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smart kitchen

August 14, 2018

CNET’s Ashlee Clark Thompson Talks Favorite Smart Kitchen Appliances

When we want candid reviews on smart home appliances — especially in the kitchen — we turn to Ashlee Clark Thompson (that is, when we’re not turning to ourselves). An associate editor at CNET, Thompson covers cooking gadgets and explores how tech will influence the kitchen. Oh, and she’s also a pretty hilarious Twitter poster.

For all these reasons (and more), we’re thrilled to have Ashlee Clark Thompson at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle this October! To prime your palate, we asked her a few questions about her favorite smart kitchen products — and what she looks at when she’s writing a review.

Read the Q&A below:

What’s the number one thing you look out for when reviewing smart home products?
Since most of my work is focused in the kitchen, I look out for how easy it is to use a product with existing recipes. Lots of devices have companion apps that provide a huge catalog of recipes to try, but many home cooks have their go-to meals or recipe cards passed down from grandma. A device should be able to teach me a new recipe, but help me improve upon an old one, too.

Name one connected product you didn’t think you would like, but ended up falling for?
The Pantelligent. It was a $200 smart skillet that connected to your phone to guide you through recipes. I thought it was a kooky concept, but it did exactly what it promised. Plus, it helped me make some great grilled cheese sandwiches during testing. Unfortunately, I think it’s now gone the way of the Juicero.

Envision the smart kitchen of the future. What does it look like? What products does it have in it?
The smart kitchen of the future fits the needs of the person who uses it. Not everyone needs a tricked-out kitchen full of gadgets; folks need tools that will be reliable and meet their needs. For some, that might just mean a wireless digital thermometer and a smart speaker. For others, it might be an entire system that’s connected, from grocery apps to fridge cams to a smart oven.

What are some of your favorite connected products you use in your everyday life?
I use an Echo Dot in the kitchen daily. It’s helpful when my hands are covered in flour or meat, so I can ask Alexa to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit or play some NPR. My Honeywell Lyric thermostat has helped keep my electric bills in check. And my Philips Hue lights have been crucial for reading in bed.

Voice assistants in the kitchen: yay or nay?
See aforementioned flour/meat hands comment.

—

Thanks, Ashlee! If you want to hear more about the tools she think will shape the future of the connected kitchen, snag your tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit on October 8-9th in Seattle. 

August 13, 2018

Restaurant Kitchens of the Future will be Smarter, AI-Driven and More Competitive

We throw around the term “smart” plenty of times when analyzing kitchen devices. But there’s one man who is truly trying to make the way you cook food — and the devices that help you do it — much smarter: Arvind Pereira. He’s the co-founder and CTO of the Markov Corporation, a startup leveraging AI to create a smarter electronic oven. Sort of like a microwave 2.0 — one that uses computer vision to better apply heat to perfectly cook each food to its optimum temperature.

We’re thrilled to have Pereira at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) in Seattle this October! To prime your palate, we asked Pereira a few questions about the role that AI and machine learning will play in the future of the smart kitchens and restaurants of the future.

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

What motivated you to apply your experience with AI and machine learning to the food and cooking industry?
I have always been very excited about applications of robotics and AI to various industries due to my background in hardware and software. The first time I worked on something related to food was back when I was a newly-married grad student at USC. My wife Svetlana (who is a software engineer) and I began working on a fun side project app that allowed us to manage our food more efficiently: picking out recipes for the week and creating grocery lists out of what we had in the refrigerator. I wanted to use computer vision to detect the contents of the fridge, but never got around to it. I didn’t do anything interesting related to food after that, until the end of my stint at Clover.

I’d say that my daughter Charlotte and Leonard (the founder of Clover) are probably the biggest motivators in getting me started on my journey of using AI in the food industry. When Charlotte was born, I was badly sleep-deprived, and decided to build an AI-powered baby monitor using various sensors including visual and thermal cameras. My goal there was to have my intelligent monitor take actions like controlling the temperature of the room to keep Charlotte comfortable, in order to potentially obviate the need for us to wake up more often than really needed.

I’d just begun working on this idea in my spare time when I mentioned it to Leonard (who is my Markov co-founder now). It turns out he had been thinking about building a device that cooked food accurately using thermal feedback — and my baby monitor, which was closing the loop around room temperature, reminded him of it. After that I couldn’t stop thinking about how to develop a cooking device that could cook precisely and quickly. While I felt confident that I could design the electronics, software and AI for such an oven, I didn’t know enough about high-power radio frequency (RF) to build a device with the control we would need. When I met our third co-founder Nick through a search in our extended networks though, I knew that we had the core team that could make this happen (assuming it could even be done).

Tell us more about the Level, Markov’s AI-powered oven. What makes it so unique?
Level is designed to be fast like a microwave, but precise like a sous vide machine. It does this through two synergistic technologies: a proprietary heat steering technology and novel AI algorithms, which work together to cook precisely. Level senses the temperature of the food using a thermal camera, and then steers the heat into areas that are not yet hot while keeping heat away from areas that are too hot. We are the first device (to our knowledge) that can cook multiple items of food to different temperatures by using that feedback.

