Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Postmates

Postmates Files to Go Public

Delivery service Postmates has confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO). Bloomberg broke the news this morning, followed by an announcement from the company.

Postmates is the first of the major national delivery services to test the public market, beating out rivals like Instacart and DoorDash. All three services have individually raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture funding: Instacart raised $1.9 billion, DoorDash raised $972 million, and Postmates raised $678 million.

Postmates just snagged $100 million last month, which valued the company at $1.85 billion. The startup will be a bellwether for the rest of the industry: if it pops, then that will clear a path for Instacart and DoorDash to do the same. If it tanks, well… that will make going public that much harder for other food delivery giants.

While we work to remain objective here at The Spoon, we can’t help but be a little excited for a potentially successful Postmates IPO for one reason: it will mean more robots.

Starbucks Expands Uber Eats Delivery Pilot Across U.S.

Starbucks this morning announced (via an email) it will expand the delivery pilot program it runs in Miami with Uber Eats to other U.S. cities. Starting today, the program is available in San Francisco, and will move to NYC, DC, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles over the next few weeks.

Starbucks has been testing out the delivery concept since 2015, when it launched a partnership in the U.S. with Postmates, which it has maintained over the last few years. Then, in 2018, Starbucks teamed up with Uber Eats in Miami to offer “favorite items that have been tested for delivery.” This latest round of cities is an expansion of that pilot.

For the Miami pilot, the caramel Frappucino has wound up being the most popular item ordered thus far. That isn’t surprising, since blended ice, sugar, and whatever else they put in those things will travel a lot better than a piping hot cup of black coffee (though fewer people probably want that in Miami anyway).

Which brings up a good point: hot liquids don’t travel well (duh). The times I’ve ordered coffee from the deli down the block, I’ve gotten a paper cup quadruple-wrapped in plastic cellophane containing a sort-of hot beverage. I’ve always blamed myself for being lazy enough to get coffee delivered in the first place. But if pricey coffee drinks become a standard delivery item, companies like Starbucks may need to think about more delivery-friendly packaging.

Still, I doubt packaging will deter people. The addition of Japan as a delivery market last year suggests the Starbucks-Uber Eats pilot is thus-far fruitful. Others — namely, Dunkin’ and McDonalds (also via Uber Eats) — are also jumping on the coffee-delivery trend, which will fuel more competition in the market.

Uber Eats, meanwhile, is ramping up its efforts across many areas of the food-delivery space. The company has been looking to use drones for delivery, and has exclusive partnerships with virtual (aka ghost) kitchens, too. While I speculate here, one could even imagine Starbucks and Uber Eats setting up a ghost kitchen to handle the influx of extra orders an expanded delivery partnership could bring.

Finally, the Uber IPO has been looming in the future for some time, though it, along with Lyft’s, are reportedly stalled at the moment due to the government shutdown. In any case, expanding a partnership in a space growing as fast as a delivery seems a well-calculated move for Uber Eats, right now and when that IPO eventually does happen.

DoorDash Now Delivers Food to All 50 U.S. States

DoorDash just announced services in three new states, and with that it reached a new milestone: becoming the first third-party delivery service officially operating in all 50 states. According to a press release sent out today, that makes DoorDash available to roughly 80 percent of Americans. As is pretty much customary at this point, DoorDash will offer a deal in honor of today’s news: for today, customers will only pay a 50-cent delivery fee for all orders over $10.

The milestone comes with the addition of DoorDash service to Montana (Billings, Bozeman, Missoula), Alaska (Anchorage), and South Dakota (Sioux Falls), and brings the total number of cities where DoorDash delivers to over 3,300. By comparison, Grubhub says it currently serves 1,700 U.S. cities (plus London). Uber Eats, meanwhile, serves only a few hundred in the U.S. but is expanding all over the map, including to the Middle East and Asia. However, number of cities doesn’t necessarily equal the most marketshare, and DoorDash is still third behind Grubhub and Uber Eats in terms of customers.

It should also be noted that expanding into these new cities (as well as a few in North Dakota and West Virginia) doesn’t mean DoorDash gets a break from the competition, be it Uber Eats and Grubhub or the slew of other services who’ve long operated in small- and mid-sized U.S. cities.

