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PicoBrew

May 29, 2019

Hop On: There’s a Sudsy New Wave of Homebrew Appliances Looking To Automate Beer Brewing

How many people will make beer at home if you give them an machine to help in the process?

The next few years should provide an answer to that question as a new wave of beer-brewing appliances hit the market.

Home beer brewing machines aren’t new. PicoBrew started shipping the Zymatic a few years back and followed that product with the consumer-focused Pico. Brewie started shipping its second generation, the Brewie+, last year. Australian extract-beer giant Coopers got into the game in 2017 with BrewArt (though technically some wouldn’t call extract-derived beer “brewing”), and we’re not even counting those like HOPii that have already come and gone.

Despite all this activity, it seems the homebrew market has only just started to pick up speed. With that in mind, here’s a quick look at the new entrants to home brewing appliances coming to the U.S. in the next year:

BEERMKR

Set to ship this summer, BEERMKR’s open platform and proven ability to deliver products make this startup one of the more promising new entrants to the home brew appliance space.

Here’s what I wrote in March after I saw the BEERMKR in action at the Housewares show:

The system, which comes with a brewing appliance and a beer dispenser, sells for a post-Kickstarter price of $399 for the complete system. MKR KITs, the optional ingredient packs for those that want to “brew-by-number”, will each cost $12 and deliver a gallon or so of beer.

At $399, BEERMKR is one of the most affordable new entrants to the market. The company will sell MKR KITS that include all the ingredients for a batch of beer for $12, though you can also use your own grains and hops.

You can watch founder Aaron Walls walk me through the product below:

A look at the Beermkr beer brewing appliance

LG HomeBrew

We were as surprised as anyone when LG announced their intent to enter the home-brewing appliance space in advance of this year’s CES. The new appliance, aptly called LG HomeBrew, sees the South Korean appliance giant taking a Keurig-style approach to home brewing with an all-in-one capsule-based system that automates the entire process, including dispensing.

If anything, a big consumer electronics brand like LG entering the home-brew-appliance space helps legitimize it, even if LG runs into challenges finding a market for their product. Of course, much of the product’s ultimate success will depend on pricing and on how well it actually works, but I worry that by creating a fully-capsule based system the company might be going against the trend towards more open brewing systems. After all, consumers who go through the trouble of making beer at home have shown they want some room for creativity, one of big the reasons PicoBrew finally opened their platform to enable ‘bring-your-own-ingredients’.

MiniBrew

MiniBrew, the brain child of two Dutch advertising executives, is different from all the other appliances on this list for one reason: it’s already shipping.

The product, for which the company raised €2.6M in funding in December, started shipping throughout Europe in the fall of last year and the company is targeting a 2020 entry into the U.S. market.

Cofounder Olivier van Oord gave me a walk-through of the MiniBrew when I was in Europe last month, and I have to say I liked what I saw. The system is both open enough to allow the brewer to craft their own recipes while also also applying enough automation to make the brewing process (and serving) much easier and approachable.

One aspect I liked was an app that allows the user to craft recipes easily around their own beer preferences. From there, they can order ingredients based on their own recipe or choose an ingredient pack based on a beer from one of MiniBrew’s partners. Once the wort is created, the user tosses the yeast into the brew keg and tells it to start the fermentation process with the app.

Keeping the the wort and what becomes the fully fermented beer contained in one keg that also serves as the (fully refrigerated) dispensing keg is something van Oord saw as critical, in part because it eliminates room for error:

“Where beer goes wrong is in the transport of wort,” he said. “Working clean is the most important part of beer brewing.”

The MiniBrew isn’t cheap, selling for €1,200 (which is roughly $1,350 USD), but for those that was a powerful but open system — and one that is already shipping — the MiniBrew is a strong contender.

You can see my walk through of the MiniBrew below:

MiniBrew Beer Brewing (and Dispensing!) Appliance

DrinkWorks

While not technically a home-brewing machine, DrinkWorks at least deserves mention for one reason: the home adult beverage machine is a product of a joint venture between Keurig and the world’s largest beer company, AB InBev.

The DrinkWorks machine, which is now available in beta in the Budweiser’s hometown of St Louis, MO, to consumers statewide in Missouri and Florida, uses pods to make cocktails and, surprisingly, beer. While it’s unclear exactly how the beer is made from a pod, it’s not through traditional brewing and fermentation methods. But for those that like the idea of making cockails and beer at the press of a button with a Keurig-like pod system, you have to at least be intrigued by DrinkWorks.

While DrinkWorks has been fairly vague on details, we expect the product to be more widely rolled out later this year. For now the DrinkWorks machine will set you back $399, though pricing could change in future.

May 21, 2019

BYOG: PicoBrew Opens Pico System, Allows Users to Brew Beer With Own Ingredients

Today PicoBrew announced they were opening up the Pico brewing system to allow brewers to make beer using their own ingredients. The update, called UnPak’d, allows users to create their own recipes crafted via PicoBrew’s online recipe crafter tool, and then brew using their own ingredients through a new ‘manual brew’ option available via the updated Pico menu. As part of the update, PicoBrew will also make available a new reusable grain bag and smaller hop/adjunct bags that users can load ingredients into for their brews.

From today’s email to Pico users:

“When the update completes, you can choose the new Manual Brew option from your Pico’s main menu, set the desired time and temperature for your first step, and start the brewing process. You have full control of the brewing process by selecting the duration and temperature of each step, to brew your target wort profile.

