Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution
Earlier this month, SimulATE Spring convened the leaders pioneering in food & web3. Now you can watch all the sessions here!
The second installment of the SimulATE event series, we explore how the world of web3 will impact restaurants, CPG, ag, community building, and more.
Subscribers to Spoon Plus can get access to all of the sessions below.
Last year, the meme-based cryptocurrency dogecoin got its first public earnings callout from the company that owns meat stick brand Slim Jim. Conagra Brands CEO Sean Connolly pointed to the social engagement from active dogecoin and Shiba Inu meme coin communities as big factors in Slim Jim’s win in the Adweek March Madness-style brand competition.
And now, it seems the company’s interest in Web3 technology goes beyond the gimmicky marketing campaign. Coindesk reported yesterday that Slim Jim had recently filed for trademarks under “Slim Jim,” “Meataverse,” and “Long Boi Gang” that announce plans for a virtual marketplace comprised of NFTs, virtual food products and virtual goods.
The filings also discuss “providing a metaverse for people to browse, accumulate, buy and sell virtual food products” and seem to indicate that the meat snack food brand will try and take a leading role in leveraging virtual environments to extend its reach and engage the next generation of consumers in immersive experiences.
Slim Jim joins other food brands like Nestle and McDonalds with forays into combining food and Web3 technology as consumer interest in crypto and NFTs continues to rise.
To understand what the food metaverse might look like and why food brands across industries including restaurant, grocery, and CPG are planting their flags in Web3, join The Spoon community on May 4 for Simulate Spring Summit: Food Metaverse + Web3 virtual event. Early bird tickets start at $75 – register here.
We’re in the business of finding and reporting what’s happening on the bleeding edge of food and technology. Discovering invention and innovation and bringing together the people doing this work to talk about it and help others whose business and work will eventually be impacted — this is what we did in early February at SimulATE Food Metaverse & NFT Mini-Summit.
Want more future food? Join Spoon Plus.
Watch SimulATE mini-summit sessions like “Building a Crypto Powered Food Future” and “Making an NFT Restaurant with Gary Vee’s Flyfish Club” by joining Spoon Plus here.
And we were blown away at the response. Not only in registrations but in requests after the fact for the recorded sessions after the fact when recaps were being shared. Each session generated many questions and follow-ups and mentions of other work that we wanted to learn more about too.
That’s when SimulATE Spring Summit was born. Happening May 4, 2022 on our virtual platform, we’re coming back with even more sessions, talks and demonstrations to help shed more light on the metaverse, NFTs, cryptocurrency (and all Web3 technology) and their impact, disruption and role in food and related industries.
To take a look at more details and early-bird ticket options, visit the SimulATE Spring Summit registration page. For more info on how to get involved with speaking or sponsorships, email events@thespoon.tech for more details.
Here’s the lineup:
Spoon Plus members can watch the complete sessions below. If you would like to learn more about Spoon Plus, you can do so here.
This week at SimulATE, the first-ever event examining the intersection between food and beverage and Web3, The Spoon hosted a panel on the future of work in the metaverse.
To look at how our jobs may change in a Web3-powered world, we welcomed Amogha Srirangarajan, the CEO of delivery robot startup called Carbon Origins, and Barry Herbst, a VP and executive recruiting firm The Elliott Group.
Below are four ways our panelists saw work changing as we enter the era of the metaverse:
The Metaverse Will Become A Way to Do All Forms of Work
Srirangarajan, whose company Carbon Origins hires virtual reality experts to operate their sidewalk robots, said in the long term, the work-from-anywhere nature of the metaverse would open doors for workers who have previously been shut out of the labor market.
“You’re going to have jobs that anybody can do in the metaverse.” said Srirangarajan. “The jobs that we’re creating are from all walks of life are moms and dads, as they’re called students, people with disabilities, people from all around the world. They can choose what time they work, how long they work with who they work, and what type of jobs that they work on.”
Web3 Jobs Will Be Community Driven
According to Herbst, jobs in Web3 will be centered around communities.
“Web2 is all about profit, while Web3 is all about that community,” said Herbst. “Brands coming into this space are going to add value to their consumers in a whole different way, connecting with their consumers, their customers, their patrons.”
