• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Skip to navigation
Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Connect
    • Custom Events
    • Slack
    • RSS
    • Send us a Tip
  • Advertise
  • Consulting
  • About
The Spoon
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Advertise
  • About

Podcast

July 14, 2025

This Culinary Tech Inventor Thought He Could Build Some Parts For His Latest Gadget in the US. Then He Called Around.

When kitchen tech inventor Scott Heimendinger started prototyping his latest hardware product, he knew that much of it would need to be built overseas. Still, he was curious whether he could rely on local Seattle-based shops to produce some of the parts.

“I contacted local shops here in Seattle. There are a couple of machine and metalworking shops, and I thought, well, I would like to be a good customer, right? Like I’d love to spend money locally, especially on shops that are doing this kind of stuff.”

But when he called around, Scott quickly discovered that not only were the local shops going to be an order of magnitude more expensive, but they’d also take longer to deliver.

“I said, ‘look, I know this is going to be more expensive than what I’m doing in China, obviously, but maybe we can make this up on the time front.’ Before we even got into real pricing, we were already above 10X. So I said, ‘What about turnaround time?’ [They] said, well, it depends how busy we are, but like, you know, one to six weeks.’”

We’d started talking about the cost and complexity of building in the U.S. because we’d both recently listened to an episode of PJ Vogt’s Search Engine, in which Vogt interviewed YouTuber and engineer Destin Sandlin. Sandlin discussed his years-long effort to manufacture a product in America, and I wanted to get Scott’s take, especially since he’s been navigating the uncertainty caused by new tariffs. As it turned out, he had a lot to say.

One area he pointed to as a critical missing link was the shortage of tooling designers, the specialists who create the molds used to shape plastic parts.

“Tooling fabrication in principle is something that you could just do on a beefy CNC machine… In practice, no. It’s specialized techniques and tools. That knowledge has dried up in the U.S.”

We talked about why capabilities like tooling fabrication and injection molding have largely disappeared from the U.S., and one reason we both agreed on was the lack of trade education, starting as early as high school.

“Some of my favorite classes in high school were sculpture class, learning to use a bandsaw and a drill press,” he said. “I wish more folks in the United States prioritized the hands-on making of stuff.”

I pointed out the strange dichotomy of the past couple of decades, in which Silicon Valley was busy valorizing the maker movement, while at the same time the U.S.’s ability to manufacture at scale was simultaneously being hollowed out. It’s as if we celebrated prototyping, while the infrastructure to mass-produce those ideas was quietly de-emphasized and disinvested in.

“A weird thing that happened, where we talked about, ‘hey, let’s start making stuff and teach our kids to make stuff,'” I said. “But at the same time, America’s ability to make stuff at scale just kind of went up in smoke.”

Scott, for his part, chose to see the upside. Despite the loss of critical manufacturing knowledge and infrastructure, he said it’s still a great time to be an inventor, thanks to how accessible prototyping tools have become.

“I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, like I love physically making stuff. I wish more folks in the United States prioritized the hands-on making of stuff, and I wish that we hadn’t eroded away these capabilities. On the other hand, it is almost point and click to have these things prototyped, if not mass-produced. And that’s an incredible boon to being a scrappy solopreneur.”.

You can listen to our latest episode by clicking play below, or you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you’d like to ask Scott a question about his project, the challenges of manufacturing a product or the future of cooking, he’ll be at Smart Kitchen Summit next week. You can get your ticket here.

If video is your preferred podcast consumption format, you can also watch our conversation below:

Why It's So Hard to Build Hardware in America

July 1, 2025

From Red Bull to Zevia, Amy Taylor Shares Lessons Learned From a Career Built Around Buzzy Beverages

In the early 90s, Amy Taylor had dreams of Olympic gold as an elite track and field athlete.

Back then, she never could have predicted she’d spend the bulk of her career in the beverage business. But after moving to Atlanta (where the Olympics were to take place in 1996) and working for a short time for the Atlanta Hawks, it wasn’t long before she started to work for Red Bull, just as the now-famous brand was beginning to define the energy drink business in the early 2000s.

“My stepdad warned me not to take the job because he had never heard of the company,” she recalled. “And I said, I think there’s something special here. I took my Gen X assignment of creating this Red Bull brand with an American lens on it for the American audience.”

Taylor would spent over 20 years at Red Bull, eventually serving as president and chief marketing officer, where her time there shaped her philosophy on building iconic brands.

“What I learned there was about creating a hot brand and sort of becoming a part of or creating communication within and around the zeitgeist,” she said. “Instead of trying to go fast and hard and drive distribution and awareness at all costs… the brand was building relationships.”

Now, as CEO of Zevia, Taylor is applying those lessons to a different kind of beverage mission. “We are going to materially reduce sugar consumption among the population that we serve,” she said. “If a family switches from carbonated soft drinks to Zevia, they can cut their sugar consumption in half with one move.”

Known for its zero-sugar sodas made with stevia, Taylor says Zevia aims to provide an affordable, clean-label alternative for families. She’s also focused on evolving the brand’s taste and product innovation. “There are 20 molecules in the stevia leaf that can sweeten a product,” she said. “Our job is to go extract the ones that perform best within the beverage. For the part of the population that have had a negative experience with stevia, they’re going to need to come back and try Zevia. And I think they’re going to be blown away.”