To help you adapt your existing recipes, and to create new ones from scratch, you now have access to the RecipeCrafter tool the next time you log into your PicoBrew web account. Once you have a recipe, fill the BrewBags with your grain, hops and other ingredients and start brewing!”

The company first hinted it was considering opening of the Pico brewing system to allow customers to bring their own ingredients last year. At the time, they were considering letting users buy their own PicoPak pulp containers – the containers that the pre-packaged PicoPak beer ingredients ship in – but it looks like they opted instead for, thankfully, the lower-cost option of reusable brew bags.

The opening up of the Pico brings the consumer brewing appliance one step closer to that of the company’s pro line, the PicoBrew Z (and the original Zymatic), the modular system that allows brewers to craft their own recipes. The price point, however, is much lower, with the Pico UnPak’d Bundle now available for $329, while the lowest cost model Z starts at $2,199.

In a way, the move aligns the Pico with a trends towards more open systems in recent years. Whether it’s the forthcoming BEERMKR brewing appliance or the CocoTerra home chocolate machine, newer entrants to the all-in-one home food machine space allow customers to bring their own ingredients in addition to offering ingredient packs. Not only does this allow for what is likely the lower-cost of bringing-your-own ingredients, it also gives makers room to grow and create on their own. With this move, PicoBrew might attract some of the holdouts who were hesitant to buy a closed brewing system and wanted the freedom of brewing with their own ingredients.

March 26, 2019

PicoBrew Rolls Out Cold Brew Coffee Capability For the Pico C

Sure, beer is great and all, but those of us with day jobs can’t exactly drink round the clock (or can we?).

Luckily for those of us with the PicoBrew Pico, we can now use the countertop beer maker to brew up batches of cold brew coffee. The new feature, announced today, is made possible via a software upgrade and the addition of a new Pico reusable cold brew coffee filter available for $4.99 on the PicoBrew website. New customers will also get cold brew filters out of the box with a purchase of the Pico C craft beverage bundle.

PicoBrew’s move into cold brew isn’t all that surprising after enabling the beverage on their high-end Pico Z system and teasing the feature on the canceled Pico U.

From the announcement:

The new offering highlights PicoBrew’s expansion from a beer-focused, single-appliance company to a total craft beverage company with a complete line of beverage appliances and accessories that can make everything from coffee and kombucha to craft spirits like gin and whiskey.

While the Pico technically ended its status as a one-trick drink pony when it introduced kombucha, cold brew is the appliance’s first non-fermented beverage. Basically what this means is that, for the first time, a Pico user can make a drink and have it the same day (beer made with the Pico takes a minimum of a week to ferment). According to PicoBrew, a batch of cold brew coffee will be available two hours after the start of a brew cycle. Once brewed, the coffee is then stored and dispensed through the Pico mini-kegs.

The cold brew feature is also the first move for the Pico towards a more open brewing system where the user can make drinks with their own ingredients. While we saw hints of this last summer when Bill Mitchell told me there was an interest in bring-your-own-beer ingredients for the Pico U, cold brew coffee is a logical first step in this direction since  ‘bring-your-own’ is pretty much how everyone makes coffee.

The Pico is hardly the first company to make a home cold brew coffee maker. Toddy has been selling essentially the same old-school cold brew makes for decades while Cuisinart and others have been attempting to “appliance-ize” cold brew for a couple of years. That said, the Pico is certainly the first home appliance to do both beer and cold brew in the same box.

January 30, 2019

For the Future of Beer, “New is King” — That Means Cannabis, Automation, and Glitter

Fittingly, we held our Future of Beer food tech meetup last night at Pike Brewing Company’s Beer Museum, which features an epic collection of memorabilia spanning from the invention of beer in 6,000 B.C Sumeria to Prohibition to the craft brewery revolution of today.

But we were concerned with where beer is heading next. To tackle this subject, we brought in Erin James of Sip Northwest, Annie Johnson of Picobrew, Scott Riefler of Tarukino, and Drew Gillespie of Pike Brewing Co. Here are a few takeaways from the experts on what the beer drinking experience of the future might look (and taste) like (yes, robots are involved).

Photo: Catherine Lamb

For beer, new (and fresh, and local) is king
Our panelists all agreed on one thing: in the beer world, consumers are always looking for what’s new. That can be new ingredients — like different varietals of grain, CBD and THC, wine yeast, or even glitter (gag) — or new drinking experiences, like cans instead of bottles or breweries with child play areas.

It can also be a new twist on beer itself, like different styles or infusions, or even new drinks that beer-like (carbonated, with low-ABV), such as hard kombucha and boozy sparkling water. James called the latter trend the “adulting” of traditionally non-alcoholic beverages. She explained that this new wave of beer-ifying non-beer drinks is feeding the demand for two things: “more” and “new.”

Millennials are leading the charge
Millennials love beer. No, but really love it. According to James, in the millennial demographic, beer has surpassed spirits as the most popular alcoholic beverage. However, this audience is not just driven by taste. “They’re also very value-driven,” she explained. And they value both ingredient sources (local is king), opt for local craft breweries and prefer cans to bottles (for environmental reasons).

