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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food Tech News Roundup: Plastic-Free Grocery Stores, Food Waste Accelerators, & Crowd Cow Tackles Pork

This week certainly kept us busy. Bear Robotics, which we were the first to cover, got a $2M investment, and Amazon opened the door to in-car grocery delivery. We also explored meat alternatives, from a tour of JUST’s cultured meat lab to Omnipork’s plant-based pork. Most excitingly of all, we had our first food tech meetup in which we explored the future of recipes.

If you don’t feel news-ed out, we’ve rounded a few food tech stories that caught our eye around the web this week. Great to peruse on a Sunday morning, post-snooze.

Photo: Crowd Cow

Crowd Cow moves to pork
Beginning May 2nd, Crowd Cow, the Seattle-based startup that lets carnivores buy cuts of meat directly from farmers, will expand into pork. Customers will be able to buy various snout to tail porcine products like bacon, pork chops, and sausages from four pig farmers; two on the East Coast, two on the West Coast. This expansion speaks to consumers’ growing interest in food transparency, especially in meat, as well as their demand for convenience — Crowd Cow cuts out the visit to the grocery store and delivers flash-frozen meat directly their customers’ doors.

 

Photo: Somadetect

Documentary on minority women in Agtech
Journalist and filmmaker Amy Wu has created a documentary called “From Farms to Incubators,” which tells the stories of minority women entrepreneurs in agtech in the California area. The film will premiere on May 3rd in the 2018 Steinbeck Festival in Salinas Valley. The documentary profiles minority women who are creating innovation in the agricultural sector through mobile apps, robotics, data systems, and beyond. Agtech, like many tech fields, is male-dominated. (Despite notable exceptions like women-run companies SomaDetect and AgShift.) The screening is free and open to the community.

 

Photo: Hooch

Hooch debuts next-level exclusive subscription
Hooch, the company that lets you claim a free drink every day from one of their participating bars and restaurants, just launched a new subscription level: Hooch Black. It’ll cost you quite a bit more — $295 per year, instead of $9.99 per month — but it has a lot more perks, too. On top of the drink-a-day service, subscribers also get hotel discounts, preferred restaurant reservations, and even tickets to performances like Hamilton or Coachella. Wannabe users also have to fill out an application before they even have the option to pay for the subscription.

CEO Lin Dai told Techcrunch that Hooch Black will continue Hooch’s mission to be the “an antidote to apps that ‘facilitate a couch economy’,” such as food delivery services. Instead of bringing the booze to you, they’re encouraging you to get out and drink it in a bar — and Hooch Black takes that even further by pushing users to go on trips, eat at restaurants, and attend live shows.

 

Photo: Ekoplaza

100% plastic-free grocery store opens in Amsterdam
This Wednesday a grocery store opened in Amsterdam that claimed to be the world’s first plastic-free pop-up store. The shop, dubbed Ekoplaza, has over 700 grocery items according to The Washington Post — and no plastic. Instead, food is packaged in plant-based compostable biofilm or just displayed, packaging-free, in glass, metal, and cardboard containers.

Plastic waste from food packaging is a huge problem — that’s why companies like NASA, the U.S. Army, and Unilever are working on ways to find alternatives. Ekoplaza, and other stores focusing on bulk shopping like Bulk Market, are tackling plastic food packing waste from the consumer shopping side.

 

Edible grasshopper company reportedly has $5M in order requests
This week Israeli edible insect company Hargol FoodTech told CTech that they had already received $5 million in requests for orders from companies in the U.S. and Europe. According to the aforementioned article, Ikea, Whole Foods, and Pepsico have already expressed interest in purchasing the startup’s grasshopper-based protein powder.

If these numbers are accurate, it would indicate a shift towards acceptance of edible insects — especially after recent growth news from Entomo Farms and Aspire/Exo. And if companies like Pepsico and Ikea are really getting on board, bugs could become a mainstream ingredient relatively soon.

 

A new accelerator for startups fighting food waste
Copenhagen-based transport and logistics company A.P. Moller-Marsk is partnering with startup accelerator Rockstart to create a program targeting food waste, reported FoodNavigator. Dubbed FoodTrack, the one-month program will start on June 6th and will offer workshops and guidance from mentors to the 10 startups selected to participate. They hope to help give the startups tools to tackle food waste, specifically in the early stages of the value chain (growth, harvest, and distribution.)

