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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

smart oven

Brava Debuts the Brava Glass at CES 2023

Brava, a maker of smart oven technology, unveiled the Brava Glass smart oven this week at CES. The new model is the first update since the company debuted its eponymous in 2018.

The Brava Glass fixes what, for many, is the biggest shortcoming of the original Brava: not being able to see inside the cooking cavity. Ok, technically you could peek inside, but only by using the camera that resides inside the cooking chamber of the original Brava. But with the new Brava Glass, no cameras are needed (thought it does have one) as you look inside the Brava through a pane on the front door.

According to Brava spokesperson Steven Barush, the company had always intended to put a see-through glass on the door of the Brava, but didn’t want to rush it. That makes sense, especially considering that Brava’s cooking technology uses high-intensity light. To make looking inside the Brava with the naked eye without getting sun-blinded possible, the Brava Glass has a 97% tint says Barush.

As you can see below, even with a significant tint, the internal cooking light brights things up enough to get a good view of the inside of the oven.

A Look at the Brava Glass at CES 2023

The new Brava Glass with retail for $1,995 (compared with $1,295 for the original Brava) and comes with accessories like a cast iron dish, a muffin tin, a bread pan and more. The company expects the Brava Glass to shipping in early April.

Scoop: Tovala to Roll Out New Steam + Air Fry Smart Oven This Fall

Tovala, a Chicago-based smart oven & food delivery startup, will roll out a new oven this fall called the Tovala Steam + Air Fry smart oven.

Technically, Tovala’s second-generation oven, unveiled in 2018, has convection built in (which acts essentially the same as air frying). Even so, the company hasn’t pushed the air fryer functionality in promotions or via specifically designed air fryer recipes up to this point.

Above: The email sent to select Tovala subscribers who received test units of the third-generation Tovala oven

But that looks like it will soon change. According to an email sent out to a limited number of selected beta testers, Tovala has sent out a beta test version of a new model with an enhanced emphasis on air frying. The email says that “a lot of chef brains and engineering talent went behind this latest model,” which potentially hints at some interesting new recipes and features for users of the new Tovala hardware. According to the email, the latest generation of the smart oven will begin shipping to customers this fall.

At this point, it’s unclear if the company intended for word of its third-generation smart oven to get out. After Tovala sent out the test units to backers, they then sent an email calling delivery of the units a “happy accident.” Some Tovala customers were told by the company’s customer support that the new oven is the same as the old one, only that they will be sending out “air fry baskets” for an additional fee.

Update: Tovala responded to our request and confirmed they are unlocking air frying capabilities through a software update and a new accessory in the air fry basket. According to Tovala, it will be the same model oven, but after the software update and the air fry basket is made available they will rename the model the Tovala Steam + Air Fry Smart Oven. The company also confirmed they are updating their scan-to-cook feature and plan to have 100 grocery items optimized for cooking with the basket.

GE Appliances Sends a Turkey-Cooking Sous Chef to Half a Million Wi-Fi Connected Ovens

GE Appliances announced this week it had released an over-the-air software update that will assist half a million owners of GE Appliances’ Wi-Fi connected ovens cook their holiday turkey.

Called Turkey Mode, the new software update gives users step-by-step cooking instructions for their big holiday bird. The update also utilizes a software algorithm to estimate the cooking time needed to reach an optimal 170 degrees internal temperature for any size bird. Temperature measurement is done via a probe that comes standard with all GE Appliance’s connected oven models. Turkey Mode update works with most GE Appliances Wi-Fi connected oven models, 64 model families and 336 SKUs in all.

To see Turkey Mode in action, I jumped on a video call with GE Appliances’ food scientist Sabrinah Hannah and GE Appliances’ director of digital transformation, Taylor Dawson. Hannah told me that the company has been baking turkeys as a product development tool for decades, and they knew that turkeys are one of the biggest challenges home cooks face all year.

One of the lessons learned in the company’s testing was where to place the probe. The slowest heating part of the bird is deep in the breast, so part of the update on LCD-enabled models is a visual of where to place the probe. According to Hannah, if users follow Turkey Mode steps, they won’t need to baste the turkey or cover it with foil.

According to Dawson, the update went out to both LCD-equipped Wi-Fi ovens as well as Wi-Fi models without LCD screens. Users with LCD-equipped ovens can follow the step-by-step instructions on their ovens or the GE Appliances SmartHQ app, while users without LCDs can follow along on the app. For those who get the update on their LCD-enabled ovens, a button that says “Turkey Mode” will appear in the choice of cook mode on the screen. In addition to seeing the new cook mode, the user also gets a season-themed holiday background and a turkey “gobble” sound that plays when the turkey is finished cooking.