Since Level uses RF to heat food, it is ideal for hot grab-and-go meals prepared in the moment. We use deep learning and specialized adaptive algorithms cook precisely and with control. Not only does Level constantly get better through software updates, and learn to recognize/cook more items through over-the-air-updates, but the AI literally learns to cook better on its own by analyzing every cooking session performed. Over time, each Level benefits from information gleaned by every other Level that has cooked before it. We hope to delight our customers with these improvements, letting them cook food better and faster with much higher consistency.

What role do you see AI playing in the future of food, specifically in the kitchen?
The fastest moving subfield within AI is machine learning, which has made big strides in the fields of computer vision, speech recognition and even natural language processing. It is exciting to see many companies start bringing AI and robotics to the kitchen space by leveraging these advances in perception to automate or simplify cooking. AI is going to be embedded in every appliance we own, and these appliances are going to be networked together to synergistically help us perform our tasks more easily.

Robots and AI are already helping us perform various jobs within the food industry: harvesting vegetables and fruits, processing meat, cooking food, and even delivering it to customers at restaurants. People want to automate these processes to combat shortages of trained labor, increase quality control, and simplifying cooking through automation. AI is going to be at the center of almost all these transformations. Perception and learning are critical pieces in helping build better, more intelligent cooking devices.

Before founding Markov, you worked at Clover — a company which manufactured and provided POS terminals to, among other places, restaurants. How do you see tech changing the restaurant industry?
Yes, Clover is very popular in restaurants and we had customers that ranged from single family-owned restaurants to restaurant chains. What struck me as interesting about restaurants was how difficult it was to make the business work. As a result, when we started Markov, I spent a lot more time thinking about how to solve pain points for this industry. If we can help restaurants serve better food, reduce training time for staff by simplifying the cooking process, and improve the transparency around food quality, this should help make restaurants easier to run.

Clover allowed merchants to get an amazing view of their businesses through the data we could share with them through our own apps, or via third party ones. Quality control is hard to achieve across chains of restaurants. Connected equipment will help in a big way — this is already happening with smart homes, and similarly the restaurants of the future are going to be more connected, more automated, and easier to manage, both within the restaurant and across larger chains.

Automation is clearly becoming a bigger part of the meal journey — how should companies adjust their strategies to embrace this?
Automation in the food industry is inevitable. Over time, as businesses find it harder to employ trained workers at affordable wages, companies that have the technology to manage their operational costs are going to have a competitive advantage over companies that do not.

While traditional kitchens will continue to exist, we expect that it will be more economical to provide good food through the commissary model or with just-in-time delivery, or via grab-and-go sales. Just like Amazon used the internet to disrupt retail, by optimizing food preparation and delivery, companies that can execute on more efficient models which cut costs and deliver superior value are likely to win over more customers and out-maneuver their competition.

As cooking becomes more automated (and simpler) I think businesses will gain from it — and gain new competition. Companies will have to watch where automation is heading and look for opportunities to gain efficiencies through smarter allocation of resources and real estate, and ensure that they are staying up to date with technology that helps them run their businesses better.

I think summits like SKS help provide insights into what the future of food is shaping up to be. The future is definitely exciting in the food industry, and technologies that enable automation like AI and robotics are going to have an increasingly big role to play in shaping it.

—

Thanks, Arvind! If you want to see him speak more about the role AI will play in the future kitchen, at home and in the restaurant, snag your tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit on October 8-9th in Seattle.

August 10, 2018

Icebox’s Grocery Replenishment Service Wants You to Never Run Out of Eggs

You know that feeling when you wake up craving an omelet only to realize you used the last of your eggs on yesterday’s fried rice? Icebox is a new (very early stage) startup working to make sure you never experience empty fridge disappointment again.

The company uses tech to automate the grocery shopping experience so it can replenish ingredients in your fridge — before you even know you’ll need them. “It’s a pocket-sized smart fridge that uses machine learning for automatic fulfillment,” Icebox co-founder Jazz Singh told me over the phone. The startup was co-founded last October by three Berkeley undergrads who met a Caltech hackathon. Thirty-six hours later, they had made the first version of Icebox.

As of now, Icebox is only a smartphone application. You download the app, then take a picture of your fridge and any recent grocery receipts. Singh told The Spoon that Icebox combines these two pieces of data with an unspecified “couple of other sources,” applies machine learning, and voila — it creates a shopping list. The list is customizable, so you can add extra odds and ends as needed.

As of now, that doesn’t seem super helpful — I can generally remember what i need on my weekly shop off the top of my head. What’s intriguing about Icebox is its potential.

Down the road, Singh told me that Icebox plans to partner with retailers and e-commerce services to offer anticipatory grocery delivery, keeping you stocked on your fridge staples. They’ll also provide users with recipe suggestions based on their grocery haul. “It will be much more streamlined,” said Singh.