Like most food brands nowadays, Zevia is embracing AI. Taylor says they are doing it with a “hacker’s approach,” which means encouraging every department to experiment with new use cases.

“Each department head challenges their entire team, not just their senior leadership, to come up with new use cases for AI,” Taylor said. From creating digital consumer prototypes to enhancing operations and finance workflows, Taylor said the company is exploring numerous applications. “We use AI to challenge our thinking and our assumptions. We want to grow faster because of our ability to leverage AI with the people that we have in the building today.”

Part of Taylor and Zevia’s push to leverage innovations like AI is because the company operates lean (fewer than 100 employees), and new technologies can help them punch above their weight.

“We are small and focused,” she said. “And we are scrappy as hell.”

You can listen to my full conversation with Taylor below and can connect with her (and ask her questions) at the Smart Kitchen Summit later this month.

June 23, 2025

The Grocery Store is the Food System

For most of us, the food system isn’t a distant farm or a produce distribution center. It’s the grocery store. We push carts through brightly lit aisles where abstract forces—supply chains, agricultural policy, consumer trends—become tangible reality. The supermarket is where the nation’s entire food apparatus converges in a single, accessible arena. The grocery store isn’t just a participant in the food system; it is the food system in miniature.

This is where supply meets demand in its most direct form. Every product on the shelf represents a long chain of decisions: a farmer’s crop choice, a manufacturer’s formulation, a regulator’s approval. And every purchase we make sends a ripple back up that chain. For consumers who are generations removed from farming, the grocery store is our most immediate encounter with agriculture itself. To understand the state of our food system, look no further than your local grocer.

What we find there reveals both the system’s greatest achievements and its deepest contradictions. The grocery store offers us unprecedented abundance while masking troubling uniformity. It promises choice while concentrating power. It connects us to global supply chains while disconnecting us from the sources of our food. Understanding these contradictions is the key to understanding how our food system really works—and how we might change it.

The Paradox of Abundance

Walk down any aisle in an American supermarket and you’ll confront what appears to be infinite variety. Hundreds of cereals crowd the breakfast section. Dozens of yogurt brands compete for refrigerator space. An entire wall of nutrition bars promises everything from weight loss to spiritual enlightenment.

Yet behind this kaleidoscope of branding lies striking uniformity. Those hundred different nutrition bars? Most are built from the same handful of commodity crops—corn, soy, and wheat. The cereal aisle’s rainbow of boxes contains variations on the same basic theme. We’ve created the illusion of choice through brand variety while consolidating actual agricultural diversity into a narrow selection of crops.

This isn’t accidental. It’s the logical outcome of an agricultural system optimized for scale and efficiency above all else. Corn, soy, and wheat dominate not because they’re the most nutritious or delicious, but because they can be grown at massive scale and processed into countless products. The grocery store, in all its apparent abundance, reveals the hidden monotony of American agriculture.

The same consolidation extends beyond ingredients to the stores themselves. While shoppers see thousands of brands, most grocery retail is controlled by a handful of chains. These companies decide which products get premium shelf space, which suppliers get contracts, and ultimately which farmers stay in business. The grocery store that feels like a marketplace is actually a carefully orchestrated system where a few powerful players control most of the outcomes.

Shelf Space Storytelling

In this landscape of managed abundance, brands face a brutal challenge: capturing a shopper’s attention in roughly two seconds with a few square inches of package real estate. The front of a package becomes prime territory where complex stories must be reduced to their simplest essence.

This is where nuance dies. A product made with heritage grains grown by a cooperative of small farmers using regenerative practices might simply become “ancient grains” on the front of the pack. The food system’s infinite complexity gets flattened into marketing slogans that prioritize emotional appeal over substantive information.

The grocery store environment itself works against deeper understanding. Hurried shoppers navigating fluorescent-lit aisles while juggling shopping lists and crying children aren’t in the mood for agricultural education. Those well-intentioned photos of smiling farmers become invisible wallpaper. The little signs explaining sustainable practices can’t compete with the thousands of other messages bombarding consumers.

This dynamic warps the entire system. Brands that master simple, powerful messaging thrive regardless of their actual practices. Those that try to communicate complicated truths often struggle to compete. Over time, the market rewards not the best food, but the best marketing. And consumers, hungry for real information but overwhelmed by choice, grab whatever package speaks most clearly to their immediate concerns.

The Geography of Access

The grocery store’s role as the food system’s public face becomes starkest when we map stores across different communities. In affluent areas, shoppers debate the merits of grass-fed versus grain-fed beef while sipping kombucha from the in-store café. Twenty miles away, families navigate Dollar Generals where the “fresh” section consists of a few bruised bananas by the register, if that.

This geographic apartheid in food access follows predictable patterns that mirror broader inequalities. Wealthy communities get full-service supermarkets with extensive produce sections, in-house nutritionists, and specialty departments. Poor communities get convenience stores and small grocers with limited selection and higher prices. The cruel irony is that those who could most benefit from affordable, nutritious food have the least access to it.

These disparities reveal how our food system distributes power. When some communities get full-service grocery stores while others are left with food deserts, we’re seeing the system’s priorities made visible. Profit drives location decisions, not nutrition or community need.

Yet alternatives are emerging that point toward different possibilities. Some retailers use profits from wealthy stores to subsidize locations in underserved areas. Mobile markets bring fresh produce directly to food deserts. Community-owned cooperatives keep food dollars circulating locally while ensuring democratic control over food access. These experiments reveal what’s possible when we design food distribution around community needs rather than just market logic.

