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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

PilotWorks

Chew Abandons Plans to Save Former Pilotworks Brooklyn Location

The poor former tenants of Pilotworks’ Brooklyn just cannot catch a break.

This October their commercial kitchen space, which many depended on for their entire business operations, shut down with no warning. A supportive community rose up to support these stranded entrepreneurs, 175 of which had been working out of the Brooklyn Pilotworks location, but many struggled with the challenge of relocating their business.

Then a ray of sunshine seemed to peek out through the clouds. A few weeks ago Boston-based food research lab Chew announced that it was taking over the former Pilotworks Brooklyn location and turning it into a new food & beverage incubator called The Nursery. All previous tenants were invited to return and restart their businesses. The space, under new management, was set to reopen in mid-December, pending permit approval.

But all budding hopes were dashed when The Nursery tenants received an email from Chew founder Adam Melonas on December 18th with the headline “Unfortunate News” (hat tip to Edible Brooklyn). Melonas went on to write that “our plans to open Nursery at the former Pilotworks Brooklyn site will unfortunately not be moving forward.” According to Eater, the Chew team found issues during pre-inspection and came to the conclusion the former Pilotworks location wasn’t up to par with the company’s standards.

While I don’t know details about the facility or Chew’s exact motivations for shutting down this project, I do know it’s a major bummer. Pilotworks’ tenants — most of whom are budding food entrepreneurs hustling hard to turn their business from dream into reality — have been jerked around a lot of late, and it seems like Chew should have maybe figured this all out before they promised to revive the space.

Gripes aside, this news shows just how tough it can be to make the commercial kitchen business sustainable. Thankfully tools like the Food Corridor and Cookitoo exist to help connect small-scale food producers with local shared kitchen spaces. But even so, those resources can’t guarantee that the commercial kitchen spaces on their list won’t also run into issues and shut their doors.

It’s not all darkness and despair, though. Last week Hudson Kitchen signed a lease to open a shared-use commercial kitchen space in South Kearny, New Jersey, not far from Pilotworks’ former Newark location. This may seem like relatively small news, but it’s still a sign that the demand for food business incubators is still very much there — and that companies are working to meet it.

Spoon Newsletter: Food As The Messaging Medium

A couple of years ago on a plane ride to Las Vegas for CES, I struck up a conversation with a guy sitting next to me by the name of Nathan Shields. When I asked Nathan what he does for a living, he told me “I make pancake art.”

Like many dads who make flapjacks for the kids, I consider myself something of an amateur pancake artist, but as I soon found out, Nathan’s work goes way beyond the Death Star and Mickey Mouse cakes I’ve made for my kids on Saturday morning.

Of course, we know food as an artistic and messaging medium is nothing new. All one has to do is watch an episode of The Final Table to understand the potential of food as a form of artistic expression. But Nathan’s work got me thinking about food as a medium for communication.

My thinking that was further sparked when I went to the opening press event in Vegas and saw a gigantic ice sculpture with the CES logo. This ice sculpture is there every year at CES, and it’s always a pretty cool sight, in part because there’s something fascinating about using a temporary medium like ice as a branding vehicle.

I was reminded of the CES sculpture a week ago when I saw an Instagram post by Scott Heimendinger. Scott, who is the technical director for Modernist Cuisine, can usually be found doing something crazy with food, and so while I wasn’t all that surprised to see him laser etching ice cubes, it made me wonder anew about the possibility of food to communicate ideas.

Photo: @SeattleFoodGeek

While ice is perhaps the most temporal of “food” items in that it’s only going to last hours if not minutes, the idea itself of food as a way to communicate is one I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. The early success of companies like Selffee or Ripples, both companies which print in real-time on food at events, are proof that food itself is a fairly underutilized medium for highly personalized marketing and personal messaging.

The CEO of Selffee, David Weiss, told me recently that they’ve worked at over 200 events this year, including at this year’s Super Bowl where they printed customized pictures on about 60 thousand marshmallows. Weiss also told me how they’d spent practically zero on marketing because the product – essentially a food-based selfie – markets itself (and the message printed on top) in an age of Instagram and social media.

Which is part of the reason I wanted him at our upcoming FoodTech Live event in Vegas (as well as the fact I just want my face printed on a cookie). And while David and his team likely won’t be printing on 60 thousand marshmallows, they will hopefully be printing hundreds of faces and other personalized requests on cookies on January 8th. We’ll also have Ripples printing on drinks as well.