Turns out, they’re not so keen on brewing at home, at least with Picobrew’s countertop brewing and distilling device. “At first, we thought our customer was a millennial,” explained Johnson. “Actually, it’s more of an engineer.” Millennials prefer to drink their beers straight from the source: local craft breweries.

Beer drinking isn’t just about the beer itself
According to Riefler, when medical marijuana becomes legal in a state, alcohol consumption drops 15 percent. “It gives people a choice about how they intoxicate,” he said. Beer is one such vehicle, but not the only one, and when people have more choice, they might move away from booze. That doesn’t mean that you can’t fuse the two: In October 2018 Tarukino launched Reeb, a cannabis-infused barley soda “reminiscent of a pale ale.” But instead of alcohol, Reeb has THC.

Gillespie isn’t worried that cannabis will take too much business away from the alcohol industry — or at least the craft beer industry. “Craft [beer] is different than general liquor,” he said. He believes craft beer drinkers want a specific drinking experience, one that’s “sensory and social,” not just a new way to get intoxicated.

Photo: Catherine Lamb

Science can enable better beer drinking
Craft beer brewing may be an art, but it still relies on science and technology. “There’s a lot of science going on in the ‘back room,'” said Riefler. That can be relatively basic technology — like brewing tanks and taps — or more futuristic stuff, like Picobrew’s countertop brewer, which some would categorize as a robot.

Johnson, who has a strong craft brew pedigree (she won the American Homebrewer Association’s Homebrewer of the Year award in 2013), still thinks that in order “to get good beer, you need automation.” That’s true whether you’re a craft brewery or just an avid home brewer: automation helps ensure that beer is consistent and tastes good. Which means that, with Picobrew’s tech, you could make a batch of Pike Brewing’s Monkey’s Uncle beer at home using the same ingredients and brew method — and it would (at least theoretically) taste just as good as if you’d gotten it fresh from the source.

—

We can talk about glitter beer and robotic brewers all we like, but as Johnson put it, “at the end of the day, all that matters is the taste.” Consumer tastes and brewing technology can change, but appreciation for quality and consistency will never go out of style.

For the short term, there is one type of beer you should expect to see dominating the taps at your local brewpub: lager. James explained that, after the IPA craze, lager is coming back in popularity with a vengeance. Johnson made another prediction for what’s going to be the next big thing in beer (you heard it here first): wine/beer hybrids. Cheers to that.

Keep an eye out for our next food tech meetup coming soon! 

January 15, 2019

Join Us For Our Future of Beer Meetup on January 29th!

Hey, Seattle area folks! We hope you’ll join us for our next food tech meetup on January 29th dedicated to one of America’s most beloved beverages: beer.

Beer may be one of the oldest drinks around, but with the advent of new technology and shifting consumer trends it’s an exciting time to learn more about the brewsky. Innovation is especially important since beer sales in America have been struggling as of late. To combat this, companies are experimenting with new sales channels and emerging ingredients (hi, cannabis) and even developing ways to bring the beer-brewing process straight to the consumer.

We’ve assembled a group of speakers working to push the boundaries of the beer space, developing everything from THC-infused brews to smart devices that let you brew your own beer on your countertop.

Meet the panelists:
Drew Gillespie, President of Pike Brewing Company
Annie Johnson, Master Brewer in Residence at Picobrew
Scott Riefler, VP of Science at Tarukino
Erin James, Editor-in-Chief at Sip Northwest
Michael Wolf, The Spoon (moderator)

We’re pretty psyched to be hosting this meetup at Pike Brewing Company! Tickets are free per usual, and the event will include a snack spread and one complimentary Pike beer. Because what’s the fun of talking about beer if you can’t taste it?

Spots are limited, so go ahead and snag yours now! We’ll see you there.

October 30, 2018

From Pop Rocks To Spicy Snickers: Why Data Science Is The Future of Food Creation

When I think of interesting food products, I often think of Bill Mitchell, a legendary food scientist who stumbled upon what would eventually become Pop Rocks.

Hunkered inside a General Foods research lab in the 1950s, Mitchell discovered that mixing sugar with carbon dioxide in his mouth caused them to fizz and pop. The prolific food researcher — who would go on to invent a number of other innovative products like Tang and Cool Whip — filed for a patent on his idea in 1959. It took a couple decades for Pop Rocks to become a part of the 1970s cultural zeitgeist, but the fizzing candy is still sold to kids around the world today.

That’s the thing with food: so much of what has makes it to store shelves, whether Pop Rocks or the popsicle, is the result of magical mistakes. But in the era of smart phones, connected appliances and Amazon Alexa, this may soon change. Increasingly, new products will be less likely to come from happy accidents like that of Dr. Mitchell’s and instead will grow out of insights gleaned from consumer data made available through connected platforms.

Take the recent story about Mars using Alibaba data to create a spicy Snickers bar. According to Bloomberg, Mars used data gathered through the Chinese Internet giant’s various online platforms that showed customers who like chocolate also buy spicy food.

From the story:

That prompted the creation of the Spicy Snickers candy bar, which incorporates the Sichuan peppercorn, the source of China’s famous “mala” (numb and spicy) taste. Typically Mars spends two to three years developing a new product; the Spicy Snickers came together in less than one.

It’s not just Internet giants getting in on the action. Because every Joule sous vide appliance from ChefSteps is connected, the kitchen startup knows what customers are cooking at any given time. The company is able to analyze this data to unearth potential opportunities for new products.