There are other companies working in the grocery tracking and replenishment space: Smarter has a fridge cam that allows you to remotely check what groceries you need, Amazon has their Dash button and might be working on a smart fridge, and Pantri (a participant at the SKS Europe Startup Showcase!) is a grocery fulfillment platform. In terms of the recipe component, Chefling takes photos of barcodes and shopping lists to recommend recipes based on the food you have on hand, and Cooklist connects with retailers to generate recipe suggestions based on your recent grocery purchases.

Icebox is still in its very early stages; they’re currently in the midst of preparing for a private beta launch. Singh said they want to make sure that their computer vision is ready for a mass release, and then they’ll focus on partnerships with grocery fulfillment companies like Amazon Prime.

Icebox plans to initially market itself to university campuses as a way for young college-goers to ensure that they, God forbid, never run out of Gatorade or Monster energy drinks.

That seems a bit far-fetched that college kids, who, at least based on my own experience, are far more likely to turn to dining halls, delivery, and fast food for sustenance than actually cook on their illegal dorm room hot plate. But I could see Icebox being a boon to working parents or harried millennials; people who have the motivation to cook but not always the time or headspace to grocery shop.

Singh told me that Icebox plans to position itself as an affordable, modular alternative to smart fridges. Which is, well, smart. Unlike smart fridges, Icebox’s tech isn’t a pricey investment that you’ll have to replace every few years. The company plans to release the shopping list creation service for free, and offer a paid subscription tier which will integrate with e-commerce sites for hands-off grocery delivery. (Once that becomes available, of course.)

Singh didn’t want to disclose exact amounts, but she said that Icebox has funding from campus resources and venture capital funds. The company also recently got accepted to Berkeley Sky Deck: an accelerator fund and incubator which gives funds to early-stage Berkeley startups. We’ll keep you updated on Icebox’s progress — hopefully over spur-of-the-moment omelets.

July 17, 2018

Bevi Fights Plastic Bottle Waste With Its Smart Beverage Machine

What’s twice the size of Texas, floats on water, and weighs as much as 500 jumbo jets?

That would be the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

By recent numbers, there are roughly 1.8 trillion plastic pieces floating in the patch, which sits in the North Pacific ocean between Hawaii and California. Much of that debris comes from plastic drink bottles, which can take hundreds of years to disintegrate. The U.S. alone buys about 29 billion water bottles per year, and only one in six of those are recycled. The rest wind up in landfills or, more often, the ocean.

Finding an alternative to those plastic bottles is the core mission behind Bevi, the smart beverage dispenser currently making its way into offices, gyms, schools, and hotels. In the words of cofounder and Head of Marketing Frank Lee, the company is “building a future without plastic bottles and cans.”

The Bevi machine dispenses both still and sparkling water, which can also be flavored, and comes in two sizes: a five-foot-tall dispenser and a countertop model. It’s hooked up to a tap water source, and that water runs through the machine’s custom filtration system. Users, meanwhile, can select flavors (the machine can hold up to four at one time) and adjust their drink’s sweetness with a sliding scale that appears on the touchscreen. All flavors are vegan, kosher, and sweetened naturally, according to the company.

But back to the floating garbage patch: Bevi Cofounder and Head of Product Eliza Becton started reading about it when she was studying industrial design at Rhode Island School of Design. “[Bevi] was essentially a way for her to figure out how to clean up the ocean,” says Lee. Becton, Lee, and CEO and cofounder Sean Grundy joined forces in 2013 and started making smart beverage prototypes, from which Bevi was eventually born.

Besides being an eco-friendly alternative to bottled drinks, Bevi is also trying to offer more consistency and precision when it comes to flavor. A traditional soda gun (which the trio reverse engineered at one point in the name of research) has no consistent flavor level or carbonation settings. So instead, Bevi used some of the same technology found in medical devices, where dispensing the correct dosages is life or death. In other words: precision is paramount.

Water flavors may not fall in the lifesaving department, but digitizing the way people get them still delivers a much more consistent product.

Lee points out a couple other advantages to being digital:

For one, Bevi is an internet-connected machine, which means the company can monitor flavor data in real time. That makes it much easier to know when a machine’s flavor supply needs to be refilled. Office managers, Lee points out, typically have to restock beverages by going to a place like Costco and buying cases that have to be lugged back to the office or facility. By proactively monitoring levels and dispatching someone to refill them before they run out, Bevi eliminates this particular task, along with the wasted time and back pain that goes along with it.

The other advantage to being digital is that it allows Bevi to analyze which flavors are working, which are less popular, and any other noteworthy trends. At the start of the year, for example, cucumber-flavored water spiked as people were making their new year resolutions. That’s great information for Bevi, who can plan ahead to next January and push “cleansing” flavors accordingly.

Right now Bevi is focused on putting their devices in public places, where they see the most opportunity. While many, including myself, have asked about a home version of the machine, Lee didn’t have any specifics as to if or when that might materialize. Currently, both models of the machine are only available for business use. Pricing varies by company, but the Bevi website notes that “Bevi can cost as low as 26 cents per drink.”