Turkey Mode is the second big update GE Appliances has sent over-the-air to their installed base of connected ovens this year. Earlier this year, the company sent an update that added an ‘air fryer’ cook mode to Wi-Fi-connected ovens in the field. While countertop smart ovens like the June have offered upgrades via over-the-air updates for a few years, the ability to send new cook modes and other updates to installed ovens is just beginning to take off as the installed base of connected built-ins reaches a critical mass. The ability to add new cooking features represents a potential business and customer support model opportunity for an industry where customers previously had a fixed set of product features that never changed once they walked out of the store.

GE Profile Debuts Range Oven With Connected Pizza Oven Built In

Last Fourth of July, my neighbor invited me over to show off his new outdoor portable pizza oven. I was both impressed and a little bit envious as he dished up scorching hot, leopard-spotted pies in just minutes.

It wasn’t long before I wondered how I could get my own pizza oven, only without going outside to cook. I could go the Breville counterop route, but I wanted something built-in so I could pretend I was like like our friends over at Modernist Cuisine.

Turns out unless I wanted to spend ten thousand bucks or more, there weren’t any options. Until now. That’s because GE Profile has debuted a new range that has an integrated pizza oven built into the combo appliance for $3,499 called the Trattoria Pizza Oven.

The oven, which features a full pizza oven inside a dual oven range appliance, was the brain child of long-time Louisville-based GE Appliances’ engineer Eric Johnson. Johnson had seen how GE Appliances had created a purpose-built high-temperature pizza oven for its high-end Monogram brand and wondered if a pizza oven could be built into a conventional oven. He created a prototype and showed it to leaders who liked what they saw. As a result, the product was the first to be commercialized through the GE Profile Innovation Studio, which the company launched in February of this year.

While the Monogram pizza oven is a high-tech wonder in itself in with its ability to cook pizza in just a couple minutes without any extra ventilation, Johnson had to work within the confines of what could be done within a more traditional range. While the new pizza oven uses traditional range heating elements (which reaches 550 degrees, compared to the 1300 degrees in the Monogram oven), it has some extra features built in to cook a nice pie including an aluminum alloy cooking surface that heats quickly and maintains temperature, a built-in precision surface temperature sensor to monitor and adjust temperature, and a broil amplifier to distribute heating throughout the cooking chamber.

GE Appliances positions the Profile Innovation studio as a place where new product concepts are launched with an eye towards early adopters. Unlike FirstBuild, which is also located in Louisville, the Profile Innovation Studio seems less about crowdsourced product prototype concepts and more focused on building new appliance concepts for GE Profile that could be commercialized fairly rapidly in fairly small production runs.

You can watch the hero reel intro for in GE Profile’s video below.

GE Profile Trattoria Pizza Oven

Editor note: This article originally had the new product as GE. It has been changed to reflect this new product is from GE Appliances and the company’s Profile brand.

Smart Oven and Meal Delivery Startup Tovala Raises Additional $30 Million

Tovala, a smart oven and meal delivery startup based in Chicago, announced today they have raised a $30 million series C funding round led by consumer-tech VC Left Lane Capital.

The funding round follows a $20 million series B Tovala raised last June.

So why did the company raise another huge round six months after the last one? The biggest reason, according to Tovala CEO David Rabie, was the company’s continued growth.

“The business has grown 10X over the past 18 months,” Rabie told me via Zoom this week. “A big chunk of that came pre-COVID, a big chunk came post COVID. COVID accelerated some things, but the business was already on pace to grow quickly.”

According to Rabie, the fit with Left Land Capital was another reason. Tovala felt their new lead investor, which focuses on consumer-focused Internet companies (some of the firm’s previous investments include Freshly, Farmer’s Dog and DeliveryHero), had the right expertise to help them scale.

“They have more depth of expertise in the consumer subscription space than almost anyone we’ve talked to, especially especially direct to consumer,” Rabie said. “They were really interested. At some point we were going to go raise another round, and we had gotten to know them pretty well over the course of last year, and felt like it was a great fit.”

So what is Tovala going do with its new growth capital? According to Rabie, the company plans to continue to invest in the product, by which he means everything on both the food and technology side.

“All of it, from you know the app to the packaging to the oven to the food within our walls, those are all products, and each of them are kind of an important part of the customer journey. And you know what we’ve built we think is really good, but we think it can get a lot better.”