For example, Joule usage data showed one of the biggest challenges time-starved consumers face when creating a sous vide meal is creating multi-ingredient sauces to go with a protein. This catalyzed the company to create a new product called Joule Ready sauces that solves for this exact problem. The Seattle startup has also built an agile production process that allows them to scale up new sauces based on consumer usage data and double down on popular ones.

While data-driven product development has been on the rise for some time, products like the spicy Snickers are a sign food companies are embracing data insights to take new risks and speed time to market.  And this embrace of data is only the beginning. A whole host of new startups are building upon the foundation of better food and consumer data to build AI platforms that not only will discover new products faster, but ensure a much higher likelihood of success.

Just as we saw with baseball, there might be some old-schoolers that decry the world of food undergoing its own Moneyball revolution. As for the inventor of Pop Rocks, I suspect Bill Mitchell would have been ok with it.

The reason? His grandson — also named Bill Mitchell — runs a little connected beer brewing appliance by the name of PicoBrew.

September 14, 2018

The Spoon Newsletter: Cinder Gets Sued; Food Blockchain Ripens; PicoBrew Ships

This is the post version of our bi-weekly newsletter. If you’d like to get it in your inbox, you can subscribe here.

Happy Friday, all! Catherine here. Our team’s hard at work putting the finishing touches on the Smart Kitchen Summit (you have your tickets, right?), but it’s been a busy couple of days for news as well.

First and foremost, a few days ago Chris Albrecht uncovered the story that Palate Home, the company behind the Cinder grill, was ordered by a court to pay $294,736 to Tony Fadell’s investment firm, Future Shape LLC. We’ve been following this smart grill, which delivers sous-vide-like precision cooking via a unique two-sided precision heating surface, for the last couple years. But like so many crowdfunded hardware companies before it, Cinder was hitting manufacturing roadblocks and delaying shipping dates to its backers. Which is why Chris looked into it in the first place — and found much more than he bargained for.

We’re not sure if this is a death knell for Cinder, though it certainly seems that way. Stay tuned for updates.

In positive news, Ripe.io, a company which is working to create the “blockchain for food,” just raised a $2.4 million seed round. Mike Wolf spoke with Raja Ramachandran, the company’s CEO and co-founder on his podcast last year. Here’s how he explained the concept behind his startup:

If a farmer wants to say I harvest strawberries these two days, well, they can say that, but do they say that to everyone? … That’s the beauty of blockchain. It manages the decentralized nature of the food business, so people can post data, they can protect it, they can share it, they can create records with it… In the end for the consumer, they basically get a longer record.

Ripe.io is capitalizing off of two trends: blockchain madness, and people’s desire for increased food transparency. If the company can successfully create the blockchain for food — something that others like Goodr and FoodLogiQ are already playing around with — then consumers can instantly know a plethora of details about their food: where it was produced, when it was harvested, whether it’s organic/GMO, etc. Ramachandran will be at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) discussing blockchain’s potential within the food system, so join us there to hear more.

The ability to trace the origin of your food with 100% accuracy is a good thing, but what if you could bring the farm to you? That’s exactly what Freight Farms, a company which creates “Leafy Green Machines” — that is, climate-controlled vertical farms in shipping containers — is trying to do.

Excited to see new ideas for recreating the future of food and cooking? We announced our Startup Showcase winners this week, so you’ll want to check them out!

Jenn Marston wrote about their new Grown service this week, which helps Freight Farms customers manage temperature, water usage, and other aspects of the indoor farm units so that they can grow produce with super-limited space. Jenn’s optimistic that this tech could allow institutions — like public schools and hospitals — to have access to super-fresh, healthy greens (and more). While smaller scale than Freight Farms, Estonian smart indoor grow system Natufia raised $1.2 million this week.

The PicoBrew Z brewing system

In other news, Mike Wolf covered PicoBrew’s initial shipment of their Z Series, a modular brewing system that lets home beer creators scale up to make 10 gallons per brew. They may have delayed the Kickstarter for their Pico U, but this shipment shows that PicoBrew is still kicking — er, brewing.

Chris also covered NEXT Future Transportation’s new mobile lockers, which are yet another step towards a future in which autonomous vehicles deliver us our groceries and pizza along with our packages. For those who still want a retail experience in the future, however, the convenience store will probably still be there — it just might look different. Read Chris’ piece on Dirty Lemon’s new cashierless, honor system-run pop-up store to see how.

Finally, this week I wrote about all the food I tasted at last week’s inaugural Good Food Conference. It’s a smorgasbord of plant-based products, from vegan sausages to eggs made of mung beans. Check it out.

Smart Kitchen Summit is a mere three and a half weeks away, and it’s shaping up to be our best one yet. Just check out our program and speakers if you don’t believe me. Don’t get left behind — use the discount code NEWSLETTER to get 25% off of tickets (just click here to have the discount applied automatically via Eventbrite).

Have a great weekend!
Catherine

In the 09/14/2018 edition:

John Pleasants Thinks the Oven of the Future is Powered by Light

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 14, 2018 10:02 am
We at the Spoon have long been curious about Brava, the stealthy smart kitchen startup which recently debuted its first product: an oven which uses the power of light to cook food quickly and precisely, with low energy usage. See him at the Smart Kitchen Summit in October.