The Collective Action Paradox

Every grocery shopper faces the same psychological trap: “I’m just one person. My choices don’t matter.” This thinking, perfectly rational at the individual level, becomes problematic when multiplied across millions of shoppers. It’s the same psychology that suppresses civic engagement more broadly—one voice rarely changes everything, but when everyone thinks this way, we get the outcomes we deserve by default.

History proves this pessimism wrong. The organic movement started with a handful of “health nuts” shopping at food cooperatives and farmers markets. Today, organic agriculture has transformed farming practices across millions of acres. Fair trade certification, once a niche concern, now influences supply chains for everything from coffee to cotton. These changes didn’t happen because any single shopper mattered, but because enough people decided their choices mattered collectively.

The grocery store makes this collective power visible in ways that other civic engagement doesn’t. When demand for organic produce increases, stores expand their organic sections within months. When shoppers ask for local products, buyers seek out regional suppliers. When customers demand better working conditions, retailers eventually respond. The feedback loops are faster and more direct than in traditional politics.

This responsiveness is both the grocery store’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness as a democratic institution. It can quickly amplify consumer preferences, but it also amplifies inequality. The preferences of wealthy shoppers get heard loudly and clearly, while the needs of poor communities go unmet. Recognizing the grocery store as both mirror and maker of our food system means grappling with this tension.

Practicing Food Citizenship

Grasping the grocery store as the food system’s most visible expression changes how we might approach our shopping. Instead of seeing ourselves as individual consumers optimizing for personal benefit, we can think of ourselves as food citizens participating in a collective system.

This starts with diversifying our food sources. Join a CSA for vegetables. Buy meat directly from local farmers. Purchase grains from cooperatives. Keep shopping at your grocery store for everything else. You’re not abandoning the mainstream system—you’re creating alternatives that keep the entire system more honest and resilient.

Within grocery stores, practice strategic engagement. Ask questions and make requests. Store managers notice when customers inquire about sourcing, suggest new products, or ask why certain items aren’t available. Be the person who asks for a bulk section, requests local suppliers, or suggests worker-owned brands. Individual requests might get dismissed, but patterns of customer interest drive purchasing decisions.

Focus your attention where it matters most. Organic certification has the biggest impact on the “dirty dozen” produce items with high pesticide residues. Fair trade certification matters most for products like coffee and chocolate where farmers typically receive tiny portions of retail prices. Local sourcing matters most for products that travel long distances and spoil quickly. Know where your choices make the biggest difference.

Support policy changes that address the grocery store’s limitations. Back ordinances that incentivize grocery stores in underserved areas. Support policies that make healthy food more affordable. Champion regulations that require clearer labeling about production practices. The market alone won’t fix systemic problems—we need public policies that can address market failures.

The Mirror and the Maker

The grocery store will never be perfect. It will always reflect compromises between efficiency and equity, convenience and sustainability, profit and purpose. But that’s exactly why it matters. The grocery store is both mirror and maker of our food system—it reflects our current priorities while shaping our future possibilities.

Unlike far off farms or corporate boardrooms, grocery stores are where we actually encounter the food system in our daily lives. They’re where abstract agricultural policies become concrete realities. They’re where supply chain decisions show up as empty shelves or abundant displays. They’re where our collective choices about what we value get tallied and sent back up the chain.

Recognizing the grocery store as the food system means taking responsibility for what we see there. The abundance and the inequality. The convenience and the hidden costs. The choices and the illusions. These aren’t just market outcomes—they’re collective creations that we sustain every time we shop.

We are not just shoppers navigating retail spaces. We are participants in a food system that we help create with every purchase. The grocery store is where that participation happens, where our individual choices become collective outcomes, where the future of food takes shape. Understanding this is the first step toward building the food system we actually want.

—

This essay was inspired by Mike Lee’s recent podcast episode “The Future of Grocery” on The Tomorrow Today Show. Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Mike was joined by guest co-host Melanie Bartelme from Mintel, and we spoke with Doug Scholz from the California Grocers Association, Cameron Gould Saltman (ex-TikTok Food & Beverage), Michael Robinov from Farm to People, and Errol Schweizer from The Checkout Grocery Update.

This post was originally published on Mike Lee’s wonderfully written and informational substack. You can find the post here. You should subscribe!

You can listen to the full conversation below.

The Future of Grocery

June 5, 2025

After Leaving Starbucks, Mesh Gelman Swore Off The Coffee Biz. Now He Wants To Reinvent Cold Brew Coffee

Mesh Gelman didn’t set out to build a cold coffee company. In fact, when he left his role leading innovation at Starbucks, he didn’t want anything to do with coffee.

“I was interested in the left side of my email address and not the right side, the Gellman part, not the Starbucks part,” he told The Spoon. “I was like, okay, I’m gonna innovate and it’s not gonna be in coffee.”

That resolution lasted about six months.

Now, as founder and CEO of Cumulus Coffee, Gelman is back in the world he knows best, only this time he’s tackling what he sees as one of the most overlooked challenges in modern coffee: cold brew.

Cumulus is a countertop device that delivers nitro cold brew and cold espresso on demand, using a proprietary capsule system. It doesn’t require refrigeration or nitrogen tanks, and Gelman says it produces a café-quality drink in under 60 seconds.