Bevi is all about changing consumer behavior, which is a cornerstone of any true innovation. It’s also not easy to accomplish, and when it comes to plastic water bottles, there are decades of conditioning to undo in consumers before the majority of them opt for a more eco-friendly alternative. That’s really true for any kind of beverage receptacle, plastic or otherwise. I’d love to see a future where everything from fast food joints to Starbucks to the gas station has a Bevi or Bevi-like machine that’s not only digital but also offers a a real alternative to those fridges full of plastic.

No telling if that’ll actually happen, but in terms of changing the way we think about what we drink, the folks at Bevi seems up to the challenge.

July 10, 2018

Electrolux Partners with SideChef to Connect Cooking Journey in Asian Market

Today Electrolux announced a new partnership with guided cooking company SideChef to create a smart kitchen platform for their Asian Pacific (APAC) market. SideChef’s tech will be used to provide guided cooking abilities (and more) via Electrolux’s consumer-facing app.

This announcement comes a few months after Electrolux partnered with Innit to integrate the company’s smart kitchen platform technology into their appliances in the European market. However, in Europe, users have to download the Innit app to use its software. Under the Asian partnership, the smart kitchen company’s tech will be integrated with the Electrolux app itself; In short, SideChef’s software will be the engine powering Electrolux’s Taste platform in the Asia market. (That is, everything Electrolux does related to cooking and the kitchen.)

“We are the first — and, I believe, only — company where SideChef’s tech is being integrated seamlessly inside our app,” Jaimohan Thampi, Head of Digital Transformation and IoT at Electrolux Asia Pacific, told us over the phone.

Since this partnership is in APAC, and not Europe or the U.S., Electrolux faces a few challenges. While Australia is similar to Europe or the US, many of Asia’s emerging economies like Vietnam or Thailand do not feature western-style cooking equipment beyond surface cooking (ranges/induction cooktops), which means the company is more limited in what it can do with connectivity. Because of this, the initial approach with the app will be on providing cooking guidance to any cook, no matter the kitchen set-up.

“We’re taking an approach of connected consumer first, then evolving into the connected appliance,” said Thampi, which he hopes will give APAC consumers the confidence to cook new, international dishes.

The app went live in Singapore yesterday and will gradually roll out in other APAC countries. Electrolux is targeting a release in Australia/New Zealand in August, the Philippines in September, and October on for the rest of the region. They’re starting first with English-speaking countries since it’ll, obviously, be a much bigger lift to translate app into new languages and cultures.

Taking a step back, Electrolux is playing the long game with the SideChef integration. By nurturing home cooks in APAC countries that not only want to prepare meals that go beyond basic cooktops but also have the confidence to do so thanks to SideChef’s app, means that they’re essentially creating a new consumer base for their kitchen appliances.

But they’re not stopping there. “We want to be the go-to player in everything around taste,” said Thampi. Especially in the digital realm. In addition to guided cooking, Electrolux is also looking into grocery delivery, meal planning, ingredient substitution, and social sharing, as well as post-meal cleanup and food waste reduction. To do that, they’ll have to rely pretty heavily on collaboration.

They’re not the only ones. SideChef dropped the news at the Smart Kitchen Summit Europe that they’d be providing the smart software behind Swiss company V-ZUG’s connected appliances. This comes after SideChef announced its partnership with Sharp (at the Smart Kitchen Summit Japan) and integrated with Amazon Fresh to provide shoppable recipes in the U.S. Kevin Yu, CEO of SideChef, hinted that they’ll be dropping more partnership announcements over the next few months. (Stay tuned.)

After making moves to partner with Innit in Europe a few months ago, Electrolux is taking large strides to differentiate itself from other appliance makers hoping to make it big with software-enabled cooking. LG has partnered with both Innit and SideChef, Kenwood launched a new multicooker powered by Drop, and Whirpool has its Yummly integration.

According to a job listing we found last month, Electrolux is also working away at something called the ‘Electrolux Connectivity Platform,’ which our own Michael Wolf predicted could be an IoT cloud and linked mobile platform to support future connected products for the company.

All this is to say that Electrolux is trying to get out in front of the connected cooking market and own the at-home meal journey, and they’re trying to do it all over the world. SideChef, for its part, wants to become the go-to “engine” powering the smart kitchen revolution. This move is an important test case for connected appliances and guided cooking apps in the APAC market, but also for the two companies’ partnership overall. Because if it works out, I’m betting they’ll vie for global (smart kitchen appliance) domination.

July 5, 2018

Video: For Big Food, ‘We’re Past Innovation and Onto Disruption’

Tyson Foods produces a massive one out of five pounds of protein consumed in the United States. Barilla isn’t any slouch either, with its 30% dry pasta market share in the US and 10% worldwide.