If you’re headed to CES in Vegas in January, and you want to have your face or logo printed on food – not to mention the opportunity to check out over forty interesting foodtech companies – you’ll want to make sure to RSVP for our FoodTech Live event as well.

Of course, it’s not just food itself that is evolving as the messaging medium, but the packaging itself. This week Jenn Marston wrote about how prog rock band The Lights Out recently teamed up with craft brewer Aeronaut brewery to release their new album on the side of a beer can. The “album” came in the form of a Spotify digital album and was accessible to the purchaser of a can of Aeronaut IPA via a scannable QR code.

Packaged food brands have experimented with electronic messaging integrations for the last couple of years, but a digital album is a new wrinkle. While I don’t expect to see the next U2 album released via a package of Jimmy Dean sausage links, it might be interesting to see where the idea of digital distribution via food packaging goes in the future.

This week had lots of other interesting news, including a recent patent issued to Amazon for personalized restaurant recommendations. The patent, issued just yesterday, describes a system that utilizes contextual information such as a person’s past behavior, their location and information from their social graph to suggest restaurant recommendations and possible reservations. Combine this recent patent with the Amazon patent issued earlier in the year for predictive restaurant ordering, and you have to wonder if Amazon is cooking up a next-generation restaurant reservation and delivery marketplace to compete with the likes of OpenTable.

There was also some good news coming out of NYC this week in the form of a reopening of the Pilotworks Brooklyn facility under new management. The location was shuddered along with all of Pilotworks locations over a month ago when the shared kitchen startup abruptly shut down, instantly putting hundreds of indie food entrepreneurs without a kitchen home. The facility, reopened and managed by Nursery, has offered to welcome back all of the previous food business operators.

You won’t want to miss our latest episode of the Smart Kitchen Show, which features a conversation from the Smart Kitchen Summit between the Wall Street Journal’s Wilson Rothman and Malachy Moynihan. Malachy was the head of product for both the first Amazon Echo and the Juicero, and he shares insights about product success and failure from these two vastly different products.

That’s it for now. Have a great week.

Mike

Updates from the Spoon

Video: Soggy Food Sucks Uses Thermodynamics to Keep your Fries Crisp During Delivery
Watch founder Bill Birgen’s winning pitch at the 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase. His company Soggy Food Sucks uses condensation wicking to keep food crisp and crunchy (and decidedly not soggy), even after delivery.

InnovoPro Raises $4.25M to Bulk Up its Chickpea Protein
You’re hard-pressed to find a space undergoing more innovation right now than protein. In addition to soy, whey, wheat, pea and even cricket-based protein varietals, chickpeas are also making waves — and the Israel-based InnovoPro announced yesterday that it has raised $4.25 to bulk up its garbanzo protein.

Good Dot Paves Way for Plant-Based Meats in India with Vegan “Mutton”
Plant-based meat companies are largely based in two continents: Europe and North America. One company working to change that is Good Dot, a startup making plant-based meats, as their website states, “in India, for India, by India.”

Beast Mode: Chirp’s Launches Kickstarter for Cricket Protein Powder
For openminded bodybuilders who want to get ripped, there’s a new type of protein powder out ready for you to chug it down on the way to your morning CrossFit shred sesh. Today Chirps, the San Francisco-based company which makes insect chips in flavors like Sriracha and BBQ, launched a Kickstarter for its newest product: cricket protein powder.

Amazon Patents Personalized Restaurant Suggestions. Could a Reservation Platform be Next?
Michael Wolf stumbled upon a patent by Amazon for a personalized restaurant suggestion system. The patent will suggest restaurants to individuals based on their behavior, family and friends network, and specfic time-based events (birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc.)

Pilotworks’ NY Space Re-born as Nursery, Invites Former Tenants Back
The team at Chew announced today that it is opening a new food and beverage incubator called Nursery in the former Pilotworks Brooklyn location, and will invite back all former tenants to the space.

Kroger Expands Home Chef Meal Kit Sales in Walgreens Drug Stores
Kroger and Walgreens are building on a pilot program launched in October that has Kroger selling both grocery items and its Home Chef meal kits in Walgreens drug stores. Walgreens will carve out a “Kroger Express” area in some of its stores, and Kroger will also try selling Home Chef meal kits in select Walgreens locations.

Eat My Face! How One Entrepreneur Found Meaning By Printing Faces On Cookies
Entrepreneur David Weiss pivoted from being a wholesale sweater salesman to co-founding a company that prints photos (specifically selfies) on cookies and drinks. The best part: they basically market themselves.