“If we could deliver a premium experience every single time, better than café quality at the push of a button, why would you ever choose to go back?” said Gelman.

The epiphany that set Gelman on his journey to build a cold brew system came during a visit to Starbucks’ Roastery in Seattle, when he tried nitro cold brew for the first time. “I took one gulp of it, and I was like, my God, I’m gonna be in trouble. This is like full of dairy,” he said. “And the barista was like, ‘No, there’s nothing in it.’ It was a transformative experience.”

After three years of bootstrapping the product, Gelman raised funding, including a seed check from former boss Howard Schultz. In total, Cumulus has raised over $30 million.

For Gelman, the mission is clear: bring premium cold brew into the home and beyond.

“We need to take a step back and say, let’s delete everything we know and craft something for cold,” he said.

Cumulus has launched online and in select Williams-Sonoma stores and Gelman says they are targeting both consumer and commercial markets, including offices, cafés, and bars.

You can watch my full conversation with Gelman below or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Building a Home Cold Brew Coffee System with Mesh Gelman

June 2, 2025

Brian Canlis on Leaving an Iconic Restaurant Behind to Start Over in Nashville With Will Guidara

Brian Canlis didn’t expect to be in the restaurant business his whole life.

But as with so many family businesses – especially hugely successful ones like Canlis, which single-handedly put Pacific Northwest cuisine on the map – life and careers happen before we know it.

And there’s no doubt that the brothers Canlis, Brian and his brother Mark, have done a masterful job since taking the reins from their parents (who themselves inherited it from Peter Canlis, who started the restaurant back in 1950). Today, Canlis is as relevant and forward-thinking as ever, a rare achievement in an industry where even the most legendary restaurants often have a shelf life.

So after nearly two decades at the helm, it would have been easy (and expected) for Brian to continue leading the restaurant, enjoying the perks of running a world-famous dining institution perched above Seattle’s Lake Union. Instead, he decided it was time to blow it all up.

“When I became a restaurateur in my 20s, I was single and I tried on the shirt called running this restaurant—and it fit,” Canlis told me on the Reimagining Restaurants podcast. “Twenty years later, I have four small kids and the shirt doesn’t fit in the same way.”

So what does a new shirt that fits his 40-something life a little better look like? As revealed in February in the New York Times, it’s a new chapter in Nashville, where he’s joining forces with his best friend from college, Will Guidara—co-founder of Eleven Madison Park and author of Unreasonable Hospitality—on an open-ended creative partnership.

The two have been close since freshman orientation and even worked together in New York during a brief sabbatical Brian took in 2013. Now, they’re reuniting, potentially for the long-term, but with a little ‘try-it-before-you-buy it’ twist: “We said, ‘Let’s date before we get married’,” Canlis said. “Let’s just work together for a year and see what happens.”

The move reflects more than just professional curiosity—it’s rooted in a desire to be more present as a father and partner, and to explore what work and life can look like when untethered from legacy.

“I started to grow an imagination for what it would look like to have a career where I could be more present to these kiddos every day,” he said. “Where I could exercise a different piece of my brain, and maybe move closer to my wife’s family.”

Leaving wasn’t an easy decision, but it was one supported wholeheartedly by his brother and business partner, Mark.

“He said, ‘You should only be working here as long as you are flourishing as a human,’” Brian said. “‘Our values are only our values if they cost us something.’”

That ethos – prioritizing people over plates – is the red thread throughline of Brian’s journey. Whether it was converting Canlis into a burger drive-thru during the pandemic or hosting wild, pink-painted Barbie-themed fundraisers, the Canlis brothers infused hospitality with heart and a willingness to take creative risks.

Their guiding principle? That a restaurant should be a place where people are inspired to turn toward each other.

“We’re not in the food business,” Brian told me. “We’re in the people business.”

As for what comes next, Brian is embracing the uncertainty. He and Will haven’t put anyting in concrete just yet, just an agreement to explore new ideas and opportunities in hospitality, with Nashville as their testing ground.

It’s a leap. But then again, so was opening the first restaurant in Seattle with a liquor license in 1950. So was putting a fine-dining spot on a cliff above Lake Union. So was painting the walls pink.

Turns out, reinvention runs in the family.

You can watch my full conversation Brian below or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

Brian Canlis on Leaving an Iconic Restaurant Behind to Start Over in Nashville With Will Guidara

May 6, 2025

How ReShape is Using AI to Accelerate Biotech Research

“Biology is so complex, it’s like the most complex piece of technology in the entire world,” said Carl-Emil Grøn. “There’s nothing that’s remotely close. You start from one cell and then you grow into a Michael Wolf who’s now hosting a podcast together with me. That is crazy when you think about it.”

When this former single-cell turned human podcaster caught up with the CEO of ReShape Biotech this past week on The Spoon Podcast, Grøn’s excitement over the miracle of biology and biotech was palpable. But he made it clear that wasn’t always the case. In fact, when he first saw his university friends building a tiny robot for a biotech professor, he told them it was a waste of time.

“I was sure this was not something anybody would need,” Grøn recalled. “But then I started getting a little bit curious about it.”

That curiosity eventually led him to co-found Reshape Biotech, a Copenhagen-based startup that’s automating the slow, manual processes still common in biological research. While new technologies like automation and AI have transformed fields like software and transportation, Grøn saw that many biotech labs were still stuck in the past.