A big chunk of the new investment will go to a new food production and packaging facility to serve the western half of the US. Currently Tovala services the entire US out of two facilities in Illinois, and so they plan to lease a new space and build out a new production, packaging and delivery facility “west of the Rockies” to serve the west and parts of the south.

What the funding won’t necessarily be used for is building a new oven, in part because the current model is working pretty well for them.

“We’re still in the exploratory phase where we’re really trying to figure out if we are going to go pursue a gen three,” said Rabie. ” What does it need to do, because the gen two works quite well. Reviews are really strong customers love it. There are not people banging on our door saying ‘if only the gen two did x, we would buy more of them current price.'”

Regardless of how it plans to spend its new cash infusion, that there is strong investor interest sets the company apart from some of its peers in the consumer hardware space. While others like Zimmplistic and Chefsteps failed to find additional financing, investors have continued to knock on Tovala’s door.

I asked Rabie why they’ve succeeded where others have struggled.

“I think it’s a complex answer,” said Rabie. “Part of it was the problem we went about solving is kind of different from all the other players. For this to work, you have to be good at building physical product, you have to be good at managing food and a food supply chain, you have to be good at marketing, you have to be good at customer service. A lot of things have to go right for it to work.”

The only other countertop smart cooking appliance seeing similar traction is Anova, which continues to sell out of their new precision steam oven. I asked Rabie if this is a sign that steam ovens might be the next breakout category.

“To be totally frank, Anova will have more to do with that than us, because we have different customers,” said Rabie. “My guess is the customer that’s buying the Anova oven is interested in cooking hacks and cooking gadgets. Our customer is like, ‘I’m really busy. I want a high quality meal on a Tuesday night, and I don’t want to keep spending $60 on Doordash.'”

I’ll be interviewing David Rabie about their latest funding round on Clubhouse today at 10 AM PT. Join us to listen and ask questions.

What Does Weber Acquiring June Say About the Smart Oven Market?

When Weber announced this week that it was acquiring smart oven maker, June, my first thought was — phew.

There was relief in knowing that June, the company, wasn’t going under any time soon, so my family will continue to enjoy June, the oven, for the foreseeable future. Instead of being a scrappy startup and dealing with issues like funding, scaling and exits, June now enjoys the deep pockets and vast sales network of grilling giant, Weber. In other words, June lives on and my smart oven won’t get bricked.

At least I hope not.

Acquisitions can get weird and who knows what Weber has in store for June, or how those plans will change. An old saw in business acquisitions is that companies don’t fully realize what they’ve bought until six months after the deal is closed.

Anyway, after the initial wave of relief, my thoughts turned to the countertop smart oven market in general, a category that still quite young. After all, June launched its first gen oven in December of 2016, which isn’t that long ago. But Weber buying June is the second major acquisition in the space since then. Brava, which started shipping its oven that cooks with light in November of 2018, was acquired by Middleby in November of 2019. Even Anova, which only launched its first smart oven last year, is owned by Electrolux.

That pretty much just leaves Tovala and Suvie as the remaining independents in the countertop smart oven space. But how long with they last?

Suvie positions itself more as a kitchen robot, in part because it doesn’t just re-heat food, it also keeps it cold and times the cooking to fit your schedule. Tovala raised $20 million and saw its business accelerate last year, thanks in part to the pandemic keeping people at home. It also doesn’t hurt that the company has has a low price point ($300) for its oven.

Anova is certainly pushing its steam-sous vide cooking as a differentiator rather than any “smart” capabilities as it enters the market. At $599 it’s not cheap per se, but Anova is promising more professional grade cooking than it is high-tech, connected bells and whistles.

A couple of years back, I wondered which companies would survive the kitchen countertopocalypse. There were so many multi-purpose (June) and single-purpose (Rotimatic) smart countertop devices coming to market that the average kitchen just doesn’t have the space to support them all. The field would winnow down, especially because some of these countertop ovens are big and take up a lot of space.

At the same time the countertop oven space is consolidating, we’re starting to see key smart features being added to traditional built-in ovens from the big players. At CES 2019, Whirlpool showed off its KitchenAid Smart Oven+, which featured automated cook programs. LG debuted an oven at CES this year that featured an Air Sous Vide setting.