Back in December, we wrote that these places are a new battleground for third-party delivery, now that major metropolises like LA and NYC are (mostly) saturated. To that end, Bite Squad, who was acquired by Waitr in December, is already in Sioux Falls, as is a small company called Zip Dish. BringMeThat operates in Alaska, and CafeCourier is in Missoula, MT.

The U.S. is a big place, but it seems our appetites for delivery are even bigger. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see DoorDash or any of the other top three look to acquire some of these smaller companies at some point in the near future. Stay tuned: the winning battleground could wind up being where we least expect.

Postmates Grabs $100M in New Funding Ahead of IPO

As first reported by Recode, food-delivery heavyweight Postmates has raised another $100 million in equity funding ahead of its IPO. The round includes participation from Tiger Global and other current shareholders, as well as a new investor to Postmates, BlackRock.

The new round comes on the heels of Postmates’ $300 million funding round from September 2018, which gave the company unicorn status and a $1.2 billion valuation. The new round kicks that valuation up to $1.85 billion, according to Recode sources. The funding is also just ahead of a projected IPO, which Postmates hired JP Morgan to advise on.

Postmates, which currently serves 550 U.S. cities, says it’s now available in 60 percent of U.S. households and does about 3.5 million deliveries per month. But in the $3.5 billion food-delivery industry, competitors are just as aggressive.

DoorDash, historically Postmates’ most direct competitor, nearly tripled its valuation last year to $4 billion. Uber Eats, meanwhile, was on track to cover 70 percent of the U.S. by the end of 2018. Uber’s IPO was also slated for the first half of 2019, though that may be delayed thanks to a slowing down of the entire IPO market as a result of the partial government shutdown.

No word yet on whether Postmates’ forthcoming IPO will also be affected by the shutdown. In the meantime, the company can look forward to rolling out is delivery robot, Serve, onto the streets of Los Angeles this year.

Spoon Newsletter: LG’s HomeBrew Appliance, Spinn Update, World’s First Cell-Grown Steak

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

When it comes to smart kitchen startups, there is no shortage of companies trying to change how we make our morning cup of joe.

One of the highest profile startups in this space over the past couple of years is Spinn, maker of a grind-brew coffee machine that utilizes a patented centrifugal brewing technology. I was intrigued enough with the company and its tech to plop down over $300 to join the first “batch” of orders in 2016, but almost two years past the promised ship date, I’m still waiting for my Spinn.

The company has hit some snags as they work to get their coffee maker to customers. While many of the Spinn’s early customers have been understandably frustrated, it appears most are hanging on, intrigued by the company’s periodic updates showing progress on the product. If they’re like me, I suspect many are getting frustrated with a company that continues to advertise and sell their overdue appliance, all the while creating more and more distance between new customers and those still waiting at the front of the line.

Still, I know I have no one to blame for investing my money in a Spinn with the knowledge that coffee startup products have been historically risky investments. With companies like ZPM and Arist turning out to be colossal misses and others like Bonaverde sputtering along for years and periodically shipping out products, I knew full well that I might never see the product. In the end, I may have been better off putting my money towards a Tesla like Spoon reader Rebecca:

“I put money down for this machine in Nov. 2016 (I’m a 1st batch-er) and at around the same time my husband put down money for a Tesla Model 3. At least I now have a smooth ride to the coffee shop!”

You can read my latest update on my Spinn journey here.

Coffee isn’t the only category that can be rough sailing for new startups. The home brew market has been notoriously tough as well, with companies like HOPii and iGulu struggling to ship and others like BrewArt and Brewie failing to get much traction.

Still, this hasn’t stopped South Korean consumer electronics giant LG from jumping into the game. The company recently announced they would debut a new home brewing device by the name of the LG HomeBrew at CES.  The capsule-based beer brewing appliance, which makes roughly the same amount of beer as a PicoBrew Pico per cycle, is expected to ship sometime next year.

What’s interesting to me is a company like LG usually only gets into a business if they see a high volume opportunity, which begs the question what will they do to differentiate their product?  While PicoBrew has certainly raised awareness around automated beer brewing, the company has yet to make home brewing a mass-market hobby, something I am sure LG hopes they can do.

Either way, next year promises to be an interesting one when it comes to tech-powered boozing at home. About a month ago, Keurig and AB InBev launched Drinkworks, a capsule-based instant serve cocktail, cider and beerbot machine expected to ship in limited quantities next year.