“We have self-driving cars and AI tools that can do crazy things, but biotech workflows look kind of like 1990.”

Reshape’s platform combines robotics, computer vision, and machine learning to help food and biotech companies run hundreds of thousands of lab experiments. The ReShape system uses cameras to monitor petri dish experiments, running AI-powered image analysis on mold growth or bacterial reactions, and helping researchers rapidly test natural preservatives, food dyes, and more. This means research that once took months or years can now be done in days or weeks.

“We have this one company that used to do between like 800 and 1000 experiments per year,” Grøn said. “Whereas with our platform, they’re running more than 450 thousand every single year. So you get this like complete step change difference in how much you can actually do.”

That kind of increase in throughput is becoming more critical as food companies face new pressures, whether that’s from consumers demanding clean labels to a new administration looking to restrict artificial ingredients.

“Nowadays, they (food companies) are going to have to do it right,” he said. “When regulatory pressure comes to push, you have to do it.”

Grøn believes the companies that embrace AI and automation today will have a major advantage tomorrow.

“If we do this well, these companies will be set up to basically take the lead on developing new products in the future,” he said. “They will be the ones who have the data that’s necessary to make AI models that actually work.”

As a startup, Grøn says ReShape is focused on getting their tools into the hands of big players like Unilever and Nestlé, but long-term he has a broader vision, which is to open up the world of biotech data to help make companies big and small more productive.

“My dream, maybe one day, is to open source all of this data and just make it available to the world,” he said. “Because I do think the world needs something like this.”

Grøn was vague on when exactly that would happen, as he said first he has a few constituencies (like his investors) which he needs to serve first. But over the long term, he’s excited about the possibilities.

If you’d like to listen to my full conversation with Grøn, you can click play below, or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Future of Biotech Discovery in the Age of AI

April 30, 2025

How Eva Goulbourne Turned Her ‘Party Trick’ Into a Career Building Sustainable Food Systems

Eva Goulbourne didn’t study food systems in college – she studied the Cold War, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and art history – but her lifelong obsession with food would eventually shape a career that’s taken her across the globe and put her at the center of the global food systems transformation conversation.

I recently caught up with Eva for an episode of The Spoon Podcast to talk about her journey and hear more about her vision for her new podcast, Everything But the Carbon Sink.

“I started subscribing to Martha Stewart Living Magazine when I was about seven or eight,” Goulbourne told me. “What can’t you learn about food systems from Martha Stewart?” That early curiosity became a foundation for what she describes as a “very long-term relationship with food,” one that she would eventually channel into a mission-driven career.

After a short stint at the U.S. State Department, Goulbourne took a job focused on financial services for tobacco farmers in Kenya and Malawi. “That was again like a continued access point to agriculture [and] international development,” she said. The project, funded by Nike Foundation, MasterCard Foundation, and Gates Foundation, introduced her to the role of philanthropy in market development — a theme that would shape her later work.

Her next big step came with the World Economic Forum, where she landed a role on the food security and agriculture team. “That was really, like I was saying, I was off to the races in terms of having access and understanding and helping to facilitate entire regional projects with agribusinesses, the largest retailers in the world, seed companies, fertilizer companies, ministers of agriculture and development banks.”

Goulbourne describes this period (the era after the launch of the UN Sustainable Development Goals) as a pivotal moment when “purpose and profit could very much actually win.” She witnessed corporate leaders, such as Unilever’s Paul Polman, bring ‘net positive’ thinking to global food policy discussions.

But eventually, she wanted to go deeper. “I was really itching to become an expert… I couldn’t be the Jane of all trades.” That itch led her to ReFED, where she became employee number one and helped turn a landmark food waste report into a full-fledged organization. “We didn’t know if anybody was gonna read this thing,” she recalled. “And boy, we didn’t know… hoping that people would receive it well.”

The report was a hit, and Goulbourne stayed on to help raise over a million dollars in philanthropic funding to grow ReFED. But after a few years, a new motivation emerged: motherhood. “I found out I was pregnant… and immediately had this maternal instinct to do more and do something to now protect the planet, the environment, society… So that’s why Littlefoot is called Littlefoot.”

With her consulting firm, Littlefoot Ventures, Eva has guided food brands, startups, and philanthropists through everything from food loss strategies to regenerative ag and capital deployment. “I sort of call food waste a chameleon issue,” she said. “My party trick is that it doesn’t matter what part of the food supply chain you mention, I can convince you and have some access point back to food waste.”

It’s this broad view is that makes Eva such a great podcast host. Her new podcast, Everything but the Carbon Sink, focuses on the intersection of food, climate, and finance , as well as the tough and thorny challenges that prevent progress.

Eva calls these thorny issues no one wants to talk about the ‘ugly baby’ problems.

“For Everything but the Carbon Sink, I decided to have the podcast be focused on this intersection of food… to climate… and then finance, because to answer your question about the ugly baby, how do we pay for this stuff? Why is it so damn hard?”

One thing I noticed about Eva is she works with pretty much every continsituency in the food system innovation. Through her consulting work and now her podcast, Goulbourne is trying to help stakeholders across sectors, from venture capitalists to philanthropists, understand that substantial systems change requires coordinated investment. “You can’t VC your way out of this problem,” she said. “Our food system runs on harvest seasons and weather, and we’re working against and with the climate crisis.”