Srirangarajan agreed that community is essential and sees the metaverse as a great place to find enthusiastic new talent.
“This is how we found every single one of our Skipsters,” said Srirangarajan, referring to the term the company uses for their remote VR robot operators. “The technology’s there now to support large groups of people coming into this virtual world with affordable hardware, and hanging out and building communities.”
The Metaverse as The New Job Training Ground
According to both panelists, the metaverse will be used to teach us new skills we will need for our jobs.
“Training is why we started using VR at Carbon Origins,” said Srirangarajan. “Training is going to be a big application early on. Training for all sorts of industries, starting with the service industry.”
“I foresee a lot of continued training and development not only in the real world but also with the headset, which will save companies a lot of money,” said Herbst. “Having that experience, whether it’s learning how to clean or cook, or even going on a date, having that shopping experience, eating a meal in the metaverse. Humans are social animals, and while we thrive on having that connection with people whether it’s face to face, it’s also fun having just as we’re doing now.”
Meet The Chief Virtual Officer
According to Herbst, Web3 will push brands to create a new executive job role, the Chief Virtual Officer (CVO), and one of the skills required by the CVO is that of digital real estate manager.
“The chief virtual officer will have to be very fluent first in digital land,” said Herbst. “What are the best in class metaverses to buy digital land?”
Another necessary CVO skill will be an understanding of digital security and the ability to fortify a brand’s metaverse presence.
“How do you secure those assets safely? How do you handle a hardware wallet to ensure that you’re not going to get hacked, or have your assets stolen or fished?”
And finally, the CVO will also be the chief Web3 community officer.
“Managing that community and paying it forward is going to be a really large focus for this chief virtual officer,” said Herbst. “At the end of the day, it’s all about relationships and keeping that community intact.”
You can watch the video from the panel, Jobs in a Web3-Powered Food Industry, moderated by The Spoon’s Ashley Daigneault, below.
Tomorrow (Feb 1st) we’re kicking off our first virtual event of the year, tackling a fast-growing area of food tech: the metaverse. We’re bringing together those helping to build the food metaverse and experts in crypto, NFTs and mixed reality to discuss the seismic shifts coming to the world of food tech.
SimulATE: the Food Metaverse + NFT Mini-Summit will kick off The Spoon’s virtual event series in 2022 and host speakers like David Rodolitz, the CEO of Flyfish Club who is working with Gary Vaynerchuk to build the world’s first NFT restaurant.
Another session with Amber Case from Unlock Protocol and Shelly Rupel from Devour Token will focus on cryptocurrencies and the role non-fungible tokens, the blockchain, DAOs and crypto overall will play in the future of dining, food retail and delivery.
We’re going to talk with Supreeet Raju, co-founder of OneRare about the work happening to build the “foodverse” and what it looks like to create a gamified and immersive food experience for users.
What does a Web3 burger chain restaurant look like? Co-founder of BurgerDAO Al Chen will discuss the work of building and funding a completely new operational model for quick service restaurants and the role NFTs will play in supporting the opening of each chain.
Between sessions, you’ll have the chance to network with professionals across the channels and industries involved in Web3, crypto, blockchain, NFTs and mixed reality.
If you don’t work in those spaces but you’re trying to put your finger on the pulse of the “food metaverse” and need a crash course in the future disruption of food with metaverse tech, SimulATE is the place to be.
Check out the full agenda for SimulATE here and get your tickets; the event starts at 9:00 am Pacific on Tuesday, February 1, 2022 and runs until 1:00 pm Pacific. But, if you can’t make it live, grab a VIP pass that gives you total digital access to each session after the event.
SIMULATE, the company behind the NUGGS plant-based chicken brand, announced today that it has raised $50 million in Series B funding. The round was led by SEVEN SEVN SIX, with participation from Chris & Crystal Sacca, NOMO Ventures, McCain Foods, Imaginary Ventures and Day One Ventures. This brings the total amount of funding raised by SIMULATE to $61 million.