That’s a whole lotta chicken and pasta, so when execs for the investment arms of these two food giants took the stage last month at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe, you can bet all were listening intently to see what they had to say about the future of food and cooking.

The panel featured Thomas Mastrobuoni, CFO of Tyson Ventures, and Michela Petronio,  Director at Barilla’s investment arm, Blu1877, who took the stage to discuss food tech and connected kitchen investment in our closing panel which was moderated by Beatriz Romanos of TechFood Magazine.

The three had lots to say about technology, the food business and how they are investing in the future as these two worlds increasingly intersect.

Mastrobouni talked about one of their recent investments and how it’s a sign that technology is having the same disruptive impact on food now it had on media and finance over the past decade.

“We’ve said innovation, that boat has sailed, and we’re on to disruption now,” said Mastrobuoni. “The startups that we’re focusing on are, in some ways, out to get us. For the largest protein company in the US to invest in a plant based protein and two cultured meat investments… for us to go out and do that sends a message that the technology is starting to hit the food industry.”

There are lots of other great insights in the video, including discussion of why companies like Barilla and Tyson decided to launch their own investment arms, why they are interested in the connected kitchen and many more, so you’ll want to make sure to watch the entire session below:

If you want to hear more from VC’s and investors in the connected cooking space, join us at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle this October!

June 22, 2018

Check Out Powerhouse Speaker Lineup For 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit

The first day of summer may have been yesterday, but here at the Spoon we’re already focused on October. That’s when our Smart Kitchen Summit will return to Seattle for its fourth year, and we are excited to get together with the leaders creating the future of food and cooking once again.

This year, SKS will explore the disruption coming to the meal journey — whether that’s at home, in the restaurant or in your company cafeteria — and you won’t want to miss the industry’s leading food tech event.

We’ve been hard at work putting together the leading thinkers and food/tech disrupters solving the industry’s biggest problems, who will get share insights and help find real solutions. Here’s just a sample of innovators and leading execs who will be joining us in October:

Dr. Karsten Ottenberg – CEO of BSH Home Appliances, one of Europe’s biggest home appliance company. Dr Ottenberg’s team just launched Europe’s first smart kitchen accelerator.

Kyle Ransford – CEO of Chef’d, a meal kit company which made the FoodTech 25 because of its aggressive moves into the connected kitchen, grocery and office markets.

Robin Liss – CEO of Suvie (and founder of Reviewed.com). Robin, who helped build one of the leading review sites in the world, is now using that experience to build a multizone home cooking robot.

Ben Pote – Director of Culinary Innovation for Starbucks. Ben’s job is to bridge the gap between culinary operations and innovation for Starbucks Global Innovation team.

Brett Dibkey – GM, Integrated Business Units, Whirlpool. He helped engineer the acquisition of Yummly and is heavily focused on helping to create the digital strategy for one of the world’s biggest appliance manufacturers.

Joe Ray – Kitchen tech reviewer for Wired. Joe has developed a reputation for brutally honest reviews of new kitchen technology. You’ll definitely want to hear him on the art of the kitchen product review.

Fukata Masa – Director, Panasonic’s Game Changer Catapult. Fukata Masa is leading the team helping to create future-forward concepts for Japan’s biggest appliance manufacturer.

Lisa McManus – Executive Editor for America Test Kitchen’s Tasting & Testing team. Lisa is driving one of America’s most respected kitchen review editorial brands into the era of the future of food.

And can’t forget our resident celebrity chef, Top Chef All-Stars winner Richard Blais!

That’s just a sample, and we’ve got lots more to announce in coming weeks, so stay tuned.  You’ll want to make sure you pick up your ticket before early bird pricing expires at the end of June.

June 20, 2018

BSH Appliances Teams With Techstars To Create Connected Kitchen Accelerator

BSH Home Appliances (BSH Hausgeräte GmbH) announced this week it is teaming up with Techstars to create the “BSH Future Home Accelerator Powered by Techstars”, an accelerator targeted at “early stage companies with innovative digital business models that want to accelerate their ideas around the connected kitchen of the future home.”

The program, which will kick off in February 2019 with an initial cohort of 10 companies, will have a total of three cohort classes over the course of three years (2019-2021) and mentor a total of thirty startups.

While – as the name of the accelerator indicates – much of the focus will be on the kitchen, the company took pains to emphasize that the scope could be much broader than that.

“We didn’t want to be too closed on topic,” Tibor Kramer, the program’s manager, told me in a phone interview. He explained this was in part because they didn’t want to shut out interesting ideas that could help make a consumer’s life better.

But Kramer also made it clear that the main focus will be on the digital kitchen. The kitchen is the “heart of the home,” he said. “We at BSH, as a home appliance manufacturer, are quite focused on the kitchen and on kitchen appliances and cooking is the most creative process.”

The move by BSH into creating its own accelerator is part of a larger trend of established companies in the food, home and retail spaces trying to tap into new ideas and energy through the creation of an accelerator and incubator programs. BSH joins the likes of IKEA, Land O’Lakes and Chobani who have gone down this path, and will likely spur other appliance and houseware products to consider doing the same.