If you are interested in food system innovation, reducing food waste, or building a career in mission-based investing and fundraising, you are going to want to listen to this episode and subscribe to Eva’s podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also watch our conversation below.

Blended Capital, Big Impact: Funding the Food System Change With Eva Goulbourne

March 31, 2025

Why Ag Has a Unique Opportunity to Be a Solution to Our Climate Problem With TNC’s Renée Vassilos

What if the food system could be a climate solution instead of a climate problem? That’s the question Eva Goulbourne explores with Renée Vassilos, Director of Agriculture Innovation at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), in the debut episode of Everything But the Carbon Sink. Together, they unpack the role of agriculture in addressing the climate crisis—and why capital and innovation are key to unlocking its potential.

“Agriculture has a tremendous negative footprint in terms of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Vassilos. “But it’s also uniquely positioned to be a carbon sink.”

Vassilos explained that by focusing on soil health, reduced inputs, and practices like cover cropping and rotational grazing, farms can become drivers of climate resilience, biodiversity, and profitability. “At the core of how we think about regenerative agriculture, it is about soil health. It’s about rebuilding soil health,” she said. “Because as we think about the role agriculture can play in climate change mitigation, halting and reversing biodiversity loss, and improving freshwater systems, it all anchors around rebuilding soil health.”

Goulbourne believes that the concept of regenerative agriculture can feel messy and hard to pin down. “There are practices, there are values. It’s not one-size-fits-all.” Vassilos agreed, noting that what works in one region or operation might not work in another. “Each operation will have to anchor itself in rebuilding soil health, and the tools they’ll use will vary.”

They also discussed the economic realities farmers face. “It all comes down to economics,” said Vassilos. “The operations that are shifting to regenerative are doing so because it makes business sense, often because they’re producing higher-margin food crops.”

However, with high labor costs, land leasing complexity, and limited short-term ROI, adoption remains slow. To address this, TNC is investing in early-stage agtech solutions aimed at removing the so-called green premium. One example cited by Vassilos is SwarmFarm, an Australian startup building autonomous, lightweight farm equipment. “Their robots enable precise nitrogen application without the heavy soil compaction of traditional machinery,” Vassilos explained.

My favorite part of the conversation is when Goulbourne asked Vasillos what the “ugly baby” in this space is – in other words, the problem in ag that no one wants to touch.

Vassilos didn’t hesitate: “Addressing labor challenges is just absolutely critical,” she said. “These regenerative systems are more complex. That often means they take different kinds of labor, sometimes more labor. We have to be honest about that.” She pointed to emerging technologies in automation as promising, but noted it’s still an underfunded area given its significance.

It was a great conversation, one that really highlights Eva Goulbourne’s unique perspective on the different pathways for capital to help address the climate challenge through the food system. I would encourage you to subscribe to the podcast to ensure you get all of the future Everything But the Carbon Sink pods and check out the video below!

Farming for the Future

March 21, 2025

The Spoon Discusses The Current State of AI Workflows With AI for Humans’ Gavin Purcell

In this latest edition of the Spoon Full of AI Podcast – the podcast where I talk to leaders who are using AI to transform their business (in food and beyond), I catch up with AI for Humans host Gavin Purcell to discuss the rapid advancements and complexities emerging in artificial intelligence. We talk about Google’s new Studio AI platform and its potential as an all-in-one solution for content creation, and we both have reservations about Google’s use of an older image generation model (Gemini 2), highlighting its limitations compared to newer versions like Gemini 3.

AI Studios? with Gavin Purcell

Gavin talked about the transformative shift from traditional file-based computing to generative AI, as noted in Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent keynote. He make a great point talking about how this will be difficult for mainstream adoption, where users expect simplicity akin to social media sharing, yet AI tools remain complex and imperfect.

We both talk about our frustrations with current AI workflows, where we compared the cumbersome nature of local models like Comfy UI to more streamlined platforms such as Ideogram and MiniMax. In the end, we both want a unified, user-friendly AI platform but recognize that technical and creative challenges remain significant hurdles.

We also discuss who we predict will be winners in the AI platform space (no spoilers!), so make sure you listen to see who we pick!

You can watch the full video above or click play below, or find this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts.

February 7, 2025

Jack Bobo: Don’t Let Your Ideology Muddle The Message About Your Food Product

In the second episode of Food Truths on our newly announced Spoon Podcast Network, Eric Schulze sits down with Jack Bobo, Executive Director of the Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies at UCLA, to dive into the complexities of food production, consumer psychology, and the evolving alternative protein market. But my biggest takeaway? The food industry needs to do a much better job of communicating with consumers—and that means factoring in consumer psychology from the very beginning, not as an afterthought.

As Bobo said on LinkedIn about the episode: “How we communicate innovation can mean the difference between acceptance or rejection, progress or pushback.”

A Career Rooted in Food and Policy

The conversation starts with a look back at Jack’s career trajectory, which started on a self-sustaining farm in Indiana. He initially pursued environmental science and law in school, but his career trajectory eventually landed him at the U.S. State Department, where he discovered that agriculture was at the root of significant environmental challenges like deforestation and water consumption. This realization that sustainable food production could be a solution rather than a problem set him on a path to influence global food policy.

After a decade at the State Department working on agricultural biotechnology, sustainability, and food security, Bobo moved into the private sector, focusing on innovative food technologies. Now, as the head of UCLA’s Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies, he’s not just analyzing market forces—he’s navigating the competing narratives in food and ag tech, working to bridge divides through science and psychology to reshape how food, innovation, and sustainability are discussed.

