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Scott Heimendinger

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

September 22, 2021

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.

April 22, 2020

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:

  • Hack-Proofing The Kitchen: Strategies & Tactics for Securing Connected Kitchen Appliances with Riley Eller (April 30 at 10 a.m. Pacific)
  • A Conversation About Changing Food Habits in the COVID-19 Era with Susan Schwallie (May 7 at 10 a.m. Pacific)
  • The Future of Kitchen Design in a Post COVID-19 World with Johnny Grey (May 14 at 10 a.m. Pacific)

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.

April 15, 2020

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!

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