A Prog-Rock Band Is Releasing an Album On a Spotify-Coded Beer Can
With the help of Aeronaut brewery, Boston-based band The Lights Out will soon release an album on a beer can. Again. The prog-rock outfit worked with the Somerville, Mass. brewery in 2017 on a similar concept, releasing their album T.R.I.P. via a 16-ounce can of beer.

Chewse Raises $19M for Family Style Corporate Catering
Chewse has raised $19 million to expand its corporate catering services, bringing the total amount raised by the startup to more than $30 million. There is no shortage of corporate catering services, especially in Chewse’s home base in the Bay Area, but Chewse hopes to differentiate itself with its “family-style” meals.

Pilotworks’ NY Space Re-born as Nursery, Invites Former Tenants Back

The team at Chew announced today that is is opening a new food and beverage incubator called Nursery in the former Pilotworks Brooklyn location.

Pilotworks abruptly shut down in October, leaving the more than 100 companies working out of the commercial kitchen space scrambling to save their food and their businesses. In the Nursery press announcement all former tenant were invited to return to their former workspaces (though no further details about pricing, etc. were given).

Nursery isn’t completely up and running yet. It plans to reopen its kitchens later this week, pending final permit approvals.

Perhaps looking to allay concerns those former tenants might have about jumping back into the same situation, Nursery listed its bona fides in the press release saying, “The Nursery team has significant depth and breadth of experience in food and beverage innovation, having created over 1400 products in 25 different categories, generating billions of dollars in revenue for its clients and partners over the last five years.”

While Pilotworks’ sudden closure sent shockwaves through the independent food entrepreneur scene, the resulting community that rose up to help others in time of need was definitely a high point of the year in food tech.

We’ve reached out to the Nursery team to find out more information, and will update this post when we’ve had a chance to speak with them.

PieShell and OurHarvest Raising Funds for Those Impacted by Pilotworks’ Closure

When Pilotworks abruptly shut down last month, arguably the bigger story was not the closure itself but the number of startups left in the lurch by it. There were at least 175 food businesses at Pilotworks sites that suddenly had to scramble to save their ingredients from spoiling, find a new kitchen space to work out of, and keep maintaining their business to avoid losing too much revenue.

But as we noted at the time, out of that darkness shone the light of the food tech community, which quickly mobilized to help those impacted by Pilotworks by offering to transport or store goods and discounts on new space rental. Now PieShell, a crowdfunding site for food entrepreneurs, and OurHarvest, a New York online farmer’s market, have teamed up to raise funds to help out all the businesses Pilotworks abandoned.

The campaign has a number of “stepping stones,” the first of which is to raise $50,000 to help cover one month’s rent for all 175 companies that worked out of Pilotworks. Stepping stones two and three are at $25,000 each and geared towards helping businesses recover lost inventory and continue to distribute their products.

As the campaign makes abundantly clear, none of the money raised will go to Pilotworks. From the site:

“The funds raised by this project will go directly to, and be divided among, all the Pilotworks member-companies impacted by this closure. Rest assured that NONE of the funds raised by this project will be going to Pilotworks, and/or anyone employed by Pilotworks the company.”

Unrelated to this crowdfunding campaign, OurHarvest has a longer-term goal of raising funds to re-open the old Brooklyn Pilotworks site or establish a similar facility. But that is still a ways off and the details are still being worked out.

The campaign to help those affected by Pilotworks started two days ago and will go on for 28 more days. If you want to help out, you can visit PieShell and make a donation today.

Cookitoo Brings Rental Kitchen Marketplace from Down Under to the Bay Area

The food community was rocked last week when Pilotworks, a startup that provided new food businesses with shared kitchen space, shut down abruptly and without warning, supposedly because they failed to raise enough capital to continue operations. In the Brooklyn location alone, the closure left almost 200 entrepreneurs stranded and scrambling to find a new production facility.

Ever since the news broke, we’ve been putting together a list of alternatives for food businesses in search of kitchen spaces, aided by a community looking to support entrepreneurs during this surprise transition. One of the most comprehensive resources is The Food Corridor (TFC), a startup with a platform where food businesses can book commercial kitchen spaces during their off hours and get support for things like health code compliance and invoice management.

Now, a new transplant is doing something similar in the Bay Area. Cookitoo is an online marketplace for unused, off-hours commercial and cloud kitchen space. Restaurants, catering companies, and private chefs can list their kitchen space for rent on the Cookitoo platform, and food entrepreneurs can surf those listings to find a space that fits their needs. Businesses can search for kitchens based on their availability, equipment, storage, location, and price.