Consumer Psychology and Food Communication

One of Bobo’s biggest takeaways from his time at the State Department was how psychology shapes public perceptions of food. He found that leading conversations with science and technology would often alienate consumers instead of persuading them. Instead, he turned to behavioral science, cognitive psychology, and marketing strategies to better understand how people make food choices.

“Science at the beginning of the conversation just polarizes the audience,” Bobo said. “Those who agree with you, agree more. But those who don’t actually push further against you. The key is to frame messages in ways that connect emotionally and align with people’s existing values.”

Bobo argues that many alternative protein companies fail because they focus too much on their mission and not enough on the sensory experience of their products. Consumers buy food for taste, convenience, and price—not for environmental impact or technological novelty. The key to winning them over is to offer indulgent, satisfying products and market them in a way that aligns with existing consumer food preferences rather than trying to convert them through ideology.

While the alternative protein industry has made strides, Bobo believes many companies have miscalculated their approach.

“Most people won’t buy your product because they believe what you believe,” he said. “They will buy it in spite of it. You need to get your personal beliefs out of the way and let them enjoy your product without feeling like they have to adopt a new ideology.”

He also discussed unnecessary conflicts with the traditional meat and dairy industries. The biggest competitor to dairy, Bobo argues, isn’t plant-based milk—it’s bottled water. Similarly, alternative proteins should focus less on replacing meat and more on coexisting within a diverse food system.

At UCLA, Bobo aims to tackle the growing tensions in food debates by applying behavioral science to communication strategies. He hopes to foster collaboration across the food industry and reduce the polarization that often slows progress. By better understanding consumer psychology, he believes companies can introduce sustainable and nutritious food innovations more effectively—without alienating the very consumers they’re trying to reach.

You can listen to the full conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch the full conversation below. If you like this, make sure to subscribe to Eric’s new podcast and leave a review!

Can We Actually Feed the World?

January 29, 2025

Meet The Spoon Podcast Network

Here at The Spoon, we—like you—are big fans of podcasts.

What’s not to love? Whether we’re diving deep into a topic we’re passionate about, researching a story, or exploring new interests just beginning to take root, podcasts have become an indispensable resource for us. And we know many of our readers feel the same way.

Personally, I’ve been podcasting and using podcasts as part of my process of discovering and writing about food tech innovators for most of the past decade. As a journalist, podcasts play a crucial role in my reporting process. They’ve allowed me to open-source my discovery journey, bringing The Spoon community along as I learn from subject matter experts about how the world is changing and the industries they’ve mastered.

As both a consumer and a creator of media, I’ve found podcasts to be more essential than ever—especially in an era of AI-generated content. With so much AI-generated media flooding our feeds, it’s becoming harder to discern what’s authentic—whether in written, audio, or video form. That’s why embracing trusted, verifiable voices is more important than ever. Podcasts provide a space for genuine conversations with real people, and that’s something worth amplifying.

Podcasts were also at the forefront of the great decentralization of media. This technology, which started over two decades ago, gave independent voices a platform—no massive media infrastructure required. At The Spoon, we believe strongly in independent media, and we want to leverage our own platform to bring new voices to our community and beyond.

All of this brings us to an exciting announcement: We’re launching our own podcast network!

The idea for The Spoon Podcast Network (TSPN) came to life last year as we engaged with insightful voices across the food tech and future-of-food community. We realized there were so many stories to tell and perspectives to share. While we could certainly invite some of these great minds onto The Spoon Podcast, we started to wonder: What if we could do more? What if we could tap into these experts and leverage The Spoon (and our and their collective networks) to extend their insights, conversations, and discoveries to a broader audience?

In other words, could we open-source the explorations of smart people across food, nutrition, and modern life—so that more of us can learn, engage, and join the conversation?

So that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re launching a great slate of new podcast hosts, and we’re already in talks with more creators to grow the network. Here’s our debut lineup of new podcasts launching with our partners:

Food Truths

On Food Truths, Food scientist Eric Schulze—former head of Global Regulatory at UPSIDE Foods and a former FDA regulator—will bring on smart minds from the food world and beyond to bust myths, uncover surprising truths, and dive deep into the science of food. (Apple Podcasts, Spotify).

Watch What You Eat With Carolyn O’Neil

As CNN’s original health and nutrition contributor, Carolyn O’Neil has spent decades covering how technology and innovative changemakers are reshaping nutrition. On Watch What You Eat, she’ll explore the worlds of food, nutrition, and cuisine, tracking new trends and helping listeners embark on new culinary adventures.

My Food Job Rocks

We’re not just creating new shows—we’re also bringing on seasoned hosts with podcasts we’ve long admired. Adam Yee, one of the original food-industry and food-innovation podcasters, launched My Food Job Rocks nearly a decade ago. We’ve been fans of Adam’s insightful and fun conversations with industry leaders, and we’re thrilled to welcome him to the network as he re-launches his iconic show.

Maybe Food, Maybe Tech

In addition to relaunching My Food Job Rocks, Adam Yee is launching a brand-new show with co-host Kai-Hsin Wang. On Maybe Food, Maybe Tech, they’ll break down current events, explore innovative companies at the intersection of food and technology, and share personal insights on life and industry trends.