Walmart Acquires Cornershop, While Jet.com Gets in a New York State of Mind

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 14, 2018 08:50 am
Walmart announced yesterday that it is expanding its digital presence in Latin America with the $225 million acquisition of Cornershop, an online marketplace for on-demand delivery from supermarkets in Mexico and Chile. While that move continued the retail giant’s global spending spree, domestically, the company’s subsidiary Jet.com unveiled a revamped website featuring enhanced grocery delivery options.

Dirty Lemon’s New Pop Up is Part of a Convenience Store Revolution

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 03:48 pm
Dirty Lemon, a startup that sells fancy water infused with ingredients like charcoal, CBD and collagen for more than $10 a pop, made The New York Times today with its new pop-up store in New York that puts you on the honor system when you pay.

Mod Pods! NEXT Future Transportation Announces Mobile Lockers

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 12:19 pm
A lot of transportation in old sci-fi movies was pod-based. People would travel through futuristic cities in quiet, autonomous, sleek pods that picked them up and dropped them off. What those movies missed, and is now becoming a reality, are fleets of pods running around to bring us our packages, restaurant food and groceries.

A Plant-Based Tour of What I Ate at the Good Food Conference

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 13, 2018 09:00 am
From vegan sausages by Beyond Meat to mung bean scrambled eggs from JUST, here’s a culinary tour through all the plant-based foods I tried at the Good Food Conference last week.

FoodShot Global Launches Fund to Land Food Moonshots

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 06:30 am
We know that there is no shortage of food-related accelerators helping get the next generation of startups off the ground. But FoodShot Global, a new investment platform that launched today, doesn’t just want to get startups off the ground: it wants them to aim for the moon.

Court Ordered Cinder Grill Maker to Repay Tony Fadell’s Investment Firm $294,736

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 12, 2018 11:00 am
Palate Home, the company behind the Cinder grill, was ordered by a San Mateo court in August to pay $294,736 to Tony Fadell’s investment firm, Future Shape LLC. The default judgment compels Palate Home to repay a $250,000 loan to Future Shape plus $43,737 in interest as well as $999 in costs.

Impossible Sliders Roll Out at all White Castles Nationwide

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 12, 2018 10:18 am
Today Impossible Foods, the company famous for their plant-based “bleeding” burgers, announced today that it’s expanding its partnership with fast food chain White Castle. The Impossible slider is now available in all of White Castle’s 377 locations, from New York to St. Louis.

PicoBrew Ships Z Series, A Modular Brewing System for Aspiring Craft Brewing Pros

By Michael Wolf on Sep 12, 2018 09:00 am
PicoBrew announced this week that the first Picobrew Z1 has rolled off the production line and made its way to the customer, local food pioneer Ron Zimmerman of the Herbfarm. As you might recall, the Picobrew Z series is PicoBrew’s attempt to fill the gap between the home and pro markets with a modular brewing system.

Freight Farms Unveils Onsite Vertical Farming Service

By Jennifer Marston on Sep 12, 2018 06:00 am
Your average institution, be it schools, company, hospital, or university, typically doesn’t have the space or cash to consider an indoor farming initiative, even if it would mean putting fresher, more local greens into cafeterias and dining halls. That’s an issue Freight Farms looks to solve with the release of its new service Grown.

September 12, 2018

PicoBrew Ships Z Series, A Modular Brewing System for Aspiring Craft Brewing Pros

PicoBrew announced this week that the first Picobrew Z1 has rolled off the production line and made its way to the customer, local food pioneer Ron Zimmerman of the Herbfarm.

As you might recall, the Picobrew Z series is PicoBrew’s attempt to fill the gap between the home and pro markets with a modular brewing system that allows aspiring brewing pros (or really heavy drinking home brewers) to scale up to 10 gallons per brew.

Here’s how PicoBrew CEO Bill Mitchell described the Z series in February:

We’re introducing the PicoBrew Z Series, our first professional-grade, all-grain brewing appliance line. While we have been very successful with 2 generations of consumer Pico machines, we have not yet addressed the needs of the prosumer and professional audience since the launch of our original Zymatic…until now! Reap the benefits of larger batch sizes from 1 to 10 gallons, rugged, maintainable, industrial grade components designed for professional use and more with the new PicoBrew Z Series.

As a pioneer in the local food movement,  one might wonder why Herbfarm founder Ron Zimmerman would embrace a beer brewing robot. As it turns out, he’s been using the original Zymatic for years to brew his own locally sourced recipes:

Ron’s a long-time beer brewer who learned the craft using a traditional gas-fired setup. Several years ago, he discovered the magic of the PicoBrew Zymatic™ and he was hooked!  The proud owner of several Pico™ units as well, Ron recently acquired a second Zymatic to help him brew over 30 batches of his own Amber Waves recipe for his famous 100-mile dinner, and also to test, refine, and publish his Amber Waves PicoPak on BrewMarketplace.

Shipping the Z1 is an important milestone for PicoBrew, which experienced a setback in June when it decided to cancel the Kickstarter campaign for the Pico U. At the time, Mitchell said the company had a “lot on our plates right now” and pointed to the still-to-ship products in the PicoStill and Z series. With both now shipping, it will be interesting to see if the company relaunches its crowdfunding effort for the Pico U (which PicoBrew has indicated will still ship in the first half of 2019) later this fall.

