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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Israel’s Tastewise Turns Diverse Data into Real-Time Insights Using AI

Those who rely on data to make an important business decision know the adage, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Data is plentiful for those in the food world, but it is a challenge to select the correct data, understand what the information means, and how it relates to your specific situation.

Enter Tastewise, an Israeli market intelligence platform that harvests a vast—and we mean vast–array of structured and unstructured data and turns it into meaningful insights. Working with Nestle, Mars, PepsiCo, and others, Tastewise recently upped its game by adding AI capability using ChatGPT to its functionality.

In a recent interview with The Spoon, Alon Chen, Tastewise Co-Founder, and CEO explained the company’s origins. After working for Google, Chen ran into Eyal Gaon, who became co-founder and CTO. The two men discussed the gap between bringing new products to market and eventual success.

“We found very early on that 90% of innovation–tens of thousands of new products that come out to the market every single year– fail, right? CPG companies and others win up; they innovate a lot less and focus on acquisitions because they can’t keep up. We took a deeper look at this and said, why is that? “

The answer became evident to the two men. Companies, especially in the food area, focused on retail data, which becomes stale quicker than a week-old banana. “Retail data is not good for the food industry because if something is successful and you see that on sales data, you are already 18 months too late,” commented Chen.

Which led to a two-part solution—the underpinnings of the Tastewise platform. Step one is harvesting data from myriad sources ranging from restaurant menus to recipe sites on the Web. The trick of turning raw information into actionable insights is to take structured (quantitative) and unstructured (qualitative) data and offer users easy-to-understand answers. For example, Tastewise can tell a CPG customer what customers are enjoying the latest food fad. The details of those results can go deep into the location and demographics of those trends and the foodies behind them.

“We call it the fast-moving consumer data,” Chen observed. “Fast moving consumer data, which is a whole new category that we think that is evolving today and is now being integrated into the different workflows and the tasks nig companies have in place. Tastewise is a layer of data that brings consumer preferences and needs into the food brand and the food manufacturing life cycle.”

Taking its SaaS data platform to a new level, Tastewise has added AI functionality to its product line. Called TasteGPT, users can ask such questions as:

  • What product ideas are the best fit for my Gen Z consumers?
  • What concepts should I invest my R&D budget in?
  • Where should I launch my new beverage product first?
  • Where is my competition under-represented, and what can I do about it?
  • What should the focus of my next marketing campaign be?

“AI influences how consumers choose what to eat and drink in countless ways. Consumers are also more informed than ever, and they expect us to meet their needs accurately, specifically, and on-demand,” Chen said at the March launch of the new AI capability. “TasteGPT can now help companies get closer to their consumers by capturing the pulse of culinary, nutritional, and dietary needs, and to stay competitive in a rapidly changing market.”

“Artificial intelligence is the only way to mitigate a lack of credible data by enabling organizations to make sense of vast amounts of data,” said Gaon. “With relevant AI tools, data turns into meaningful insights that drive better decision-making and innovation in real-time.”

Customizable Fast-Casual Chain Vita Mojo Is All About the Software

When co-founders Nick Popovici and Steven Citou first pitched restaurants the idea for a fully customizable meal service a few years ago, they met with a lot of skepticism. “People didn’t think you could make money by doing bespoke meals,” said Charley Gloerfelt, Vita Mojo’s Head of Brand Development. 

Now, London-based Vita Mojo is trying not only to prove them wrong, but to help other restaurants hop on the modular-meal bandwagon, too.

Vita Mojo allows diners to create a fully customized meal via an in-store iPad at any of their three London locations, or using the restaurant’s app. Customers choose their desired base or protein, sides, toppings, and sauces, which are combined into a final plate that’s priced accordingly. So instead of being locked into a prescribed combo, diners can choose their own adventure. Each of Vita Mojo’s dish options also has a fully transparent breakdown of calories, macro levels, and allergens, so you know exactly what nutritional elements are going into your lunch. As of now there are 9 billion possible combinations.