While home bev-tech space continues to slowly gestate, the pro market continues to move along at a rapid clip. Just this week, a robot powered bartender by the name of UR5e debuted at Broncos Stadium. The new bartenderbot is essentially robotic arm that grabs a beer cup and fills it (through the bottom, no less) for waiting customers.

Moving beyond beverage bots, this week also saw the introduction of a new sidewalk delivery bot from Postmates that goes by the name of Serve. Serve, which looks like the lovechild of Minion and Starship deliverybot, is expected to roll out in Los Angeles over the next year. And speaking of food delivery, this week Chris wrote about the breakup of Amazon and Instacart, something that’s been rumored ever since the big online retailer acquired Whole Foods.

There’s lots more great analysis to catch up from this past week, including looks at the first cell-grown steak and what the new farm bill means for CBD, so make sure to check it out.

That’s it for now. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week!

Mike

In the 12/14/2018 edition:

Presto Eats May Be the Most On-Trend Meal Kit Company Yet. But Will It Succeed?

By Catherine Lamb on Dec 14, 2018 11:16 am
Whenever I get word about a new meal kit company, it’s hard not to be immediately skeptical. It’s no secret that meal kits are struggling: Chef’d surprised everyone when it shut down abruptly earlier this year. Boston hyper-local meal kit Just Add Cooking ceased operations this fall. And Blue Apron’s stock continues to underwhelm.

The Denver Broncos Get a Beer Pouring Robot at Mile High Stadium

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 14, 2018 08:04 am
While the Denver Broncos may be in the midst of a losing season, they could win over fans this weekend when a new robot starts dispensing Bud Light at Mile High Stadium (h/t The Washington Post). You’d think that such a mechanical miracle would have a fancy name like the “Robo-Bronco” or the “Elway 3000,” […]

Startups! They’re Just Like Us! Amazon and Instacart Break Up

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 13, 2018 04:00 pm
Like Ben and Jennifer, Brad and Angelina, and Cardi B and Offset*, Instacart and Amazon have broken up. In a blog post today, Instacart announced that it was winding down (consciously uncoupling?) its grocery delivery relationship with Amazon. Like with so many other power couples, this breakup wasn’t entirely a surprise.

The Farm Bill Just Passed — What Does That Mean for the CBD Market?

By Catherine Lamb on Dec 13, 2018 02:08 pm
After months of back and forth, Congress voted yesterday to pass the 2018 Farm Bill. The $867 million bill contains lots of wide-reaching legislative measures, like expanded farm subsidies, SNAP revisions, and permanent funding for farmers markets. But perhaps most interestingly, the bill legalizes the production and sale of hemp at a federal level.

What Bowery’s Latest Funding Round Says About Indoor Farming

By Jennifer Marston on Dec 13, 2018 12:00 pm
New Jersey-based indoor-farming startup Bowery announced yesterday that it has raised $90 million in fresh funding. The round was led by Alphabet Inc.’s GV with participation from Temasek and Almanac Ventures, General Catalyst and GGV Capital (Bowery’s Series A investors), and various seed investors. Bowery produces what founder Irving Fain calls “post-organic produce.”

ImpactVision Raises $1.3M Led by Maersk

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 13, 2018 10:11 am
ImpactVision, a startup that uses hyperspectral imaging to assess food quality, has raised $1.3 million, according to VentureBeat. The round was led by logistics and transportation company Maersk, and brings the total amount raised by ImpactVision to $2.9 million. As we wrote last year about ImpactVision: Using a combination of digital imaging, spectroscopy and machine learning, […]

Postmates Debuts its own Bright-Eyed Delivery Robot

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 13, 2018 06:00 am
You know what you can look forward to in 2019? More robots (but more on that in a later post). Case in point: delivery service Postmates announced today that it has developed its own autonomous delivery rover that will be hitting sidewalks next year. Dubbed Serve, the li’l robot is a bright yellow square-shaped box […]

Hi Fidelity Genetics Raises $8.5M for AI-Driven Plant Breeding

By Chris Albrecht on Dec 13, 2018 04:00 am
Hi Fidelity Genetics (HFG), which combines sensors, data and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve plant breeding, today announced that it has raised an $8.5 million Series A led by Fall Line Capital and Finistere Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by HFG to $11.5 million. There are two parts to the HFG system.