July 3, 2018

Celebrate a FoodTech Fourth of July

It’s weird when a major holiday falls on a Wenesday, right? Do you take just the day off? The first half of the week? The last half? The whole week? Regardless of how much time you take off, we can help make your time at the grill a great one with these FoodTech finds.

FOOD
The Fourth–and most summertime grillin’–is all about the meat. Normally, we’d suggest you purchase your steaks and burgers through CrowdCow, which meticulously sources all of its meat from small ranches. But your guests will be hungry tomorrow, so here’s a twist, maybe try a meatless option this year?

I know! I know! “Heresy!” you cry! But really, we love the Beyond Meat burger patties available at many local grocers. The company says it wants their plant-based meat that “bleeds” in the supermarket butcher section, but I’ve only ever found it frozen with the other alterna-meats.

Personally, I think the Beyond Meat patty is a delicious replacement for the traditional meat burger, so much so that I stock up on extra when I’m at the store just to have it around when I crave it. Beyond Meat won’t fool any carnivores, but it’s a tasty substitute and perfect if you’re trying to cut back on your red meat intake.

BRING THE (CONTROLLED) HEAT
Everyone has an opinion about the best way to grill, we won’t waste your time with some obscure technique. We will however, recommend a pair of devices that can help make your steaks and other proteins turn out great.

Photo: Anova

Sous vide-ing your steak is a fantastic way to get juicy meat with no overcooking. There are a ton of sous vide wands out there that will turn any pot of water into a precision-heated circulating bath. We like the ChefSteps Joule and the new Anova Nano (review forthcoming). They are small, well built, and work with an accompanying mobile phone app to bring your meat to a desired internal temperature. Sure it takes a little longer, but it also helps remove the risks of over- or undercooking your precious steaks.

Stylish holder/charger.

Regardless of whether you sous vide or not, you can use the Meater thermometer to get just about any type of meat to the proper temperature. The Meater is kinda big (like a beefy nail) that sits in your protein while you cook it. Using the Meater app on your phone, you can keep track of both ambient and internal temperatures, and Meater will even tell you when to pull out and rest your meat to achieve optimal results.

If you’re going camping and want a greener experience, you could grab a GoSun portable grill that cooks food by simply harnessing the power of the sun.

BEER
The good news is, if you live in the right location, you can still run out and buy your own PicoBrew to make homebrewing much easier. The bad news is that even if you bought one today, there isn’t enough time to brew and ferment your beer before tomorrow. (Maybe just pop by Spoon founder Mike Wolf’s house for a bottle of his.)

PLAN FOR NEXT YEAR
It’s never too early to start planning for an epic Independence Day celebration next year. Here are some items to put a pin in and revisit next summer:

  • If it makes its crowdfunding goal, the Ambassador 5-in-1 grill features rotating cooktop that spins through flattop and grate surfaces.
  • The Bartesian cocktail robot (due out by the end of this year) can whip up delicious boozy concoctions on demand.
  • And for the truly adventurous, you can throw a slice of ketchup, yes, a “slice” of ketchup on next year’s burger.

No matter how much time you’re taking off, have a Happy Fourth of July, everybody! Be safe.

June 21, 2018

Should Appliance Makers Use ‘DRM’ In The Kitchen To Lock In Consumers?

One of the biggest insider debates in the world of digital entertainment over the last couple of decades has been whether or not big content conglomerates should use what is called “Digital Rights Management,” or DRM, to protect their content.

The idea behind DRM is that it ensures anyone who uses a digital product, such as a movie or an album, has purchased the right to said product. In a way, it makes sense. After all, companies that invest billions of dollars in content rightly don’t want to see their content stolen and distributed on the Internet.

But DRM had a dark side. Not only did organizations like the Motion Picture Association of America go overboard and make consumers’ lives more painful by pushing to have DRM slapped on everything, but DRM also became a way to effectively hold consumers captive, reduce choice and hurt the overall consumer experience. Anyone who tried to make a copy of an HD movie DVD circa 2008 can attest to this.

Which brings us to the kitchen. With the modern kitchen becoming ever more digital, are appliance and food makers in danger of falling into the same trap?

Some already have. The first big digital kitchen “DRM” attempt was by Keurig in 2014 when they announced the Keurig 2.0 would require that consumers only use Keurig approved pods. This was an affront to anyone who values consumer choice.  Not only did hackers create a workaround, but consumers responded and eventually forced Keurig to reverse their position.

Others like Juicero followed suit (and we know what happened to them, though they had bigger problems than their juice-pod DRM). The big lesson I think we’ve learned is that consumers resist being held captive in one product ecosystem.

Which brings us to this tweet from Jeremy Stretch (hat tip to my friend Stacey Higginbotham for bringing this tweet to my attention):

Do you know what this is? It’s the RFID reader @GEAppliancesPR put in my new $2000 refrigerator to force customers to buy their GE-branded filters at $50 every 6 months, instead of the identical $12 version from a 3rd party.

Calling Lowe’s today to return it. pic.twitter.com/jtCW0q4LSs

— Jeremy Stretch (@packetlife) June 18, 2018

Jeremy recently purchased a GE fridge and quickly noticed his $2k appliance had an RFID reader to verify whether or not he was using a GE-branded water filter. Because of this, he opted to return the fridge.