The company’s first product, NUGGS, is a pea protein-based “chicken” nugget the company launched through mail order two years ago. In March of 2020, SIMULATE launched its nuggets at retail, and in July of last year it introduced its second product, the DOGGS faux hot dogs. SIMULATE has since expanded its lineup with SPICY NUGGS and DISCS (fake chicken patties). According to the press announcement sent to The Spoon, NUGGS are now available at more than 5,000 retail locations. The company will add another 10,000 retail locations by the end of this year.
SIMULATE’s funding comes at a time of growth for the plant-based meat category. According to the Good Food Institute, U.S. sales of plant-based meat increased by more than $430 million from 2019 to 2020, with the market now worth $1.4 billion.
However, it also comes at a time of increased competition, especially in the fake chicken nugget space, and SIMULATE will need its bulked up warchest to compete. The company faces pressure from smaller players such as Nowadays, which just raised $2 million, and Rebellyous, which just expanded its retail presence throughout the Northwest. Then there are the larger players such as Target, which recently launched its own line of plant-based nuggets. Meat giant Tyson has its own line of plant-based nuggets as well.
SIMULATE says it will use the new funding to triple its team, speed up the development of new products, scale up manufacturing, expand its retail presence and expand internationally.
Plant-based meat company THIS has more than surpassed its £2 million (~$2.6 million USD) target goal on crowdfunding platform Seedrs. So far, the London, U.K.-based company has raised over £3 million — and has 40 days left to go on its campaign (h/t Plant Based News).
THIS, which raised £4.7 in March of this year, calls itself a plant-based meat company for meat lovers. It only launched in 2019, but already has its plant-based chicken nugget and bacon products in stores at 2,000 retailers across the U.K., including those of Tesco, Waitros, and Ocado. The company has some presence in restaurants, too. Its products are made from soy bean protein, water, and pea protein. The inclusion of other ingredients, such as vegetable extracts, food additive Maltodextrin, and potato starch, varies from one product to the next.
With the money it’s raising via its Seedr campaign, THIS hopes to expand further into supermarkets and across more restaurant chains, though the campaign does not list specific names. The company noted that it is also “building a formidable innovation engine within the company” to develop more plant-based meat products.
THIS says it’s on a mission to make “hyper-realistic plant-based food that mimics meat in taste, texture, and appearance.” But while the company may have picked a good time to launch their campaign, it’s also a highly competitive year for plant-based protein. Thanks in no small part to the pandemic, investment in plant-based proteins is up: $1.1 billion up, according to investor network FAIRR’s recent report. Over $907 million of that figure has been invested in plant-based protein alternatives so far in 2020.
And where the alt-protein space was once the territory of mostly burgers, more and more companies have lately come to market with other meat substitute products. Simulate, which raised $4.1 million in July, also makes chicken nuggets. In the bacon realm, THIS will compete with Hooray Foods and Prime Roots, and possibly Beyond, if rumors are to be believed.
THIS’s fundraising campaign on Seedr is still in private phase and will go public in the coming days.
NUGGS, the company behind the plant-based chicken nuggets of the same name, announced a bunch of things this morning including: It’s rebranding its parent company name to Simulate, it has raised an addition $4.1 million and it is developing a new spicy version of its NUGGS as well as a line of DOGGS (faux hot dogs).
That’s a lot to parse, so we’ll go through it line by line.
Re-branding from NUGGS to Simulate makes sense, especially since the company is expanding its product line in to non-nugget foods. Having a broader corporate name allows it to venture into more categories without any confusion. Plus, who wants to say they work for a company called NUGGS?
The new funding came from Lerer Hippeau, AgFunder, Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit), Walter Robb (former CEO of Whole Foods), and Jasmine Tookes (a model). This cash expansion brings the total amount of funding raised by NUG–, err, Simulate to $11 million.
Simulate will need the money because the fake chicken nugget space getting crowded. In addition to NUGGS, which made the move into retail this March, rival nuggets maker Rebellyous has also started to sell through grocery stores. Big meat company Tyson launched its line of Raised and Rooted plant-based nuggets in stores last year. And there are the existing stalwarts like Morningstar and Quorn.
Given all that competition, Simulate’s addition of new product lines like DOGGS isn’t that surprising. Besides, sales of plant-based foods have been on the rise over the past two years, so diversifying its product line to nab a bigger piece of that faux meat pie seems like a good idea.
