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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

self-driving

AutoX Drives off with $100M in Funding to Expand its Autonomous Vehicle Fleet

Self-driving vehicle company AutoX closed a $100M Series A funding round earlier this week, reports KrAsia. This round was led by state-owned Chinese car company Dongfeng Motor, with participation from Alibaba, Silicon Valley’s Plug and Play China fund and Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation. This brings the total amount raised by AutoX to $160.1 million.

In addition to building an autonomous driving platform that can be integrated into standard vehicles, the company launched a unique grocery delivery + mobile commerce pilot in San Jose, CA in August last year. While the service allows users to order groceries through the AutoX app on their phone, the delivery vehicle itself is also stocked with items that can be purchased on the spot.

In January of this year, we reported on how AutoX was quietly expanding into more restaurant delivery. Delivering meals allowed for more stops per trip, and helped avoid one of the drawbacks of self-driving grocery delivery–the fact that groceries can be heavy and consumers still need to lug them from the curb to the house or up apartment stairs.

Unlike Nuro or RoboMart which make small, low-speed pod-like vehicles, AutoX is intentionally sticking with full-sized autonomous driving. The company believes the longer distances and faster driving capabilities of full sized cars make them more useful here in the U.S.. Additionally, unlike those self-driving rivals, AutoX is not making its own car and is instead focusing only on the self-driving technology, which can then be applied to different car types like sedans and minivans.

AutoX plans to use its new money to build out its autonomous fleet and hiring up its technical team.

Udelv Partners with HEB for Autonomous Grocery Delivery Test

Autonomous vehicle startup udelv has partnered with Texas-based grocery chain HEB to run a self-driving delivery pilot in the San Antonio area, according to TechCrunch. The HEB agreement adds to udelv’s customer roster, which also includes Walmart and online grocer Farmstead.

The pilot will start with one of udelv’s second-generation Newton self-driving cargo vehicles. Udelv vans come equipped with compartments to store goods or, in this case groceries. Once loaded at the store, the vehicle autonomously travels to its delivery destination (there’s a human on-board for safety) where the user can unlock the compartment with their phone to retrieve their groceries.

If you’re interested in getting your groceries via a self-driving car, Texas is the place to be. In addition to the forthcoming HEB/udelv partnership, earlier this year, Kroger expanded its self-driving grocery delivery via Nuro vehicles to Houston.

The whole self-driving grocery delivery space is just getting off the ground, and exactly what it will ultimately look like remains to be seen. Udelv uses full-sized cargo vans for its deliveries. Nuro uses low speed pod-like vehicles that are half the size of normal cars. Meanwhile, Robomart, which also uses pod-like low-speed vehicles, has partnered with Stop&Shop not for deliveries but to drive around mobile mini-stores that sell various groceries autonomously on the spot.

Vehicles like udelvs have a long delivery range, but their high-speed and heavy mass may encounter more regulatory hurdles as lawmakers learn to cope with self-driving vehicles. Smaller, low-speed vehicles may have an easier time with local laws, but won’t be able to travel as far or as fast.

Hanging over all of this innovation, however, is the question of whether or not customer want autonomous delivery. Once a vehicle arrives at your house, you still have to go out to the curb and lug heavy bags into the house, which can be a pain if you live up a bunch of stairs or are infirmed. That’s one reason why AutoX, which uses regular self-driving sedans for its deliveries and mobile commerce, moved more towards restaurant delivery.

Despite its drawbacks, self-driving delivery has its advantages too. With no humans (eventually) to pay, deliveries can happen around the clock, and software-determined driving, which keeps track of all kinds of data along its path, can make for more efficient routing and delivery.

If you’re a HEB customer in Olmos Park, TX, tell us if you chose self-driving grocery delivery, and how it went.

Ford Developing Bi-Pedal Robot to Carry Deliveries from Driverless Cars to Your Door

Plenty of companies are bringing robot-powered delivery of food and other household goods to the last mile, but most stop at the last few feet. Autonomous cars park at a curb and little rover bots typically can’t climb the front steps of a house.

Which is why Ford is working on a bi-pedal robot that literally walks deliveries from driverless cars right up to your front door(h/t to Bloomberg). Dr. Ken Washington, Vice President, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer published a post on Medium today outlining the program, writing:

Enter Digit, a two-legged robot designed and built by Agility Robotics to not only approximate the look of a human, but to walk like one, too. Built out of lightweight material and capable of lifting packages that weigh up to 40 pounds, Digit can go up and down stairs, walk naturally through uneven terrain, and even react to things like being bumped without losing its balance and falling over.