Cookitoo was founded in 2016 in Australia under the name “Sprout,” and the startup set up shop in San Francisco last month. They officially launch in November but already have a few spaces listed on their site.

According to Cookitoo co-founder Caroline Lepron, who I spoke to over the phone, the startup differentiates itself in a few ways from TFC. Firstly, While TFC is a full-stack SaaS model, Cookitoo is more of a straight-up marketplace for kitchens. Cookito also has a slightly different focus. They chiefly list underutilized spaces with commercial kitchens — such as cafés, universities, schools, and churches — that are unused for at least part of the day. TFC mostly lists shared kitchen spots. Cookitoo is also devoting a lot of energy to cultivating cloud kitchens in particular so that new food entrepreneurs can easily expand into delivery.

Cookitoo also provides more details about each space — it lists not only the price per hour of each kitchen, but also all of the equipment and available times for any given space. TFC, on the other hand, prompts you to contact the kitchen directly to get details.

TFC charges participating kitchen spaces $179/month plus 4 percent of all transactions. Cookitoo doesn’t charge anything to list a kitchen on their space, but add a 20% commission on top of each rental booking.

The Pilotworks closure indicates how great a need there is for these sorts of flexible, shared kitchen spaces to nurture new food businesses. TFC and now Cookitoo are necessary tools to help connect budding food entrepreneurs with the space and resources they need to scale.

While Cookitoo is focusing resources on the U.S., Lepron said that they would maintain operations in Australia so as not to leave the roughly 90 kitchens in their network high and dry (cough, cough). They’re in the midst of raising a seed round which they expect to close by the end of this year.

Food Community Rallies Around Those Impacted by Pilotworks Shut Down

Given the state of the world and the steady stream of negative garbage that flows through our news feeds every day, acts of kindness and generosity have an outsized impact and seem to shine that much brighter.

When commercial kitchen space Pilotworks abruptly shut down over the weekend, it wasn’t just employees and investors of the company that were impacted. Because Pilotworks was trying to build the “AWS for kitchens,” it’s closure sent shockwaves through the food entrepreneur community. The closure of the Brooklyn Pilotworks location alone impacted 175 food vendors working out of there, and Pilotworks had locations in Newark, Chicago, and Dallas (not to mention the Providence and Portland, ME locations that it closed earlier this year).

The stress associated with an office location shutting down is bad enough, but when your business is food, there is an additional layer of anxiety because your inventory and product are perishable. All the ingredients (literally) that make up your business need to be stored properly, and might require specialized equipment that can be large and bulky. Basically, when Pilotworks closed its doors so quickly, people had to scramble and come up with a solution fast.

This is where it all gets heartwarming. Out of the ashes of Pilotworks arose a vibrant community that immediately sprang into action to help.

We at The Spoon were inundated with comments and tweets and emails from kitchens near Pilotworks locations offering space. A Slack channel and resource website were set up. But we are on the outside, looking in. Nick Shippers of Ube Kitchen sent me the following note that really captured what went on from someone who was directly impacted:

What we learned through this chaos is that the soul of Pilotworks had always been the makers who created a coalition within hours. We jumped into pools of rides, with equipment still our laps, to tour other kitchens and process a transition as soon as possible. Slack channels filled with help as it came in from all over the city and country to help shift operations and provide resources for everyone’s needs. The outpouring of support, at all hours of the day, reflects that there is still a very organic force of food makers in New York City that will come back stronger.

Right now, most of the help seems to be centered around NYC/Newark, NJ businesses, though we have heard from a few Dallas and Chicago operations offering their help.

I’m sure all the entrepreneurs impacted by Pilotworks would have preferred it if Pilotworks stayed open and everyone could have gone about their business as usual. But it’s the worst moments that define us, and from what we can tell, the food community will only get stronger from this.

Stranded by Pilotworks? Here are Some Alternatives to Check Out

It sucks when any startup abruptly shuts down, but when a company like Pilotworks closes its doors, there’s a huge ripple effect that impacts more than just its own employees. Food entrepreneurs who were tenants at Pilotworks locations now must scramble for kitchen space to keep their own businesses alive.

From what commenters on our original story and people on our Slack channel are telling us, Pilotworks’s abrupt closure came as a surprise to those food entrepreneurs working at the Brooklyn location.

