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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Plant Jammer

Plant Jammer Expands Its Food Waste Tech to Aldi, RIMI Baltic

Aldi Süd and RIMI Baltic are among the first large food companies to implement Plant Jammer’s new food-waste-fighting widget on their websites, according to a press release from Plant Jammer sent to The Spoon. Consumers can use the widget to track and manage food waste in their own homes.

Plant Jammer is best known at this point for its AI-powered cooking assistant that helps users create recipes from the existing inventory in their fridges and pantries. The idea is to provide consumers with more ways to use all of their at-home food inventory, so less waste goes down the drain or into the landfill.

Copenhagen, Denmark-based Plant Jammer nabbed a €4 million (~$4.7 million USD) investment last year. At the time, Plant Jammer said it planned to expand by licensing its API to third parties who could then build customized experiences for their own customers.  

The Empty Your Fridge widget is an offshoot of that goal. Companies can implement the technology with a single line of code. From the end-user perspective, a person simply selects the ingredients they have at home in the fridge and receive a customized recipe from the system in return. Users can also input preferences and dietary concerns, factors that will also impact what recipe gets generated by the system. 

Worldwide, food waste at consumer-facing levels, including the home, is a multibillion-dollar problem that’s also a big contributor to global emissions. The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 12.3 aims in part to halve global food waste at retail and consumer levels. Reaching that goal will be the work of governments, nonprofits, consumers, and startups building out new processes and technologies.

Helping consumers learn more about how to use their existing inventories will be a big part of this. Speaking in a statement today, Plant Jammer CEO Michael Haase noted that a “lack of cooking flexibility” in many consumers is a direct contributor to at-home food waste.

Plant Jammer says it aims to launch the widget on 100 food company websites by the end of 2021 and on 5,000 by 2023. Longer term, the company hopes to educate 1 billion people on cooking and food waste.

Plant Jammer Gets €4M Investment for its AI-Powered Recipe Platform

Plant Jammer, a four-year-old Danish startup building an AI-powered cooking assistant, is one step closer to its goal of reaching one billion people, thanks to a €4 million investment in its AI recipe algorithm and platform. The Copenhagen-based company plans to expand its presence in the digital food space by licensing its API to third parties who can build branded customized experiences for their customers.

The new injection of capital comes from Danish investment firm Vaekstfonden, German food processing company Dr. Oetker, and German appliance manufacturer Miele. Miele had previously invested in Plant Jammer in 2018.

”Plant Jammer’s combination of recipe creation with AI is both unique and functional. We expect that this technology will be a core pillar in the connected kitchen of the future. Therefore, we believe Plant Jammer has great business potential,” says Dr. Christian Zangs, Managing Director of Miele Venture Capital.

Plant Jammer’s application, already in use by 10,000 households in Europe, allows users to build customized recipes by factoring in their individual preferences and what they may have in their home or what may be on sale in the local supermarket. While the app is focused on plant-based and vegetarian creations, partners who license the platform are not limited to those options. The database also contains food choices that include animal products and dairy; the PlantJammer app chose not to surface those results allowing the company to focus its version on a select niche.

In an interview with The Spoon, CEO and founder Michael Haase explained that partners who license the Plant Jammer’s API will pay based on the number of “calls” or accesses by users. For example, a grocery chain in Sweden can use the Plant Jammer API to develop a branded application such as a chatbox, that could include such extras as a link to online shopping. Each time a user of that third-party application builds a recipe, based on ingredients, tastes, diet, or any number of factors, the PlantJammer AI-driven database would work behind the scenes to deliver the results.

“I like to think of the analogy of the gold rush,” Haase adds. “We are interested in being the supplier of the jeans and shovels that enable others to do their jobs better.”

Personalized data from commercial partners will not be shared with Plant Jammer, but those partners can pass on generalized information via tags to allow the Haase’s company to continue to innovate on its platform. There are several areas Haase hopes to develop focused around food waste and the increased use of the excess capacity of local farmers and vendors.
Initially, the company founder says, the goal is to focus on food waste in the home. Haase says that 50% of all food waste takes place in the home, so we want people to build recipes based on what they already have in their refrigerator or cupboard.

“Our declared purpose is to empower one billion people with food habits that increase their health and the health of the planet,” Haase added.

That said, Haase admits his goal is a lofty one. “Right now, we are in a world of what I would call ‘trickle-down gastronomy’,” he says. “There is a huge divide between those whose world is focused on things such as molecular gastronomy and the masses. If we can show people that you can make something great in 25 minutes with simple ingredients, that would be great.”

Plant Jammer, TrusTrace Join Cohort 2020 of Bloomer’s Food Tech Accelerator

Plant Jammer, TrusTrace, and six other food tech startups have been selected to join the 2020 cohort of Stockholm, Sweden-based accelerator program Bloomer. The program is new, and a joint effort from supermarket chain Coop Sweden, startup investor Norrsken, and Sweden FoodTech. 

Like other food tech accelerators, much of the emphasis of the program will be on helping the chosen companies further develop products and services that contribute to a more sustainable, eco-friendly food system:

Companies who join the program must relocate to Stockholm, Sweden for a mandatory 12 weeks starting at the end of March, with an optional extension that runs through September. Programming is a combination of standard curriculum — what Bloomer calls “The Frame” — as well as more customized learning based on each individual startup’s goals and needs. According to the program’s website, participating companies receive $250 SEK against equity, mentorship opportunities, and access to Coop’s data, customers, and industry connections. 

Startups should plan to relocate to Norrsken’s coworking space in Stockholm, Norrsken House. 

Eight companies total were chose for the 2020 cohort:

  • Volta Greentech makes an algae-based feed supplement for cows that reduces their methane production by up to 80 percent.
  • Foodla is a food market app where food producers can sell their products to local communities.
  • Plant Jammer has an AI-powered platform that creates personalized recipes for users based on their diets, food preferences, and fridge contents.
  • Lunch.co is an online marketplace for work colleagues to buy and sell home-cooked lunches.
  • Leafymade makes plastic-free, 100 percent biodegradable bowls, plates, cutlery, and other items meant to replace single-use disposable products.
  • Vembla has an e-commerce platform selling groceries, household goods, and pharmaceuticals from local retailers. 
  • Grönska is building out its own AI-powered vertical farming system that grows leafy greens using hydroponics.
  • TrusTrace collects, verifies and analyses data to improve traceability across the food system.

The program kicks off March 30. Those interested in applying for future cohorts should check out the program criteria here.