I understand the business case for requiring consumers to use a particular brand of filter. And, to be honest, I am much more likely to be accepting of a first-party water filter vs. being held captive to a premium food consumable. But, that doesn’t mean as a consumer I wouldn’t jump at the chance to use a third-party water filter.

Stepping back, however, it’s worth examining if appliance brands should use this technology to restrict consumer choice to a brand’s own products.  In a way, RFID-enforced “DRM” can certainly help to accelerate a recurring revenue business like water filters or drink pods. On the other hand, consumers bristle when it comes to less choice.

And, perhaps even more importantly, these restrictive systems can also be shortsighted. Keurig owes some of its massive success to the availability of cheaper coffee pods; in early markets, the more choice, the better.

This is a lesson early connected kitchen startups like PicoBrew already recognize. While users of the Pico beer brewing appliance currently have to use a new PicoPak purchased from PicoBrew every time they make a batch of beer, the company is working on a beta for fill-your-own disposable pods and also has a reusable polycarbonate ingredient holder on its product development roadmap.

Others like Tovala (and the soon to ship Suvie), which offer food subscription services for their hardware, have wisely chosen not to restrict consumers to only using only their food “pods.”

As for GE, I have no doubt the company will continue to use RFID to enforce the use of their own water filters. And, because a water filter is something consumers only buy every 6-12 months, I don’t really think this will create the same type of anger that a food-consumable DRM would (i.e. Keurig 2.0).

That said, I would still encourage appliance makers to use DRM judiciously.  While most consumers have been trained to use hardware DRM by the likes of home printers, they certainly don’t like it, which of course means they’ll eventually they’ll find away around it.  If there is an option for a non-captive alternative for a consumable, many consumers will opt for that.

And if it’s a food consumable? Forget it. Not only have we seen the kind of anger something like Keurig’s DRM created, but brands should realize that they don’t need DRM to get consumers to buy first-party products. There is a significant percentage who will choose Keurig pods even if they are more expensive. In other words, there are always those consumers pay for convenience and are loyal to brands, at least if you treat them right. If you don’t, these consumers will stay away, and the overall market suffers.

Bottom line? Appliance makers would be wise to learn the lessons of past mistakes around using DRM and understand that by giving consumers more choice, there’s a much better chance of being rewarded in the marketplace.

June 11, 2018

PicoBrew Postpones Kickstarter Campaign For Pico U, Plans to Relaunch in Fall

PicoBrew announced on Friday that they are postponing the Kickstarter campaign for the Pico U, the latest generation Pico brewing appliance. The company still plans on shipping it early next year.

The move, which was announced to backers via an email message (and on the Kickstarter website), cites a full plate of other products (such as the Picostill and the Picobrew Z, the modular pro model successor the Zymatic) as the reason for the delay. PicoBrew plans to relaunch a new Kickstarter campaign for the Pico U in a couple months.

Canceling a campaign that had raised $435 thousand and was well past the Kickstarter funding threshold is a bit surprising. However, the Pico U was trending lower than last year’s Pico C campaign, which had raised over $1.9 million and became the most highly funded food-related Kickstarter campaign of all time.

PicoBrew CEO Bill Mitchell told me on Friday over the phone that they attributed the lower overall funding in large part due to timing. They launched the campaign in early summer, a time of year which tends to attract lower funding numbers than earlier in the spring, which is when Picobrew has launched in the past.

While that makes sense, canceling a strong (by most standards) Kickstarter campaign still holds some risks for PicoBrew.  Up to this point, the company has had only successful campaigns; the Pico U cancellation is the first exception to what was a previously unblemished record. And while a cancellation is by no means a failed campaign — again, they were well over the funding target — at the very least it’s an asterisk. PicoBrew is also counting on a large number of the backers to come back in the fall, something which isn’t entirely guaranteed.

The reactions to the cancellation on the campaign’s page were mixed, with some backers expressing disappointment…

… while others gave credit to PicoBrew for their transparency.

To make things right, PicoBrew has offered backers of the Pico U an opportunity to buy the Pico C for $249, the same price the company plans to sell the Pico U for at retail.

Mitchell told me one lesson from the Pico U campaign is that there is strong interest in bring-your-own ingredient option for Pico appliances.  I’m not surprised at all, since I cited the reliance on company supplied pods as perhaps the biggest thing standing between Pico products and wider adoption. Because of this interest, the company plans to push fill-your-own PicoPak pulp containers into beta with some existing Pico C users. In the longer term, it has plans to develop a reusable polycarbonate ingredient holder for the Pico.

The full letter from PicoBrew CEO Bill Mitchell is below:

Hello Kickstarter Backers,

We’re still just as excited about the Pico U campaign as you are, but due to all of the great products we are currently shipping (or that are shipping sooner than Pico U) we have made the tough call to postpone the campaign.

First, since we are ending the campaign early, nobody’s credit cards have been charged.

Why postpone the campaign? In short, we’ve got a lot on our plates right now that has to come before Pico U: finishing shipping our immensely successful PicoStill and starting shipment of our popular Z Series. So it just makes more sense to relaunch the Pico U campaign later in the year. Relaunching the campaign in a few months will also allow us to act on all the things we’ve learned from you over the last few weeks and to deliver your Pico U closer to the end of our Kickstarter campaign.