If you were impacted by Pilotworks’ closure, here are some things you can do (if are local to these areas and have more/better tips, please leave a comment to help others out):

A good first step is to visit The Kitchen Door from The Food Corridor, an online platform that connects food businesses and commercial production spaces. I did a quick search on its site and found results in the following Pilotworks locations (click each link for the full list):

Brooklyn – City Saucery, Hot Bread Kitchen
Chicago – River Forest Kitchen, Fig and Olive
Dallas – Perfect Temper, The Craft Kitchen
Newark, NJ – BAO Food and Drink Incubator, Academy of Elizabethtown Kitchen

Despite Pilotworks crashing, there is still a lot of activity and investment in the shared commercial kitchen space around the country. Kitchen United, which works with both established restaurants and food entrepreneurs, just raised $10 million to boost its expansion into twelve new markets beyond Pasadena, CA. Elsewhere in LA, Fulton Kitchens is looking for mid-level food entrepreneurs. Up in San Francisco, Tinker Kitchen is less about business, but still offers its members a place to experiment with food.

Based in Boston, Commonwealth Kitchen is a non-profit that provides kitchen space as well as help with licensing and permitting.

Union Kitchen in D.C. has a food accelerator and membership-based communal kitchen.

While this will be a tough time for those impacted by Pilotworks, it’s also an opportunity for the community to come together. If you have other suggestions for people, leave a comment or send us a tip to include in this story.

UPDATE: We received the following this morning (Keep sending them to us!)

The Cookline
We are a large shared kitchen in north Dallas and have plenty of room for new clients. 469 209 4919
2011 west spring creek pkwy, suite 2000
plano, tx 75023

Hot Bread Kitchen in NYC sent us the following:
Wanted to share a bit more information. Hot Bread Kitchen, in partnership with organizations around the city, has stepped in to be a one-stop-shop to provide matching services to displaced businesses. Hot Bread will connect businesses to available kitchens, including our Incubator in East Harlem, as well as our partner kitchens throughout NYC (such as Bronx Cookspace, Entrepreneur Space in Queens, Organic Food Incubator, The Hudson Kitchen, and Evergreen Exchange.) We also encourage organizations with available kitchen space to reach out.

Email: incubateshotline@hotbreadkitchen.org
Matching form for businesses: hotbreadkitchen.org/incubateshotline
Phone hotline: (774) 364-8532 (open 8am–9pm this week)

Hope & Main in Warren Rhode Island told us “We are standing by to assist anyone in the food entrepreneurship community that may need resources, advice or kitchens.”

Also a Slack Channel has been set up to connect people impacted with those who might be able to help.

There is Hall Street Storage, a cold storage facility located in Downtown Brooklyn outside the Navy Yard. We do not have shared kitchen space, but we can accommodate needs for cold and dry storage, as well as fulfillment.

In Dallas The Mix Kitchen can help those that are scrambling to find a kitchen to use.

I am the new kitchen manager at the Neighborworks Millrace Kitchen in Woonsocket, RI. We are an incubator kitchen and still have space available for new members. Feel free to share my contact information for anyone interested. Tracey Belliveau, tbelliveau [at] neighborworksbrv [dot] org, (401)257-6152.

We would like to offer Cherry Street Kitchen as another option for people who can no longer produce at Pilotworks, especially the Newark location. We are in Trenton, easy loading and in/out to Route 1 or Route 95. We have storage space as well. Temporary use while getting something more permanent is fine. http://www.cherrystreetkitchen.com. Thank you.

CLiCK Willimantic is a commercially licensed kitchen run on cooperative values in Windham, CT, and is open to new members. Here is our website: https://clickwillimantic.com/

Thanks to Union Kitchen, a DC Real Estate Project Will Maintain Local Flavors

DC-based food-and-beverage accelerator Union Kitchen this week announced a new deal with the city’s forthcoming Eckington Place real estate project.

The project, called Eckington Yards, is a mixed-use site that will house both residential units and retail space, and is reportedly “inspired by New York City’s Meatpacking District.”

Union Kitchen’s mission is to guide food brands from concept all the way up to national distribution via a few different channels: a three-part accelerator program (which is currently accepting applications), a membership-based communal kitchen, and the Union Kitchen Grocery (UKG) which sells regular staples as well as dozens of local products, from chips to coffees.