Like something straight out of an Asimov novel, Digit folds up and sits in the back of a driverless delivery van. When a package needs to be delivered, it emerges from the vehicle, stands up and carries the package to a person’s doorstop. Digit doesn’t have a ton of autonomy gear and processing power on it. Instead, the driverless car, which is packed with sensors and mapping equipment, sees the surrounding area and sends Digit the best path to the door. If Digit needs help, or encounters something unexpected, the problem can be sent up to the cloud where another system (perhaps even a human) can assist.

Though the Ford post didn’t mention groceries specifically, they are a good use case for this type of robot delivery. Groceries are heavy, and even if a driverless car brings them to a house, a person still needs to go out to the street to retrieve and lug them back inside. The weight of groceries is one of the reasons self-driving delivery company, AutoX moved more into (the much lighter) restaurant food. For most, this walking to the curb is a minor inconvenience, but for those who have trouble moving, a robot walking packages to the door would be a big help.

Ford isn’t alone in getting goods up directly to your front door. Earlier this year, FedEx unveiled a its own delivery robot that can climb stairs (though it uses wheels, not legs), and Amazon received a patent for an autonomous robot that would live in a home’s garage and would venture out to fetch packages from delivery trucks.

There’s no word on when or if this particular version of Ford’s delivery vision will be coming to a neighborhood near you, there are still a lot of regulatory hurdles for self-driving vehicles to get through. But with the pace of innovation, robots are bound to be bounding up your walkway to deliver a package someday soon.

The Spoon Newsletter: Cinder Gets Sued; Food Blockchain Ripens; PicoBrew Ships

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

Happy Friday, all! Catherine here. Our team’s hard at work putting the finishing touches on the Smart Kitchen Summit (you have your tickets, right?), but it’s been a busy couple of days for news as well.

First and foremost, a few days ago Chris Albrecht uncovered the story that Palate Home, the company behind the Cinder grill, was ordered by a court to pay $294,736 to Tony Fadell’s investment firm, Future Shape LLC. We’ve been following this smart grill, which delivers sous-vide-like precision cooking via a unique two-sided precision heating surface, for the last couple years. But like so many crowdfunded hardware companies before it, Cinder was hitting manufacturing roadblocks and delaying shipping dates to its backers. Which is why Chris looked into it in the first place — and found much more than he bargained for.

We’re not sure if this is a death knell for Cinder, though it certainly seems that way. Stay tuned for updates.

In positive news, Ripe.io, a company which is working to create the “blockchain for food,” just raised a $2.4 million seed round. Mike Wolf spoke with Raja Ramachandran, the company’s CEO and co-founder on his podcast last year. Here’s how he explained the concept behind his startup:

If a farmer wants to say I harvest strawberries these two days, well, they can say that, but do they say that to everyone? … That’s the beauty of blockchain. It manages the decentralized nature of the food business, so people can post data, they can protect it, they can share it, they can create records with it… In the end for the consumer, they basically get a longer record.

Ripe.io is capitalizing off of two trends: blockchain madness, and people’s desire for increased food transparency. If the company can successfully create the blockchain for food — something that others like Goodr and FoodLogiQ are already playing around with — then consumers can instantly know a plethora of details about their food: where it was produced, when it was harvested, whether it’s organic/GMO, etc. Ramachandran will be at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) discussing blockchain’s potential within the food system, so join us there to hear more.

The ability to trace the origin of your food with 100% accuracy is a good thing, but what if you could bring the farm to you? That’s exactly what Freight Farms, a company which creates “Leafy Green Machines” — that is, climate-controlled vertical farms in shipping containers — is trying to do.

Excited to see new ideas for recreating the future of food and cooking? We announced our Startup Showcase winners this week, so you’ll want to check them out!

Jenn Marston wrote about their new Grown service this week, which helps Freight Farms customers manage temperature, water usage, and other aspects of the indoor farm units so that they can grow produce with super-limited space. Jenn’s optimistic that this tech could allow institutions — like public schools and hospitals — to have access to super-fresh, healthy greens (and more). While smaller scale than Freight Farms, Estonian smart indoor grow system Natufia raised $1.2 million this week.

The PicoBrew Z brewing system

In other news, Mike Wolf covered PicoBrew’s initial shipment of their Z Series, a modular brewing system that lets home beer creators scale up to make 10 gallons per brew. They may have delayed the Kickstarter for their Pico U, but this shipment shows that PicoBrew is still kicking — er, brewing.