Since they’re modular, Vita Mojo’s meal prices can vary quite a bit. In general, though, they’ll set you back £5-£7 ($6.50-$9.50 USD) for a basic lunch — the norm for most fast-casual spots in London. According to Gloerfelt, diners usually get their meal three to five minutes after placing their order. That timing might be normal at the average lunch buffet — unless you’re really indecisive — but is pretty speedy for a bespoke, high-quality meal. Plus, all of Vita Mojo’s meal components are geared towards health-conscious customers and made with transparently sourced ingredients.

Vita Mojo has also released a business intelligence platform that allows other restaurants to implement the same customizable meal model. They launched it at the end of 2017, just after we first wrote about Vita Mojo’s modular meal service on The Spoon.

Vita Mojo’s modular meal-building software at one of their restaurants.

The SaaS product lets food establishments track PoS data at a granular level. Since all meals created with the Vita Mojo system are modular, businesses can get a better sense of exactly which foods — not just which meals — are most popular. They can also predict future sales, reduce food waste, and see what ingredients are trending (cough, kale) in order to better inform recipe creation. So if they notice a lot of people are ordering sweet potato mash, they can order and prep accordingly — and even develop a few more recipes starring yams. 

So far, a few smaller businesses, like coffee chains and independent establishments, are using their software. Gloerfelt couldn’t give me any details on pricing for using the SaaS product, saying that it varied depending on how much support the restaurants or cafés required and how much customization they were looking for.

But that’s just the beginning. Vita Mojo only started leasing the software towards the end of last year, and they hope to expand the reach quite a bit within the fast casual dining scene. 

If this made you think of eatsa, you are not alone. The fast-casual chain shuttered all of their storefronts outside of their home city of San Francisco last year in an effort to focus on powering other restaurants with its technology. Though Gloerfelt didn’t indicate that Vita Mojo was planning on doing away with their restaurants anytime soon, she did tell me that they’re intended to be a proof of concept. In other words, they want to show that making a customized meal for every diner walking through the door is as cost- and time-effective as serving a set meal.

Vita Mojo is currently expanding their operations within the U.K. and looking at franchising their ordering and tracking software. 

FoodLogiQ Raises $19.5M to Promote “Traceability” in the Food Industry

FoodLogiQ, the Durham-based platform that helps food industry professionals trace their supply chains, just raised $19.5 million in their most recent funding round. This comes a few months after they snagged $4.25 million in Series B funding in September 2017, a round that was led by Renewal Funds, a mission-based venture capital firm based in Vancouver, B.C.

In this latest round, Renewal Funds was joined by Testo, Tyson Ventures, Pontifax AgTech, Nicola Wealth Management and Greenhouse Capital. This marks yet another investment in food tech startups by Tyson Ventures, who has recently contributed funds to smart oven and meal company Tovala and lab-grown meat startup Memphis Meats. It also comes roughly one month after FoodLogiQ announced their partnership with Testo, which, among other things, added temperature monitoring capabilities to their platform.

In a press release, FoodLogiQ said they would use the funding to grow customer support, increase R&D, and accelerate product enhancements.

The FoodLogiQ Connect platform at work.

Founded in 2006, FoodLogiQ is a cloud-based supplier transparency solution which aims for “farm to fork traceability” in the food supply chain. It does this by offering three products within its SaaS platform (called FoodLogiQ Connect): one which verifies suppliers’ information, one which traces food on its journey throughout the supply chain, and one (still in Beta) which is meant to simplify food recalls.

Here’s an example of how the overall platform it might work: Say a shipment of chicken destined for a restaurant is discovered by the supplier to contain traces of salmonella. If the restaurant has connected their supply chain with FoodLogiQ, owners can trace exactly which shipment of chicken was contaminated and act quickly to take it that particular lot—no more, no less—out of their restaurant circulation. With their recent Testo integration, suppliers could also prevent these sort of situations; if the temperature of a shipment of chicken ever goes above the maximum “safe” temperature en route, they can opt not to serve it.