The company currently operates four UKG outlets and a 17,000-square-foot communal kitchen in the Ivy City neighborhood and offers different levels of membership starting at $1,095/month. Similar to Pilotworks, the commissary kitchen membership (PDF) gives up-and-coming food brands access to appliances and equipment, events with investors and mentors, marketing and sales opportunities, and a direct line — online and onsite — to the wider Union Kitchen community.

For Eckington Yards, Union Kitchen will open another one of these communal kitchen spaces as well as another UGK.

What’s attractive about Union Kitchen’s involvement with the project is the opportunity for local food brands, whether that means additional exposure on store shelves or access to industrial-grade kitchens that can often be financially out of reach for smaller companies.

It’s also not a bad look for Eckington Yards, a project that’s been somewhat controversial in terms of what developers plan to give back to the local community. Union Kitchen might not directly mean more money for, say, nearby schools, but its emphasis on local food and business could help to keep Eckington Yards from turning into yet-another overpriced gated community that’s completely out of reach for hyperlocal business.

Union Kitchen joins sports complex Brooklyn Boulders, who signed on for space in earlier this year. Eckington Yards is slated for demolition in Q4, and by then we should also have a better idea of who else will climb aboard. Hopefully Union Kitchen’s presence means fewer mega-chains and more local flavor overall.

Pilotworks Shutters Providence, RI and Portland, ME Branches

Yesterday Pilotworks, the company that is working to become the AWS of the food industry, announced that they would be closing down their shared commercial kitchens in Providence, RI and Portland, ME. A statement on the company’s website says it will shutter the Providence location on September 30th. Member food companies will have until October 5th to remove their kitchen equipment from the space.

Pilotworks will also close the Food Fork Lab, a Portland, ME-based shared kitchen space they acquired in 2016. According to the Bangor Daily News, the decision was “due to the structural layout and market dynamics in this location.”

In the same article, Pilotworks CEO Zach Ware went on to say that operating the Portland location sustainably was “not feasible long term.” Ware took the helm rather suddenly in June after Pilotworks co-founder and CEO Nick Devane stepped down. Apparently, the new CEO is tightening up operations and focusing on higher-performing locations. There’s no word yet if there will be any change to Pilotworks’ other branches in Dallas, Chicago, Brooklyn, and Newark, NJ.

Pilotworks isn’t the only player in the shared commercial kitchen space game. Colorado-based The Food Corridor is an online platform which lets growing food businesses find and rent certified commercial kitchen spaces. And Pasadena, California’s Kitchen United offers kitchen space rentals to restaurants and other companies looking to up their delivery output. (Psst — the CEO’s from both of these companies will be speaking at the Smart Kitchen Summit this October!) The shared commercial kitchen space seems to be growing rapidly — just maybe not in smaller towns like Providence and Portland.

This news is especially surprising to us at the Spoon, since we hosted a successful meetup on blue tech at Providence Pilotworks just a few weeks ago. We’ve reached out to the company and will update the post if we hear back.

Zach Ware Steps Up as New CEO of Pilotworks

Today The Spoon discovered that Pilotworks co-founder Nick Devane has left his role as CEO of the company and transitioned into a strategic role. Former COO Zach Ware has taken over position of CEO.

The startup, headquartered in Brooklyn, offers rent-by-the-hour kitchen space for budding food entrepreneurs, and also gives its members access to mentorship opportunities and networking events. It has facilities in Brooklyn, Chicago, Portland (ME), Newark, Dallas, and Providence. Last December, the company received $13 million in expansion capital.

Devane previously told Jennifer Marston of the Spoon that he considered Pilotworks “the AWS [Amazon Web Services] of food” because of their pay-as-you-go approach to all-included kitchen rental.

Ware comes to Pilotworks after working at the Republic of Tea, Zappos, and investment fund VTF Capital. Devane reportedly asked Ware to join Pilotworks as COO in February after Ware spent a week consulting on the company. Devane had served as CEO since co-founding the company in 2016, and will now transition to “a new role focusing on long-term creative and strategic initiatives,” according to a statement we requested from Pilotworks.

 

Full statement here:

“As Pilotworks continues to grow and expand our commercial kitchens and services for food entrepreneurs and business of any size, we’re pleased to announce Zach Ware as CEO. Mr. Ware brings an extensive record of operations with previous leadership roles at The Republic of Tea, Zappos, and as Pilotworks’ COO. Nick Devane who has served as Pilotworks CEO since co-founding the company will transition to a new role focusing on long-term creative and strategic initiatives.”