Deliveroo Goes Back to the Future with Brick and Mortar Food Hall

By Catherine Lamb on Dec 12, 2018 04:00 pm
You know how they say that in fashion, everything old comes back around and eventually is new again? It seems that the same might be true for restaurants. This week London-based food delivery startup Deliveroo opened up its first brick-and-mortar location in Hong Kong (h/t CNBC). The so-called Delivery Food Hall is home to five […]

Waitr to Acquire Bite Squad for $321.3M

By Jennifer Marston on Dec 12, 2018 02:00 pm
Online delivery platform Waitr has announced plans to acquire third-party delivery service Bite Squad for $321.3 million. The purchase price is a mix of cash and shares of common stock of Waitr. Both companies serve small- to mid-sized U.S. markets. Waitr is a full platform from online order and delivery. Restaurants partnering with the company […]

Postmates Debuts its own Bright-Eyed Delivery Robot

You know what you can look forward to in 2019? More robots (but more on that in a later post). Case in point: delivery service Postmates announced today that it has developed its own autonomous delivery rover that will be hitting sidewalks next year.

Dubbed Serve, the li’l robot is a bright yellow square-shaped box with big lighted eyes on four wheels, and was built in-house by Postmates’ R&D department. According to press materials, Serve:

  • Uses an array of sensors, including Lidar
  • Can carry 50 pounds
  • Goes 30 miles on a single charge
  • Has an interactive touchscreen with a camera
  • Communicates through dynamic lighting in its eyes and a light ring on top to signal a change in direction when moving

Postmates says that in addition to delivery directly to consumers, “Serve can work in congested city centers and bring food/goods from several merchants to one centralized location where our fleet of drivers, bikers and even walkers can take those batched goods and complete the delivery in a more efficient way.”

While Postmates said that Serve will be, err, rolled out in Los Angeles, the company was mum on further details about how many robots will be deployed, as well as when they will be deployed, other than saying over the next twelve months.

Will having its own robots help Postmates stand out in the crowded world of food delivery? More than $3.5 billion has been invested in food delivery startups alone this year. For its part, Postmates has raised $578 million, but rival DoorDash has raised $971 million, and has used robots from Marble for delivery before, and, FWIW, was looking to produce more “moonshots” like robots in-house.

Speaking of Marble, it’s worth noting that Postmates decided to build its own robot rather than partner with a third-party like Kiwi or Starship or Marble. Kiwi is making deliveries in Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, while Starship is now delivering packages and goods on campuses in Silicon Valley and groceries the U.K. Without seeing any numbers, the cost associated with maintaining a fleet of ‘bots must have looked more attractive than sharing or adding to delivery fees with an outside robot provider.

Postmates’ Serve may be the last food robot-related announcement we get this year, but it’s just the beginning of the robot news sure to come in 2019. (Seriously, stay tuned for a post on that!)

$3.5 Billion Invested in Food Delivery Startups This Year

Investors have a big appetite for food delivery companies this year. The Wall Street Journal reports on Pitchbook data revealing that $3.5 billion has been invested in food and grocery delivery startups so far in 2018.

If you follow The Spoon, then this news shouldn’t come as any real shock. We’ve been covering big money deals in this sector all year long. Here’s just a sampling:

And those are just pure play delivery services. We aren’t sure exactly how Pitchbook is defining a food delivery company, but there’s also been plenty of investment in services that boost delivery:

  • Ordermark, which provides software and hardware to streamline delivery orders to restaurants raised $3.1 million in March, followed by another $9.5 million in September.
  • Starship and Marble, two companies building delivery robots, raised $25 million and $10 million, respectively.
  • Though never confirmed, it was rumored that Softbank was looking to invest $750 million in data-driven pizza delivery startup Zume back in August.

These types of venture investments also don’t take into consideration the money existing delivery and grocery players are spending to bulk up. Uber Eats will cover 70 percent of the U.S. population by year’s end. Grubhub just bought Tapingo to capture the college food delivery market. Walmart is building out its own delivery service, Amazon has its in-home and in-trunk delivery service, and Kroger is experimenting with self-driving cars for delivery.

And all of the delivery-related investments and moves in this story are just for North America. That doesn’t even take into consideration Europe, where nearly half of the €6.5 billion (~$7.5 billion) invested in food tech since 2013 has gone to food delivery startups.

The WSJ article raises the issue of whether this frothy investment puts delivery in overhyped bubble territory. The paper likens all the excitement to that of the meal kit investment craze a few years back. Meal kits are still around, but they are moving into retail, and it’s probably best if you don’t look at Blue Apron’s stock price.