For BSH, the creation of their own accelerator could give them a leg up as appliance companies scramble to find new products and platforms to accelerate digital transformation. These companies are transitioning from a business largely centered around the one-time sale of non-connected, stand-alone products towards a future in which software-powered kitchens open up new opportunities for radically different business models.

“As a company focused on improving our customer’s quality of life, BSH is forging a path to be the leader in digital services for the connected kitchen,” said BSH Appliances CEO Karsten Ottenberg in the announcement.  “To be successful in this rapidly evolving space, it is important to continually expand our digital capabilities and align ourselves with the most innovative startups and technology – which we will achieve together with Techstars through this accelerator program.”

According to Kramer, while Techstars will mentor the cohort companies on how to build and scale a young company, the role of BSH – which owns a number of appliances brands such as Bosch, Siemens, Thermador, Gaggenau – will be as experts in the home appliance business.

“We will handpick our mentors from the Digital Business Unit (the new business unit where the accelerator will reside), as well as executives from BSH corporation that we think will give added value to the startups,” said Kramer. “We want to give them a good mentoring and connect them with the (BSH) network.”

The program will begin taking applications online on July 23rd and will notify those accepted in November.

BSH Appliances CEO Karsten Ottenberg will be at the Smart Kitchen Summit in October. If you’d like to hear him talk about transforming BSH towards the digital future, make sure to get early bird tickets today. 

June 18, 2018

Thoughts On Dublin: A Look Back At Smart Kitchen Summit Europe

We held the first Smart Kitchen Summit in an old cannery.

Part of the reason was it was affordable. Events are big investments, and we are in many ways a startup; when I founded SKS, it was just a crazy idea about getting the people who were working on the future of cooking and food together in the same place for a day and to start a conversation.

But to be honest, I also liked the idea of having an event about the future of cooking and the kitchen in a hundred-year-old building that had its roots in food. As nearly 300 people gathered between those exposed beams and brick walls to talk about the future back in November 2015,  we were reminded it’s necessary to be mindful of the past behaviors, traditions and cultures that have shaped our food experiences as we discussed how innovation will impact every aspect of the meal journey.

And so when we began planning to take SKS across the Atlantic, I thought what better place to hold our first European event than at Guinness Storehouse? The idea of talking about the future of food and drink in an iconic 20th-century brewery was exciting, but I also like the inherent tension of a place steeped in history while modernizing to create a better experience for the consumer.

In a way, it’s that tension between old and new that’s at the heart of the food tech and what makes it such an exciting space to explore, something we were reminded of last week in Dublin as the day unfolded.

The conversations, discussions and demonstrations made it clear that the future of food and the kitchen is still being established in diverse regions across Europe. Below are some key takeaways from the day – you can also check out some of the pictures from SKS Europe here.  And, if you’d like to connect with many of the same execs, make sure to attend our flagship event in Seattle on October 8-9th.

The Changing Meal Journey

“50 years ago, if you wanted to eat, you had to cook,” said the BBC’s LuLu Grimes on a panel discussing the reinvention of the recipe. “You don’t have to cook anymore.”

This is true. Whether it’s the abundance of food delivery options, more automated cooking technology or dining out, consumers today have many more options at their fingertips and will only have more in the future.

But what about using technology to get more of us into the kitchen? There was a general debate happening both on stage and over coffee on whether it was the job of technology to make cooking easier and more enjoyable or if tech could someday just take over the role of chef entirely. But the one question we kept revisiting was: how could innovation make cooking more approachable?

Chef Angela Malik at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe

According to chef Angela Malik, it’s by thinking more inclusively – we need to be making anything used for cooking or preparing food that can work with diverse ingredients and foods. Particularly in a region as diverse and varied as Europe, with a long list of cultures and traditions around food. Audiences will feel compelled and connected to an appliance or product that feels like it could fit into their lifestyle.

Other speakers felt the development of guided cooking will make preparing food at home less intimidating. Jon Jenkins of Hestan Smart Cooking talked about how the arrival of software and precision heating technologies will make cooking outcomes better, which ultimately will make people want to cook.

Personalization Will Drive The Kitchen Of The Future

Another recurring theme we heard during the day is new ways to create more personalized meal experiences are fast approaching.

Onlookers watch Tailor Made cocktail robot at SKS Europe opening reception

“Unearthing the right recipe for the right person at the right time is where technology is going,” said Kishan Vasani of Dishq.  Convenience is the end game, said Vasani, but with personalization at the center of it. Groups like FoodPairing and FlavorWiki are trying to capitalize on these trends by capturing data points about taste and flavor and creating algorithms that leverage data combined with personal preferences to create meals that have the right nutrition and the right flavors for you.