We’ll be hosting a free food tech meetup at Pilotworks Providence on July 17th! The event will be focused on sustainable seafood; if you’re in the Providence/Boston area, we’d love to see you there.

The Food Tech 25: Twenty Five Companies Changing the Way We Eat

Here at The Spoon, we spend most days writing and thinking about those who are transforming what we eat. No matter whether a startup, big company, inventor, or a cook working on new approaches in the kitchen, we love learning the stories of people changing the future of food. So much so, in fact, that we wanted to share those companies that most excite us with our readers.

And so here it is, The Spoon’s Food Tech 25: Twenty Five Companies Changing the Way We Eat

What exactly is the Food Tech 25? In short, it’s our list of the twenty five companies we think are doing the most interesting things changing the way we create, buy, store, cook and think about food.

As with any list, there are bound to be a few questions about how we got here and why we chose the companies we did. Here are some answers:

How did we create this list?

The editors of the Spoon — myself, Chris Albrecht, Catherine Lamb and Jenn Marston — got together in a room, poured some kombucha (ed note: except for Chris), and listed all the companies we thought were doing interesting and important work in changing food and cooking. From there, we had numerous calls, face-to-face meetings and more glasses of kombucha until we narrowed the list down to those you see here.

Is this an annual list?

No, this is a list of the companies we think are the most interesting people and companies right now, in mid-2018. Things could definitely look different six months from now.

Is this list in a particular order or are the companies ranked?

No, the list is in no particular order and we did not rank the 25 companies.

Why isn’t company X on the list?

If this was your list, company X or Y would most likely be on the list (and that’s ok with us). But this is the Spoon’s list and we’re sticking to it (for now – see above).

And of course, making this list wasn’t easy. There are lots of companies doing interesting things in this space. If we had enough room to create runners-up or honorable mentions, we would. But we don’t (and you don’t have enough time to read a list like that).

So, without further ado, here is the Spoon’s Food Tech 25. If you’re the type that likes your lists all on one page, click here.


EMBER
Ember bills itself as “the world’s first temperature control mug,” which basically means you can dictate a specific temperature for your brew via the corresponding app and keep your coffee (or tea or whatever) hot for as long as you need to. The significance here isn’t so much about coffee as it is about where else we could implement the technology and relatively simple concept powering the Ember mug. The company currently has patents out on other kinds of heated or cooled dishware, and Ember has cited baby bottles and medicine as two areas in which it might apply its technology. And yes, it allows you to finally stop microwaving all that leftover morning coffee.

 


INSTANT POT
The Instant Pot is not the highest-tech gadget around, but its affordability, versatility, and speed have made this new take on the pressure cooker a countertop cooking phenomenon. It also has a large and fanatical community, where enthusiastic users share and reshare their favorite Instant Pot recipes across Facebook groups and online forums. By becoming the first new breakout appliance category of the millennial generation, the Instant Pot has achieved that highly desirable (and rare) position of having its brand synonymous with the name of the category; people don’t go looking for pressure cookers, they go looking for an Instant Pot.

 


DELIVEROO
We chose Deliveroo out of the myriad of food delivery services because of their Editions project, which uses customer data to curate restaurant hubs in areas which have unfulfilled demands for certain chain establishments or cuisine types. This model allows food establishments to set up locations with zero start-up costs, and also gives customers in more restaurant-dry areas a wide variety of delivery food options. Essentially, it’s cloud kitchens meets a food hall, with some heavy analysis to help determine which restaurants or cuisines customers want, and where. These “Rooboxes” (hubs of shipping containers in which the food is prepared) show that Deliveroo is a pioneer in the dark kitchen space, and are doing serious work to shake up the food delivery market.

 

AMAZON GO
There are any number of ways that Amazon could have been included in this list, but its Amazon Go stores are what we think will be the real game changer. The cashierless corner store uses a high-tech combination of cameras and computing power, allowing you to walk in grab what you want — and leave. That’s it. At its first location in Seattle, we were struck by how seamless the experience was. As the locations broaden, this type of quick convenience has the potential to change the way we shop for snacks, (some) groceries and even prepared meal kits.

 


INGEST.AI
Restaurants have more pieces of software to deal with than ever. In addition to all the delivery platforms they are now plugged into, there have to deal with payments systems, HR software, and inventory management software. And right now, none of those applications talk to each other. Created by a former IBM Watson engineer, Ingest.ai promises to extract and connect the data from ALL of those disparate software pieces and tie them together to give restaurant owners a holistic, data-powered view of their business. It also helps them have more precise control over their business and automate tasks like food ordering and staff scheduling.