We’ve heard all your suggestions and thoughts and we are so thankful for your feedback! As a special “Thank You” for being part of this campaign (and for those who don’t want to wait for 2019 to start brewing) we’re giving Kickstarter backers a special deal on Pico C. Get your Pico C for an unprecedented special price of just $249, plus shipping, by using the coupon code PICOUKICKSTARTER at checkout. We’ve also heard your enthusiasm for Fusion and BYO and we’re working on bringing those benefits to you early on your Pico C as well. Please stay tuned by signing up to our email list HERE.

Once again, thank you and we’re sorry! You’re the best, we love you, and we thank you for supporting PicoBrew. If you’re waiting for a PicoStill or a Z to ship, we hope you are happy with this news, as it means more focus on those products. If you had your heart set on a Pico U, we still anticipate that product releasing in the first half of 2019, so it is not unreasonable to expect a Kickstarter closer to the release date.

Thanks again,
Bill Mitchell
Chief PicoBrewer

June 2, 2018

Food Tech News Roundup: Ben & Jerry’s, Food Waste Snacks, and Target Takeovers

It may have been a short week (at least for some of us), but it still feels good to reach the weekend finish line. Let’s celebrate with some food tech news, shall we?

We’re still riding a high from the announcement of the FoodTech 25: twenty five companies we think are changing the way we grow, source, cook, eat, and think about food. But lots of other food innovation news popped up around the web as well! Here are a few of our favorite stories, from Ben & Jerry’s new sustainability initiative to BYO homebrewing packs.

Chobani incubator to focus on food tech
Lately, quite a few CPG brands have been launching food-related incubators — including Greek yogurt darling Chobani. This week Chobani announced new incubator program which will revolve around our favorite subject: foodtech. The Food Tech Residency will be the company’s fourth incubator initiative, and will run parallel to their original incubator class. They’re currently searching for startups involved in agtech, food safety, innovative packaging, and other areas to improve the food system. Once selected, participating companies will have access to all Chobani Incubator programming, including factory visits, mentorship, opportunities to pilot new products, and a chance to pitch for funding. They have three spots open, so if you’re an emerging food tech or agtech startup, get on it!

 

Tyson Foods rolls out snacks made of food waste
Poultry giant Tyson Foods has created a snack brand which makes “Protein Crisps” out of food waste such as chicken breast trim, spent grain from beer brewing, and excess vegetable purée from juicing. Dubbed “¡Yappah!,” the brand will be used as an umbrella under which Tyson will release other sustainable food products. Each individual 1.25-oz serving has 8+ grams of protein and is packaged in a recyclable aluminum can. The crisps launched on IndieGoGo on May 31st, and are available to back now with a projected ship date of July 2018. Clean meat, food delivery startups, and now food waste snacks? Tyson Foods continues to work to be on the cutting-edge of all emerging food innovation trends.

PicoBrew now offers DIY PicoPaks
Countertop homebrewing startup PicoBrew rolled out DIY PicoPaks this week via Kickstarter, an option that lets Pico users load up their own ingredients to make beer and fusion drinks. The new bring-your-own ingredients option – which will work with the new Pico U as well as the existing Pico Cs and Pico Pros – provides an option for those in the Pico community who have wanted brewing flexibility beyond want preconfigured PicoPaks allow. The reward bundle includes containers for both beer brewing and PicoPak minis to create “fusion drinks” at home such as kombucha or goldenmilk. Post-Kickstarter, it will be interesting to see if PicoBrew offers brewers a variety of DIY container bundles depending on their preferences and brewing frequency.

Three new Targets to open up in Seattle area in 2019 & 2020
Target will add three smaller, grocery-sized stores in the Seattle area over the next two years, according to the Seattle Times. These are in addition to their original urban format store, which opened in Seattle in 2012. Their new stores are designed to fit into dense cityscapes and will stock products tailored to the surrounding neighborhood. This, as well as their recent expansion into same-day delivery, smart home-powered replenishment service, and acquisition of Shipt, is another way that Target is trying to keep up with the shifting grocery game and fight against Amazon.

 

Photo: Ben & Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s works to offset their ice cream’s carbon footprint
Customers at Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop in London’s Soho neighborhood now have an opportunity to counterbalance the carbon footprint of their waffle cone of Cherry Garcia or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. For each purchase, Ben & Jerry’s will pay a penny to offset the carbon used to raise the cows, produce the ice cream, and ship it to the shop. Customers then have the option to donate a cent of their own and double the impact.

According to Forbes, the ice cream company is partnering with a not-for-profit who is helping them use blockchain to divide carbon credits — which are typically quite large — into smaller transactions which can link up to each ice cream purchase. They’re even developing an app to help customers keep track of their person carbon offsets.

 

Photo: Anova

Anova finally opens new Anova Kitchen
We’ve been monitoring the retail ambitions of sous vide specialist Anova closely, so we were intrigued to learn this past week that the company will finally open the Anova Kitchen for a sneak peek on June 6th. A company spokesperson told The Spoon that the new space will be used for events and will have some public-facing retail space, but that we shouldn’t expect the Anova Kitchen to be open to the public every day.  This contrasts with Brava, who plan to open a full time retail space early this summer.  Either way, we’re intrigued to check out the Anova’s new retail/event space. If you are too, make sure to RSVP for next week’s event and report back to us!

Did we miss anything? Tweet us @TheSpoonTech to let us know the best food tech news of the week!

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