The platform also works from the top-down: If several cafés report poor quality lettuce, or have incidents of a food-borne illness, FoodLogiQ can identify which supplier those restaurants have in common and trace the issue to its source. Thanks to their intensive focus on traceability, FoodLogiQ’s tracking software promises to cut the cost of food recalls in half.

If you’re thinking that those products sounds pretty similar to those offered by other companies, such as Ripe.io and Intelex, you’re right. Ripe.io, a startup which leverages blockchain technology within the food system in an attempt to create “the Blockchain of Food,” is a particularly interesting comparison. Both companies market their platforms to every level of the supply chain, from growers to restaurants.

Where FoodLogiQ differentiates itself, at least according to their Chief Marketing Officer Katy Jones, who spoke with The Spoon a few weeks ago, is with its full suite of offerings. Their startup is unique in its comprehensiveness, covering everything from supplier management to product traceability to recalls. They also have a centralized platform that aggregates all of these services into one module, which, at least in theory, makes tracking food shipments simpler for their customers. As of now, those customers include industry heavyweights Whole Foods Market, Chipotle, and Five Guys.

While FoodLogiQ makes it easier for grocery stores and restaurants to track down the source of any food issues, their software also puts increased pressure on the suppliers to be transparent about their products and thorough in their food safety. This, of course, is not a huge ask—but it made me wonder if farmers, co-packers, and shipping companies benefit as much from FoodLogiq’s platform as those higher up the supply chain.

According to Jones, they do. “Generally speaking, suppliers have a significant amount of required documentation as a result of the Food Safety Modernization Act,” she told The Spoon. “FoodLogiQ helps them get all of their documents onto one platform and increase efficiency.” The transparency also fosters relationships between suppliers and their customers. While this may hold true for larger suppliers who oversee many growers and want to centralize quality, protocol, and documentation, I can’t help but wonder if the farmers appreciate this level of digital accountability.

This last round of funding, as well as FoodLogiQ’s recent growth, could be an indicator of the potential in food safety tech. Consumers are becoming more and more interested in what they’re eating—and that makes things tricky for restaurants and grocery stores. Not only do eaters want to know where their food comes from (you know that the Portlandia sketch), they also want to know, in detail, how it got to their plate. Add that to a recent spate of news stories on recalls of staples like spinach and lettuce due to listeria and E. Coli, and you’ve got an increase in pressure on food industry groups to tighten up security measures against contamination.

Interestingly enough for a company aimed at promoting consumer safety, FoodLogiQ is a platform built to work exclusively within the food industry. Which leads me to believe that while their myriad of data points and ability to chronicle and trace ingredient journeys may help decrease contamination issues, the platform will go a long way in helping restaurants stay on top of food safety regulations—and cut costs associated with recalls in the process.

FoodLogiQ doesn’t currently use blockchain technology to support their platform at the moment, but they’re looking into it.  But, as we all know, a chain is only as good as its weakest link—and there are a lot of links between most restaurants, especially nationwide chains, and where their food is grown. “At the end of the day a blockchain is a decentralized database, and we’re database agnostic,” said Jones. “We’re trying to help the food supply chain get all their data standardized and in the same language.”

Blockchain has recently become quite a buzzword in the food tech community, hailed as a panacea for everything from fraud to tracing salmonella outbreaks. Jones is a little bit more skeptical, pointing out that blockchain can fall victim to data integrity issues. She stated that FoodLogiQ is going to work on educating the food tech industry on what blockchain is—and what it isn’t.

The success of FoodLogiQ’s latest round of funding indicates a real need within the industry for support navigating food safety issues. Supermarkets, restaurants and the like have to comply with ever-shifting FSMA and FDA regulations and rising consumer expectations for ingredient transparency, and FoodLogiQ wants to help.

“The restaurant industry is changing—get ahead of it with FoodLogiQ,” proclaims their website. We’ll have to wait and see if FoodLogiQ and its competitors, especially those powered by blockchain, are, indeed, the secret weapon of food safety innovation.