Food, Kitchen and Cooking Are Platform Opportunities

While big companies like Amazon and Google are creating broad horizontal platforms around AI, conversational interfaces and IoT, a number of companies see the unique and multi-varied nature of our relationship with food as an opportunity to create vertically focused platforms. Drop’s Ben Harris spoke about how the kitchen is the “heart of the home” and how they’ve built a company around focusing on the food making journey.  Innit’s Ankit Brahmbhatt spoke about how the beauty of the kitchen is it’s complicated and definitely not binary, which means there will never be just one solution to figure out the meal journey every day of the week.

Google’s Devvret Rishi, meanwhile, spoke about how Google has identified food as an important space and talked about how the company is working to find ways in which Google Assistant can be plugged into the meal journey.

Innovation Happening In Companies Big and Small

I always enjoy hearing about an entrepreneur’s journey, especially when it’s told with a little humor and lots of authenticity. Christian Lane recalled his roller coaster journey from the heady early days as the Dragon Den’s youngest-ever entrepreneur (19 years-old) to building the first prototype for what would eventually become Smarter with the last 90 pounds in his bank account after the crash of his first company.

Christian Lane talks about his entrepreneur journey into the smart kitchen

We also heard from the eight early-stage companies in our Startup Showcase. From AI-driven meal personalization apps like PlantJammer to hardware/food delivery service offerings like Mealhero, to the Showcase winning effort of Mitte which was focused on healthier & more efficient mineral water usage at home, it was inspiring to hear the stories of these driven innovators trying to bring change to the kitchen.

Whether its in a certain category or trying to create an entire ecosystem for the kitchen, innovation is not just small companies.  We heard from those responsible for driving change at Electrolux, BSH Appliances and V-Zug and how these companies are changing decades-old practices as they transition their business towards the digital kitchen. Mario Pieper who leads digital strategy at BSH Appliances (Bosch, Siemens, Gaggenau brands) talked about the importance of external *and* internal changes that must be addressed while legacy enterprise organizations work to keep up with the pace of disruption and the new players looking for partners and often times competition.

Similar to our first SKS in the U.S., kitchen appliance brands in Europe are eager to lead the conversation in the space, understanding the key role they play in the consumer kitchen but also recognizing the increasing role of digital content, connected platforms and grocery and home commerce brands. One startup founder during a networking break questioned why the larger grocery and retail chains were not on stage looking at how they plan to keep up with the future of food and the kitchen. “They aren’t sure what it means for them yet,” he remarked.

My guess is in the future they will be. Much like in Seattle and SKS Japan, I expect SKS Europe will continue to grow and incorporate more perspectives as we explore how the interlocking pieces across the entire food system recreate the meal journey. I hope to continue the conversation in Seattle and Japan and I hope you will join me.

June 12, 2018

SideChef Announces New Partnership with Appliance Company V-ZUG

Today, SideChef announced at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe that they will be launching a partnership with Swiss appliance company V-ZUG. They will provide smart software behind V-ZUG’s connected appliance lineup, providing cooking tools integrated into the brand’s products.

“We chose to work with V-ZUG because they have so much advanced, cutting-edge technology on the market, as well as unique products (like their connected oven),” said SideChef Founder and CEO Kevin Yu.

Director of Business Development for V-ZUG Manuel Faeh told us that they were excited for the SideChef partnership, which will add a smart digital layer to their products. “Devices are constantly adapting and changing,” he said. They hope that the partnership with SideChef will help them to do that.

“One unique part of this integration is the fact that we’re launching in China,” Yu said. Though the majority of SideChef’s staff is based in Shanghai, this will be their first product partnership to launch in Asia. And it’s just the beginning. “5000 of our 10k+ recipes are fully orderable through Amazon Fresh in the U.S.,” said Yu. “And we eventually want to build that out in China as well.”

SideChef is also integrated with smart devices from appliance companies LG and Sharp. In fact, they announced their partnership with appliance company Sharp at last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit Japan.

Want to be in the front row for more food technology and innovation announcements? Join us at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle, October 9-10th. 

June 11, 2018

Meal Planning Startup Recipeat Launches at SKS Europe

Last night at the opening reception of the Smart Kitchen Summit Europe the eight finalists of our Startup Showcase showed off their companies to the crowd over pints of Guinness. One, the London-based Recipeat, took the opportunity to unveil their startup.

Recipeat is a smart, digital cookbook and meal planning tool that’s “more than just a Kindle for recipes,” said founder Peter McCurrach. It stores recipes that users either enter in themselves or import from the internet, and can also create shopping lists from selected recipes.

At its core, McCurrach sees Recipeat as a tool to help busy families plan and cook their meals quickly and efficiently. “Everyone has really different food goals: counting calories, reducing meat intake, sticking to a budget, etcetera,” explained McCurrach. He hopes that families will use Recipeat to plan their weekly lineup of meals, synthesize shared shopping lists, and reduce in-home food waste.

One thing that distinguishes Recipeat from other meal-planning and guided cooking services like eMeals or Innit is its hardware component. McCurrach has developed a small screen, about the size of a Kindle reader, which is intended to live in the kitchen and assist in the meal planning, grocery ordering, and cooking process.

