visitors learn about products and even shop.

Not surprisingly, in a world where most people still can’t explain Web3 or blockchain and virtual reality is still for early adopters, there are lots of skeptics when it comes to the idea of a foodverse.

While it may take some time, Raju thinks the skeptics will come around.

“When Instagram came in 2009, brands never took it seriously for the first two, three years,” said Raju. “And then they saw a chef who was just making recipes at home get to like 5 million followers, get his own cookbook, and then get his own restaurant. That’s when chefs and brands started saying, ‘oh my God, we need to make an Instagram account.'”

In the long term, Raju envisions the OneRare foodverse weaved into the broader metaverse, where OneRare powers virtual food experiences in other virtual worlds. The company plans to integrate with other Web3 platform companies to get there, and one example is Chumbi Valley, an NFT role-playing game the company partnered with last year.

“We look at ourselves as the food people here,” said Raju. ” We want to put it on the blockchain. You need an energy drink to train for a race? We’ll be there. You need pizza for your party? We’ll be there. That’s the kind of way we’re building OneRare.”

You can watch my full interview with Supreet Raju below.