The Tomorrow Today Show

Mike Lee, author of MISE and a longtime food futurist, has a talent for deciphering early signals and identifying what’s around the corner. On The Tomorrow Today Show, he’ll tackle big questions about sustainability, technology, pleasure, and connection—viewed through the lens of food.

Women Innovators in Food and Farming

Award-winning journalist Amy Wu hosts Women Innovators in Food and Farming, where she interviews women entrepreneurs driving change in agri-food tech. From advancements in seed breeding and soil innovation to cutting-edge robotics and automation, Amy explores the stories and insights shaping the future of food and farming.

Everything But The Carbon Sink

Hosted by Eva Goulbourne—an experienced strategist in food systems transformation and climate philanthropy—Everything But the Carbon Sink examines how agriculture, food waste, and land use impact the climate crisis. Each episode highlights forward-thinking solutions, financing strategies, and the key players driving change at the intersection of food and climate.

Soul to Table

Join Chef Ryan Lacy on the Soul to Table podcast. he goes on a journey to explore our food systems from seed to table through the eyes of our guests, chefs, ranchers, food scientists, farmers & many more.

Spoon Full of AI

In this show, The Spoon’s own Carlos Rodela dives into the cutting-edge world of artificial intelligence. We go face-to-face with industry innovators who share firsthand how AI is transforming their industry and how they are meeting the challenge by utilizing AI in their business. In each episode, we’ll also explore the latest AI tools powering big change, complete with suggestions for leveraging them in your business.

The Reimagining Restaurants Podcast

In this podcast, I talk to entrepreneurs, chefs, and industry leaders who are redefining what it means to run a modern restaurant—leveraging robotics, AI, automation, and sustainable practices to enhance customer service, optimize operations, and drive profitability.

And, of course, we’ll continue to feature The Spoon Podcast, our flagship show covering innovators across the food system. Over the next couple of months, we’ll spotlight conversations on The Spoon Podcast with all of our new hosts so you can get to know them better and hear from them about why their podcasts are must-listens.

You can check out all of our shows on The Spoon Podcast Network page, where you’ll also find links to the podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and their RSS feeds. Please subscribe!

And if you’d like to support our podcasts and independent media through sponsorship, drop us a line—we’d love to have that conversation.

Finally, a big shoutout to our hosts who believed in this vision, and to The Spoon team, including Carlos Rodela (our producer) and Tiffany McClurg, our head of operations (and new warm-read specialist!).

We can’t wait to bring these conversations to you. Stay tuned!

November 26, 2024

Sam Calisch Thinks Your Next Stove Should Have a Battery

After earning a PhD from MIT, Sam Calisch spent much of the past decade advocating for electrification and shaping climate policy as a lobbyist. His efforts included helping start Rewiring America, an organization focused on electrifying homes, businesses, and communities, as well as co-writing Electrify, a book about electrification, and a series called Circuit Breakers on the same topic.

But his work as a lobbyist revealed gaps in the market. “We were at a point where we no longer need huge, science project-type ideas,” Sam said. “What we need now are products that help deploy the amazing technologies we already have—solar, wind, batteries—faster and cheaper.”

This realization led him to explore creating a company to address those gaps. In 2020, he co-founded Copper, a company with a mission to transform how we cook and power our homes, starting with its flagship product: an induction stove with a built-in battery.

According to Sam, Copper was born to address a key adoption barrier: the high cost of electrical upgrades required for induction stoves. “People were spending more on rewiring their homes than on the stove itself,” Sam explained in an interview with The Spoon. His solution—a battery-integrated induction stove—allows users to plug into existing outlets, eliminating the need for costly electrical work.

But the battery wasn’t just a workaround—Sam believes it makes for a superior stove. “When you put a battery in a stove, it makes it a much better stove,” he said. “It’s silent, thanks to DC induction, and has enough power to preheat the oven in just four or five minutes. You can cook faster and more precisely than ever before.”

After securing a Department of Energy grant and venture funding, Sam and his co-founders began developing an early prototype. The first versions, however, weren’t exactly polished. “The first one I built, I lovingly call the shopping cart,” Sam said. “It was a set of rolling wire shelves with the components strapped on. I was so proud of it, but when I sent pictures to some folks in the industry, they couldn’t quite see the vision.”

Since then, Copper has come a long way. The company now assembles its stoves in California and primarily sells them in New York and California, with plans to expand. “We’re scaling manufacturing and doing deliveries every day,” Sam said. “It’s inspiring to see people switch to our product and love cooking on it.”

Beyond cooking, Copper’s stoves could play a larger role in energy management. The built-in battery allows users to store renewable energy and use it during peak times, reducing reliance on the grid. “It’s a powerful tool,” Sam explained. “You can charge the battery with solar power during the day and cook with it at night. It’s about giving people agency over how and when they use energy.”

Looking ahead, Copper plans to launch more appliances that bridge the gap between sustainability and performance. “Look around your house—especially at the appliances that use gas today,” Sam said. “We’ve got exciting projects in the works.”

For Sam Calisch, Copper isn’t just about selling stoves—it’s about transforming how people think about electrification. “We want to make switching easy and show the best versions of what’s possible,” he said.

You can listen to my full conversation with Sam by clicking the podcast player below, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Next

Primary Sidebar

Footer

  • About
  • Sponsor the Spoon
  • The Spoon Events
  • Spoon Plus

© 2016–2025 The Spoon. All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
 

Loading Comments...