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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Scott Heimendinger

Podcast: Creating New Categories in Kitchen Tech With Scott Heimendinger

Scott Heimendinger was ready to talk about his plan.

I’d just spent a half hour talking to the longtime culinary innovator who’d spent much of the past decade bringing some of the first consumer sous vide and steam oven products to market, and after telling me about his journey through starting a company, working for Modernist Cuisine and later Anova, Heimendinger was ready to raise the curtain on what he wanted to do next.

Well, almost.

Heimendinger was ready to talk about the type of product he wanted to build (a category creator) and how he wanted to do it (by doing lots of prototyping and researching). However, what he wasn’t ready to spill the beans on is what he is actually building.

I can’t blame him. The kitchen hardware market is notoriously competitive, a space where something goes from novel to commoditized in a matter of a few years. Heimendinger had that experience with his own company (Sansaire), where he’d helped create one of the first consumer sous vide appliances.

“It’s only a matter of time until you could walk into a RiteAid and buy a sous vide machine on the same aisle that sells the Oster toasters for $25,” he told me.

One way to prevent that fast move towards commoditization – or at least make money before it happens – is to lock up the intellectual property first by filing patents (something Heimendinger has already done) and keep quiet about what you’re building until it’s ready (something he’s doing now).

So while Heimendinger wasn’t ready to give me all the details about the new product he hopes will be a category creator, I was happy to hear about his motivation for starting a new kitchen tech company.

“I’ve realized over my past experiences with MC (Modernist Cuisine),with Sansaire, with Anova and doing my own thing, even with my time at Microsoft, is that I really love zero to one,” he said. “I really love the part that I’m in right now, which is that I’m making something new.”

In other words, Heimendinger likes inventing things. Navigating the unknown.

But while he loves the ‘zero to one’ part, what he doesn’t like is taking a product beyond that. For that, Heimendinger knows he needs a team.

“When I get through prototype and spin up some flashy PowerPoints, bug all of the friends in my network to test this thing and give me feedback and listen to my stupid pitch over and over and over again, then I would like to go to companies that might be able to commercialize it,” he said. “And do what they’re really good at, which is make sure that it can get successfully manufactured and priced right, and marketed right, and distributed right. All that stuff.”

And then what?

“Hopefully, go back to the next zero.”

I caught up with Heimendinger for the latest episode of the Spoon Podcast. If you’d like to hear our full conversation, just click play below or find it at Apples Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you’d like to see Heimendinger at Smart Kitchen Summit 2021 virtual in November talking about how to build category creators, get your ticket here.

From Arduino to TinkerCAD, a DIY Checklist to Help You (Yes, You!) Build the Next Great Kitchen Gadget

There is something liberating about being forced to shelter in place. I mean, there is a lot of stress that goes along with it too, but there’s no pressure to go out and enjoy the world or socialize when neither of which are allowed.

All of which is to say that if you’ve ever had a great idea for a business, now could be the time to start on it. And if you’ve ever had a great idea for a kitchen gadget (or any piece of hardware, really), then you should definitely check out the “Building The Future Kitchen: Rapid Prototyping Your Way to A Next-Generation Kitchen Product” virtual fireside chat we held this week with Seattle Food Geek, Scott Heimendinger and Larry Jordan Jr.

Seriously, watch the video because not only will it inspire you, but Heimendinger and Jordan also provide super practical advice, highlighting low and no-cost tools available to any budding inventor. Best of all, as the two point out, you don’t need a computer science degree to do it.

Here’s a brief checklist of the tools and materials they talk about that could help you prototype the next amazing kitchen device:

  • Arduino‘s cheap micro controllers, buttons and sensors easily add functionality to your device
  • Raspberry Pi‘s simple single board computers and accompanying “HATs” for computer capabilities
  • TinkerCAD is a browser-based hardware design tool that lets you drag-and-drop pre-made starter circuits, design housings, and download code to run Arduinos
  • EasyEDA is another browser-based design tool to help you design more complex printed circuit boards that you can even have fabricated and shipped to you
  • Shapeways is an online 3D printing service because you shouldn’t buy a 3D printer right away, especially when you don’t know what materials your device will need (plastic vs. aluminum, etc.)
  • The LoRa communication protocol is good for intra-device communication without the need to add WiFi components
  • The Things Network provides tools to create an Internet of Things application
  • Access to a CNC machine to create housing for your hardware
  • If you do want to learn how to code, Jordan likes Python for his devices and there are lots of resources online to help you learn it

Again, watch the full video for more context and information, plus, you get to see the cool things Heimendinger and Jordan are working on (a texture analyzer and big-ass connected meat smoker, respectively).

Building The Future Kitchen: Rapid Prototyping Your Way to A Next-Generation Kitchen Product

And this virtual fireside chat is just the beginning for us. The Spoon is hosting three more talks over the next month:

All of these talks are free to watch, so register for them today and follow us on CrowdCast to catch up on all virtual events we hold in the future.

Join Us and Seattle Food Geek for a Free Virtual Workshop on Building Next-Gen Kitchen Tech

Back when I learned Scott Heimendinger (aka the Seattle Food Geek) was leaving Modernist Cuisine, I immediately wondered what he was going to build next. After all, Scott is the guy who basically invented the consumer sous vide circulator, arguably the biggest kitchen cooking creation the last decade outside of the Instant Pot.

While Scott plans to keep much of what he’s building under wraps for the time being, that won’t stop me from trying to pry as much info as I can from him next week when he welcomes us into his home workshop to show off how he thinks about and prototypes next-generation kitchen technology.

We’ll also be joined by Larry Jordan, a long-time chef and kitchen tech maker who is known for bringing crazy cool ideas like a connected salumi maker to life.

If you’d like to join us for an interactive conversation and get a peek at both Scott and Larry’s workshops as well as into how they innovate and prototype and innovate new kitchen tech, you’ll want to join us next Tuesday April 21st for our live interactive event, Building The Future Kitchen: Rapid Prototyping Your Way to A Next-Generation Kitchen Product.

Come armed with questions and ideas for Scott and Larry to react to because we’re going to set aside plenty of time to take them. And who knows, maybe you can tease a secret or two out of Scott or Larry about their next big idea.

Sign up today!