He told the Spoon team that he hopes his device will last a decade. Which is an ambitious timeline, especially in the age where people trade in their iPhone for a new model seemingly every couple of months — but also a nod to analog recipes, which McCurrach says have yet to be ousted by digital ones.

McCurrah is the sole employee of Recipeat. As of now, the company is bootstrapped and hopes to bring their product to market by the end of this year. 

Recipeat does not yet have a website, but if you want to learn more contact Peter McCurrach at peter@teamrecipeat.com.

June 2, 2018

Food Tech News Roundup: Ben & Jerry’s, Food Waste Snacks, and Target Takeovers

It may have been a short week (at least for some of us), but it still feels good to reach the weekend finish line. Let’s celebrate with some food tech news, shall we?

We’re still riding a high from the announcement of the FoodTech 25: twenty five companies we think are changing the way we grow, source, cook, eat, and think about food. But lots of other food innovation news popped up around the web as well! Here are a few of our favorite stories, from Ben & Jerry’s new sustainability initiative to BYO homebrewing packs.

Chobani incubator to focus on food tech
Lately, quite a few CPG brands have been launching food-related incubators — including Greek yogurt darling Chobani. This week Chobani announced new incubator program which will revolve around our favorite subject: foodtech. The Food Tech Residency will be the company’s fourth incubator initiative, and will run parallel to their original incubator class. They’re currently searching for startups involved in agtech, food safety, innovative packaging, and other areas to improve the food system. Once selected, participating companies will have access to all Chobani Incubator programming, including factory visits, mentorship, opportunities to pilot new products, and a chance to pitch for funding. They have three spots open, so if you’re an emerging food tech or agtech startup, get on it!

 

Tyson Foods rolls out snacks made of food waste
Poultry giant Tyson Foods has created a snack brand which makes “Protein Crisps” out of food waste such as chicken breast trim, spent grain from beer brewing, and excess vegetable purée from juicing. Dubbed “¡Yappah!,” the brand will be used as an umbrella under which Tyson will release other sustainable food products. Each individual 1.25-oz serving has 8+ grams of protein and is packaged in a recyclable aluminum can. The crisps launched on IndieGoGo on May 31st, and are available to back now with a projected ship date of July 2018. Clean meat, food delivery startups, and now food waste snacks? Tyson Foods continues to work to be on the cutting-edge of all emerging food innovation trends.

PicoBrew now offers DIY PicoPaks
Countertop homebrewing startup PicoBrew rolled out DIY PicoPaks this week via Kickstarter, an option that lets Pico users load up their own ingredients to make beer and fusion drinks. The new bring-your-own ingredients option – which will work with the new Pico U as well as the existing Pico Cs and Pico Pros – provides an option for those in the Pico community who have wanted brewing flexibility beyond want preconfigured PicoPaks allow. The reward bundle includes containers for both beer brewing and PicoPak minis to create “fusion drinks” at home such as kombucha or goldenmilk. Post-Kickstarter, it will be interesting to see if PicoBrew offers brewers a variety of DIY container bundles depending on their preferences and brewing frequency.

Three new Targets to open up in Seattle area in 2019 & 2020
Target will add three smaller, grocery-sized stores in the Seattle area over the next two years, according to the Seattle Times. These are in addition to their original urban format store, which opened in Seattle in 2012. Their new stores are designed to fit into dense cityscapes and will stock products tailored to the surrounding neighborhood. This, as well as their recent expansion into same-day delivery, smart home-powered replenishment service, and acquisition of Shipt, is another way that Target is trying to keep up with the shifting grocery game and fight against Amazon.

 

Photo: Ben & Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s works to offset their ice cream’s carbon footprint
Customers at Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop in London’s Soho neighborhood now have an opportunity to counterbalance the carbon footprint of their waffle cone of Cherry Garcia or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. For each purchase, Ben & Jerry’s will pay a penny to offset the carbon used to raise the cows, produce the ice cream, and ship it to the shop. Customers then have the option to donate a cent of their own and double the impact.

According to Forbes, the ice cream company is partnering with a not-for-profit who is helping them use blockchain to divide carbon credits — which are typically quite large — into smaller transactions which can link up to each ice cream purchase. They’re even developing an app to help customers keep track of their person carbon offsets.

 

Photo: Anova

Anova finally opens new Anova Kitchen
We’ve been monitoring the retail ambitions of sous vide specialist Anova closely, so we were intrigued to learn this past week that the company will finally open the Anova Kitchen for a sneak peek on June 6th. A company spokesperson told The Spoon that the new space will be used for events and will have some public-facing retail space, but that we shouldn’t expect the Anova Kitchen to be open to the public every day.  This contrasts with Brava, who plan to open a full time retail space early this summer.  Either way, we’re intrigued to check out the Anova’s new retail/event space. If you are too, make sure to RSVP for next week’s event and report back to us!

Did we miss anything? Tweet us @TheSpoonTech to let us know the best food tech news of the week!

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