To be sure, valuations are sky-high for these companies: Uber Eats is valued at $20 billion, Instacart $7.6 billion, DoorDash $4 billion and Postmates at $1.2 billion. That’s a lotta billions.

But the counter-argument to the bubble talk is that there are a lot of hungry people in this country. Even more to the point, there are a lot of hungry busy/lazy people in this country who would love to have their lunch or dinner magically appear, ready-to-eat, multiple nights a week. As the CEO of Ordermark told me, “Convenience is not a trend.”

In other words, investors’ eyes may not be bigger than their stomachs in this case.

Postmates Raises $300M, More Than $1.2B Poured into Food Delivery Startups This Year

Delivery startup Postmates has raised $300 million in new venture funding led by Tiger Capital, bringing the total amount the company has raised to $578 million. Postmates is now a unicorn with a $1.2 billion valuation.

Fortune broke the funding story this morning, reporting that Postmates wasn’t looking for new money at the time, and that Tiger Capital approached them. The new funding will go towards accelerating the company’s growth in the U.S., and it will need it.

The cash infusion comes at a good time for Postmates, which now finds itself among a herd of unicorns in the delivery space. With today’s news, at least $1.2 billion in new funding has been poured to food delivery startups in 2018 alone: In March, DoorDash raised $535 million, only to raise another $250 million in August, valuing that company at $4 billion. Not to be left out, Instacart raised $150 million in April, valuing that delivery service at $4.35 billion.

This new funding is also a validation for Postmates, which earlier this year was rumored to be in merger talks with DoorDash to better take on giants such as Amazon, GrubHub and Uber Eats.

For those who have lived through previous startup bubbles and bursts, it’s easy to see the delivery space swelling to a dangerous size. But as we’ve seen, grocery and restaurant delivery have plenty of headroom to grow, and as the CEO of Ordermark (another delivery-driven company that recently raised new funding) recently told me “Convenience is not a trend.”

Food Tech News Roundup: Voice-Enabled Faucets, Food Incubators, and No More Meat

Happy weekend! We’re going to make this short and sweet, since there’s plenty of food tech news to read and (hopefully) a lot of sunshine to enjoy.

Without further ado, here are the stories in food and smart kitchen innovation that caught our eye this week.

New reach in food delivery
Food delivery creeps ever further and further into our lives. This week, delivery startup Postmates expanded to 100 new cities, adding 50 million potential new customers. They also deepened their partnership with DIY burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill, adding 300 new stores to their delivery route.

Postmates wasn’t the only food delivery startup with an announcement this week. Uber Eats teamed up with payment app Venmo to let people easily split the cost of rides and food orders. So if your friend eats half of your Pad Thai, you can make her pay you the $6 you deserve.

 

Target rolls out more Midwestern curbside pickup
Shoppers at over 200 Target stores throughout the Midwest can now take advantage of curbside pickup. This brings the total number of stores with the Drive Up feature to over 800, spread throughout 25 states — with more to be announced over the coming months. Which means Target is halfway to national curbside pickup retail domination and has no plans to slow down.

 

Photo: Budweiser.

Drizly brings the Happy Hour to your office
This week online liquor store Drizly partnered with Anheuser-Busch to debut something that every workplace needs: an Office Bud-e fridge. The fridges have smart sensors that sync up to WiFi to automatically re-order beer (Anheuser-Busch, of course) through Drizly when stock is running low. According to a press release shared with the Spoon, the fridge can hold up to 180 cold ones at a time, and is set to rendering “classic ‘beer runs’ obsolete.”

 

Delta touch faucet with Alexa

A sneak peek at the new Delta faucet
Our friend Stacey Higginbotham of Stacey on IoT gave a video review of the new voice-enabled Delta faucet this week. In the video, she asks Alexa to “please turn on her Delta faucet” to let the water go. But things get a lot more specific; she asks Alexa to dispense “one cup” of water, and also to fill a vase that she places in the sink. Both times, success! These may seem like small victories, but it’s an indication of voice assistants connecting even further into smart home gadgets.

We the first to scoop the faucet, which lets you turn on the water with your voice, last year. The product isn’t actually for sale yet, but when it is — we’re interested.

 

Photo: Pepsico.