Chris also covered NEXT Future Transportation’s new mobile lockers, which are yet another step towards a future in which autonomous vehicles deliver us our groceries and pizza along with our packages. For those who still want a retail experience in the future, however, the convenience store will probably still be there — it just might look different. Read Chris’ piece on Dirty Lemon’s new cashierless, honor system-run pop-up store to see how.

Finally, this week I wrote about all the food I tasted at last week’s inaugural Good Food Conference. It’s a smorgasbord of plant-based products, from vegan sausages to eggs made of mung beans. Check it out.

Smart Kitchen Summit is a mere three and a half weeks away, and it’s shaping up to be our best one yet. Just check out our program and speakers if you don’t believe me. Don’t get left behind — use the discount code NEWSLETTER to get 25% off of tickets (just click here to have the discount applied automatically via Eventbrite).

Have a great weekend!
Catherine

In the 09/14/2018 edition:

John Pleasants Thinks the Oven of the Future is Powered by Light

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 14, 2018 10:02 am
We at the Spoon have long been curious about Brava, the stealthy smart kitchen startup which recently debuted its first product: an oven which uses the power of light to cook food quickly and precisely, with low energy usage. See him at the Smart Kitchen Summit in October.

Walmart Acquires Cornershop, While Jet.com Gets in a New York State of Mind

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 14, 2018 08:50 am
Walmart announced yesterday that it is expanding its digital presence in Latin America with the $225 million acquisition of Cornershop, an online marketplace for on-demand delivery from supermarkets in Mexico and Chile. While that move continued the retail giant’s global spending spree, domestically, the company’s subsidiary Jet.com unveiled a revamped website featuring enhanced grocery delivery options.

Dirty Lemon’s New Pop Up is Part of a Convenience Store Revolution

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 03:48 pm
Dirty Lemon, a startup that sells fancy water infused with ingredients like charcoal, CBD and collagen for more than $10 a pop, made The New York Times today with its new pop-up store in New York that puts you on the honor system when you pay.

Mod Pods! NEXT Future Transportation Announces Mobile Lockers

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 12:19 pm
A lot of transportation in old sci-fi movies was pod-based. People would travel through futuristic cities in quiet, autonomous, sleek pods that picked them up and dropped them off. What those movies missed, and is now becoming a reality, are fleets of pods running around to bring us our packages, restaurant food and groceries.

A Plant-Based Tour of What I Ate at the Good Food Conference

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 13, 2018 09:00 am
From vegan sausages by Beyond Meat to mung bean scrambled eggs from JUST, here’s a culinary tour through all the plant-based foods I tried at the Good Food Conference last week.

FoodShot Global Launches Fund to Land Food Moonshots

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 13, 2018 06:30 am
We know that there is no shortage of food-related accelerators helping get the next generation of startups off the ground. But FoodShot Global, a new investment platform that launched today, doesn’t just want to get startups off the ground: it wants them to aim for the moon.

Court Ordered Cinder Grill Maker to Repay Tony Fadell’s Investment Firm $294,736

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 12, 2018 11:00 am
Palate Home, the company behind the Cinder grill, was ordered by a San Mateo court in August to pay $294,736 to Tony Fadell’s investment firm, Future Shape LLC. The default judgment compels Palate Home to repay a $250,000 loan to Future Shape plus $43,737 in interest as well as $999 in costs.

Impossible Sliders Roll Out at all White Castles Nationwide

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 12, 2018 10:18 am
Today Impossible Foods, the company famous for their plant-based “bleeding” burgers, announced today that it’s expanding its partnership with fast food chain White Castle. The Impossible slider is now available in all of White Castle’s 377 locations, from New York to St. Louis.

PicoBrew Ships Z Series, A Modular Brewing System for Aspiring Craft Brewing Pros

By Michael Wolf on Sep 12, 2018 09:00 am
PicoBrew announced this week that the first Picobrew Z1 has rolled off the production line and made its way to the customer, local food pioneer Ron Zimmerman of the Herbfarm. As you might recall, the Picobrew Z series is PicoBrew’s attempt to fill the gap between the home and pro markets with a modular brewing system.

Freight Farms Unveils Onsite Vertical Farming Service

By Jennifer Marston on Sep 12, 2018 06:00 am
Your average institution, be it schools, company, hospital, or university, typically doesn’t have the space or cash to consider an indoor farming initiative, even if it would mean putting fresher, more local greens into cafeterias and dining halls. That’s an issue Freight Farms looks to solve with the release of its new service Grown.