The countertop smart oven space won’t disappear completely. The smaller size and cooking cavity can make preparing meals easier than firing up the gigantic built-in oven. And because they are cheaper than built-ins and don’t require installation, countertop ovens can be fertile territory for innovation. So the field is ripe for a new wave of startups to create and launch new cooking technology on a smaller scale. If that tech catches on with consumers, a bigger appliance company will acquire that startup and the cycle continues. And the industry as a whole can find relief in that.

Weber Acquires Smart Oven Maker June

Grill giant Weber announced today that it has acquired smart oven maker June. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. June had raised a total of $29.5 million in funding.

According to the press announcement, “Weber has acquired 100 percent of June, including its proprietary software, technology, intellectual property, and the June Oven line of products and accessories.”

The two companies had worked together previously on the Weber Connect, a connected temperature monitor and guided cooking device that helped grillers monitor and cook meats, and the SmokeFire pellet grill.

June is best known as being one company in the first cohort of smart-oven makers that included Tovala, Brava and Suvie. The June oven features a camera that can identify foods placed inside and automated cook programs for a wide range of foods. The company launched its third-gen June oven in October of last year.

According to today’s press release, the acquisition of June will equip Weber with technology that can “revolutionize the outdoor cooking experience.” So it’s not hard to guess that we’ll be seeing fancier, more high-tech grills coming to market soon.

On the other side of the equation, June will now have access to Weber’s gigantic sales network, infrastructure and resources to increase its sales and further develop its connected cooking platform.

June is the second connected, “smart” countertop oven makers to get acquired. In November of 2019, Middleby acquired Brava, which used special light technology to cook dishes.

FWIW, I have a second-gen June and my family uses it daily. Personally, I like June being acquired by a big company like Weber because it (hopefully) means that I don’t have to worry about June going out of business and support for my oven disappearing.

June’s Third-Gen Oven Goes on Pre-Sale with New Heat Controls and Premium Memberships

June announced today the third generation of its eponymous countertop smart oven. The latest version of the June Oven features more control over the heating elements, new cook modes, enhanced food detection and membership options.

One of the biggest changes June has made to its oven is that each of the six heating elements can now be controlled individually. This improves upon the second-gen version, where heat elements were controlled in three groups. The new individual controls allow for new types of automated cook programs like a virtual rotisserie. Instead of putting something like a whole chicken on a spit and rotating it, the heating elements alternate around the chicken. These more precise heating controls, in conjunction with an in-oven camera, also allow for zone cooking through focused heating elements.

Additional hardware improvements also include guard rails on the top heating elements and new convection fan motors that reduce vibration and sound. There’s also a new chipset to improve connectivity.

On the software side, June has added new cook programs like the aforementioned virtual rotisserie as well as a stone fired pizza setting (there’s an optional pizza and grill kit that can be purchased). The company now bills the device as a 12-in-1 appliance (up from a 7-in-1).

June is also adding membership options in 2021. The press release didn’t offer much detail, but various levels will include features like additional remote controls, exclusive recipes, live videos and more.

The new Junes are available for pre-sale today and will come in three packages that will begin shipping in late November:

  • June Smart Oven Bundle
    Price: $599
    Accessories: Food Thermometer, Nonstick Pan, Stainless Steel Crumb Tray, Wire ShelfOne Year Warranty
  • June Smart Oven Plus Bundle
    Price: $799
    Accessories: Food Thermometer, Nonstick Pan, Roasting Rack, Stainless Steel Crumb Tray, WireShelfTwo Years Warranty and One Year June App Premium Membership
  • June Smart Oven Premium Bundle
    Price: $999
    Accessories: Pizza and Grill Kit (​Enameled Cast Iron Grill/Griddle​ with Pizza Peel),​ Three AirBaskets, Stainless Steel Pro Food Thermometer, Silicone Food Thermometer, Two Nonstick Pans,Two Roasting Racks, Stainless Steel Crumb Tray, Wire Shelf
    Two Years Warranty and ​One Year June App Premium Membership

As I’ve written before, I’m a big fan of my June Oven and use it every day. Having said that, June is not the only smart oven player on the scene, and I’m intrigued by Anova’s countertop combi-oven that features steam cooking and costs $599.

Regardless, advances like the third-gen June continue to make cooking easier for non-cooks like myself.

The Food Tech Show: Steam Ovens, Sustainable Packaging & Paying With Your Face

The Anova Precision Oven was first announced at The Spoon’s own Smart Kitchen Summit in 2016 and now it’s finally shipping. Chris and Mike strategize about how to convince their significant others to fit yet another countertop appliance in the kitchen.