PepsiCo unveils plans for new food incubator
PepsiCo has become the latest mega CPG company to launch its own food-centric incubator, following in the footsteps of General Mills, Campbell’s, and others. This week on an investor call they announced plans to launch a new food innovation center called “The Hive,” which is intended to refine and grow their niche brands, and seek out new startups for investment. This comes just a few months after PepsiCo partnered with The Hatchery Chicago, a non-profit food and beverage incubator, to help beef up their business.

 

Photo: WeWork.

Meat is off the WeWork menu
This week coworking space giant WeWork made some serious strides to cut their meat consumption. Its 6,000 employees were told that they could no longer get reimbursed for meals including meat, which includes poultry, red meat, and pork. WeWork co-founder also told staff that they were nixing meat options from the startup’s internal “Summer Camp” retreat. No mention was made of fish, so I guess pescetarianism is still kosher?

Use Postmates to Skip Food Lines at the Panorama Music Festival

As a verified “old,” just the thought of going to a multi-day summer music festival is enough to make me scrunch up my face, put on my cargo shorts and stand out on my lawn, waiting to yell at kids to get off of it.

But for you “youngs” brave enough to withstand such things, the Panorama music fest in New York this month just made a big part of the concert-going experience a whole lot easier: Postmates will enable mobile ordering and pickup from food vendors at the show. That means you don’t have to wait in line for your hipster hot dogs or huevos rancheros (like I said, I’m old, I don’t know what you kids eat at concerts anymore).

Fast Company first reported the news, writing that the Postmates app will have a special geo-fence around the island where the concert is being held. When you log in to the app, you’ll see participating vendors at the show and be able to order and pay for your meal, who will then send you a pickup time. Instead of spending precious minutes in line, you can walk over, grab your food and get back to the show without missing a, errr, beat.

This move towards speeding up and automating the food buying process in high-traffic situations, like concerts, is inevitable. Goldenvoice, which puts on the Panorama festival, is the same company behind Coachella, so expect this type of line-destroying tech in more places fairly soon.

In fact, we aren’t that far off from mobile apps and robots automating even more of our live event eating. Entertainment and hospitality company Levy has already announced plans to add robotic assistants like Miso Robotics’ Flippy to its sports and entertainment venues. And a high-profile multi-day festival like Panorama would be a great spot for Cafe X’s robot barista-in-a-box.

Actually, all this automation is making me re-think my aversion to concerts. I mean, there’s nothing cooler than a dad in cargo shorts ordering food on his iPhone, right?

Walmart, Amazon and Target Make Same-Day Delivery Moves (on the Same Day)

Walmart announced yesterday that it was partnering with Postmates to expand the retailer’s online grocery delivery ambitions. This new delivery option started in Charlotte, NC, as of yesterday, and will expand to more markets “in the coming months.”

The news comes less than a month after Walmart announced plans to expand its online grocery delivery service to more than 100 U.S. metro areas by the end of the year. Walmart has existing delivery partnerships with Uber and Deliv, which have been delivering groceries already in select markets. Same day grocery delivery from Walmart carries a $9.95 delivery fee and requires a $30 minimum purchase.

Not to be outdone, Amazon announced yesterday that its Prime customers in Los Angeles can now get free, two-hour delivery from Whole Food stores there. That the two announcements happened on the same day illustrates how fierce that battle is between Amazon and Walmart to bag your grocery business. The two have been locked in a tit-for-tat arms race (in-home delivery, anyone?) ratcheting up features and services to become your grocer of choice. Perhaps feeling left out, Target too announced yesterday its plans to expand its Shipt same day delivery service across Arizona and New Mexico later this month.

The added twist to the Walmart/Postmates announcement is that Postmates had reportedly discussed the idea of merging with restaurant delivery service DoorDash, according to Recode. Though nothing came of any such discussions, and Postmates denied the report, that move was supposedly motivated in part by Postmates and DoorDash wanting to fend off the ever-growing, all-consuming Amazon.

And if all that weren’t enough, last week Instacart confirmed that it had expanded its Series E with an additional $150 million to expand its same day grocery delivery ambitions. Instacart has partnerships with grocery retailers such as Albertsons, Kroger, Costco, and even Whole Foods.

All of this activity points to just how hot and important the same day grocery delivery space is for everyone involved. It’s hits the sweet spot where human laziness and hunger intersect. We’re always going to buy food, and if one of these players becomes our go-to grocer, they’ll reap a recurring weekly revenue source.

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.