Want to meet the innovators from the FoodTech 25? Make sure to connect with them at North America’s leading foodtech summit, SKS 2019, on Oct 7-8th in Seattle.

NEXT

Culinary Incubator Pilotworks Is On Track to Be the AWS of the Food Industry

If you’re trying to start a food business in Dallas and hitting nothing but roadblocks, Pilotworks can probably help.

The Brooklyn-based culinary incubator—who also has facilities in Chicago, Portland, and most recently, Newark, New Jersey—just brought its shared kitchen space concept to Northwest Dallas this week.

Like Pilotworks’ other locations, the Dallas facility will offer rent-by-the-hour kitchen space for bakers, caterers, food manufacturers, and others. Its members will also get access to events, mentorship opportunities, and a large online network of fellow entrepreneurs.

Pilotworks’ rapid growth, which includes a recent $13 million expansion capital investment, shouldn’t be all that surprising, considering how tough it is to start any business related to food.

And it’s not just the normal issues that plague all entrepreneurs. Kitchen space is hard to come by for most companies: it’s expensive, and running a food business means complying with a whole boatload of regulations that other industries don’t have to deal with.

Pilotworks founders Nick Devane and Mike Dee were aware of all of this when they bought 20,000 square feet of space in Brooklyn to open an incubator for food entrepreneurs. They wanted to provide the right assistance to budding food companies, whether that’s space for making ice cream, mentorship, or advice about scaling a business.

The Pilotworks HQ is located in the old Pfizer factory in Brooklyn (which is apparently a hub for innovative food startups). While you could easily set a horror flick amid the narrow, winding hallways and spooky corners of the building, once inside the Pilotworks space, you’re surrounded by tall windows, lots of light, and an endless supply of gourmet treats. One floor below the office is an enormous kitchen space where entrepreneurs keep busy chopping, stirring, mixing, and even teaching.

The shared kitchen space is what gets Pilotworks so much press these days, with many referring to the concept as “the WeWork of kitchens.” And while Devane tips his hat to WeWork, calling it “far and away the market leader” for coworking spaces, he thinks Pilotworks’ model more closely resembles that of another business.

Pilotworks founders Nick Devane and Mike Dee

“We like to think of ourselves as AWS [Amazon Web Services] for food,” says Devane. He’s referring to the “pay-as-you-go” approach that’s helped make AWS a leader in cloud computing. With this model, companies pay for only the services they need, bypassing traditional vendor contracts and licenses and saving a lot of money in the process.

Pilotworks resembles AWS in the sense that businesses can rent kitchen space by the hour for as long or short a time as they need, and also have access to a fully stocked inventory of kitchen equipment (as well as mentors and a robust online community of entrepreneurs). For companies that aren’t major CPGs corporations, this eliminates a huge hurdle to scaling their product: finding appropriate kitchen infrastructure.

“When you build a kitchen, you do so with additional room, assuming you’re going to grow,” explains Devane. “But nearly every outcome is bad because you have to take more space than you need. If you grow all the way to the edge of [your space], you suddenly need a whole new factory or kitchen. If you go down, you’ve got way too much space. If you stay the same, you’ve got 20 percent too much space. And that problem is persistent across food.”

To make this situation worse, available infrastructure is hard to come by. Good luck finding an urban kitchen space that’s 5,000 square feet, let alone 20,000 or more. And should you find it, good luck trying to pay for it without a hefty shot of investment — which can be hard to get, especially if you don’t have pitching skills.

Little wonder the food industry is one of extremes: the really big companies (think General Mills) and the really small guys (indie food labels or even local caterers).

And that’s what Pilotworks is looking to change. They want to provide entrepreneurs with kitchen space and equipment, but also give them clearly defined strategies to cut down on up-front capital costs and other issues that so often hamper business development.

“The biggest issue in food is upfront cost of capital,” says Devane. “You always need several hundred thousand dollars to invest in building out space or manufacturing, and we’re circumventing that in a compelling way.”

The Dallas space is just one more step in the road to growth Pilotworks is paving — for itself and others trying similar concepts. While Devane doesn’t think they’ve completely eradicated the infrastructure issue for food entrepreneurs, he hopes that Pilotworks can help reduce the problem on a global scale.

If you recall, AWS took a carefully planned path to cloud dominance, one that always kept (and still keeps) its customers front and center. To roll with the comparison one more time, I’d say Pilotworks is poised to do the same.