Food Tech News Roundup: GM Hops, Food Delivery Mergers & Meat MRI’s

Happy weekend. This was a big week for food tech news, with funding updates from Instacart and Impossible Foods, and big partnership announcements from Innit/Chef’d and Kenwood/Drop. But there were also a bunch of smaller stories that caught our eye, even if we didn’t have time to write a post about them. So we rounded them up in one place for you! Put an egg on something and eat it while skimming through our roundup of this week’s food tech news stories.

Report: Postmates and DoorDash mull over merger 

Sources told Recode that Postmates and DoorDash, two food delivery giants, have discussed a possible merger at least once over the past year. This move would be a bid to gain advantage over competitors like GrubHub and UberEats in the hotly-contested food delivery war.

These murmurings come only a month after DoorDash secured $535 million in funding, which they said they would use to expand operations (and maybe invest in robots?). As of now there’s no deal, but this wouldn’t be such a bad idea. The food delivery sector is just too crowded — if these competitors could pull off a merger and optimize their service, I say go for it.

Photo: Pixabay

Unilever wants to turn plastic waste into food safe packaging

Unilever announced this week that it’s starting a new initiative to recycle polyethylene terephthalate resin, which is commonly used in clothing, food and drink packaging, and engineering projects. They want to turn any of their products made with PET resin, including ones that are colored, into transparent, food safe packaging. The consumer goods giant is partnering with recycling tech startup Ioniqa and Indorama Ventures, the world’s largest producer of PET resin, on the project.

It’s an interesting time in the world of food packaging. Various groups, including NASA and the military, are trying to make it lighter, safer, and more resilient. This initiative from Unilever might make it more environmentally friendly, as well. But it’s got a long way to go; currently, 91% of plastic waste isn’t recycled. With a massive company like Unilever behind it, this project might be able to reduce that statistic significantly. 

Credit-TECAL-GIM-UEx.jpg

MRIs can qualify meat taste without touching them

Researchers at the University of Extremadura in Spain have found a way to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the same technology used in hospitals to look inside our bodies, to measure the taste properties of whole loins and hams — without touching them.

The technology uses non-invasive magnets and radio waves to take images of the meat, which is then run through a computer vision algorithm. Scientists can use the images and readings they see to make predictions on the quality of the meat, including its fat content, color, and salt content, without having to damage a pricey Iberico ham.

This research indicates another approach to food safety monitoring and quality control, which is a fast-growing market full of startups like Mimica and FoodLogiQ.

 

Would brewers replace hops with GMO yeast?

Hold on to your IPAs: A team of chemists and geneticists in California have developed a genetically modified yeast that can mimic the flavor and aroma of hops. To make it, they spliced DNA from mint and basil plants into the genes of brewing yeast, which gave the yeast a grapefruit-like flavor typical of the Cascade hop.

By swapping out hops for GM yeast, brewers could have greater control over their product, reduce the costs of beer-brewing, and reduce environmental impact. As might be expected, craft brewers aren’t eager to replace hops with GM yeast — they feel it takes some of the art out of brewing. But we’re seeing more and more intersections of beer and tech, from IoT-powered beer tracking systems to beer publishing systems for at-home brewers.

 

Photo: AgVend

AgVend raises $1.75M in seed funding

Last week ag-commerce startup AgVend raised $1.75 million in seed funding. The round was led by Drew Oetting at 8VC, with participation from Green Bay Ventures, Seahawk Capital, The House Fund, and others.

Agvend is a digital commerce platform which lets farmers compare prices and purchase ag services and inputs. With AgVend, farmers can order a specific fertilizer and have it delivered (via AgVend’s partners) the same day or take advantage of flash sales promotions, without ever leaving their farm. The startup launched at the beginning of 2018 and now covers states across the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, with plans to expand later this year.

This year has been a big one for agtech startups. In the last few months indoor farming company Agrilyst and peer-to-peer farming network WeFarm also closed fundraising rounds. Agtech is definitely a growing market, and one to keep an eye on.