Other stories discuss on this week’s show:

As always, you can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also download it direct to your device or just click play below.

If you like the podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Whirlpool’s W Labs Countertop Smart Oven is Now Selling for Half The Original Price

Did you know Whirlpool has a countertop smart oven?

Don’t worry, most people didn’t, in part because Whirlpool never talked much about it after it launched in early 2019.

But now that you do know about it, you might also be interested to know they’re selling it for just $399. That’s half the original sticker price for the smart oven from W Labs, Whirlpool’s innovation hub. From the looks of it, the price reduction looks permanent.

So why is W Labs selling its June clone which debuted in January 2019 so cheap? It might be because the group is looking to clear out the remaining inventory of a product which was, from the beginning, positioned as an experiment. They only made 2000 of them and they only sold the product online and not through traditional Whirlpool appliance showroom sales channels.

Still, the wind down makes me wonder if the big appliance manufacturer is making way for a more permanent replacement. Whirlpool tends to do big refreshes to its product lineup every two years, which means 2021 is a refresh year after a relatively quiet 2020 and a big 2019. As part of a larger refresh, I can see a countertop smart oven as a logical candidate for the lineup.

It also appears Whirlpool is closing out its scan-to-cook smart microwaves and is out of stock on many of its smart ovens or ranges. While some of this could be due to COVID-related supply chain disruptions, this could be another indication that the company might be starting to wind down its current lineup more broadly as it prepares for a new line of smart ovens for 2021.

Tovala’s David Rabie on How He Built a Loyal User Base For His Smart Kitchen & Food Delivery Startup

Despite the complexity of building two businesses at once and presenting them as one integrated whole, Tovala’s managed to build a highly loyal user base with what is arguably the highest lifetime user value in the connected kitchen space.

I decided to catch up with Tovala’s CEO David Rabie and ask him how he’s managed to find success while other companies have struggled. 

The interview is an exclusive offering for Spoon Plus members. You can learn more about Spoon Plus here. 

Smart Oven & Food Delivery Startup Tovala Raises $20 Million Series B To Fund Growth

Tovala, the Chicago-based smart oven and meal-delivery startup, announced today it has raised a $20 million in Series B funding.

The round, led by agrifood venture capital firm Finistere Ventures, follows $9 million in Series A funding, bringing the company’s total funding close to $40 million.

It’s an interesting time for Tovala to raise such an impressive B round, coming during a pandemic where many venture firms have refocused their efforts on stabilizing existing portfolio investments and large corporate investment arms have either dialed back or outright eliminated venture initiatives.

But while the pandemic has chilled many industries, Tovala has only seen business accelerate the last few months in part due to its position at the intersection of two markets benefitting from quarantine-induced cooking: countertop home cooking appliances and home food delivery.

As we’ve noted here at the Spoon, the combination of stay-at-home orders and restaurant dine-in shutdowns led to an explosion in home cooking activity, which led to countertop home cooking equipment sales growth that was at multiples of normal industry volumes.

But according to Rabie, who I caught up with last week to discuss their latest funding, while Tovala has experienced strong growth during the pandemic, their business had actually started taking off in the second half of 2019.

“The business has been growing really fast for nearly a year now,” said Rabie. “The investors took comfort in the fact that this wasn’t a COVID trend where our business took off and might go away when normalcy returns, but actually the opposite. Business was booming pre-COVID, COVID accelerated that growth, and we believe it will accelerate adoption after COVID as people build new habits.”

Since Tovala started shipping a few years ago, I asked him why business took off last year. According to Rabie, the main difference is they changed how they talked about the product with their customers.

“We went through this exercise over the first half of 2019 to rebrand the company and better speak to our core customer,” said Rabie. “If you come to our website today versus a year ago, it looks like night and day, it’s different messaging, different photography, different videography, different user experience, same core product, just marketed differently.”

After Rabie and Tovala spent time talking to their key customers who used the Tovala multiple times per week, they realized the company’s value was in helping to solve the problem of weeknight dinner. They also realized they weren’t an oven company so much as a service company.

“The oven is the vehicle to access that food but most of our customers are not really in the market for an oven. It was kind of a lightbulb moment.”

After the rebrand, the company has seen an increase in annualized revenue of 300 percent since September of last year. In some ways, Tovala has been the little smart kitchen company that could, continuing to grow and raising more funding as other, more high profile companies, have struggled.

I asked Rabie why Tovala has succeeded when others haven’t.

“A lot of companies haven’t made it and I think there’s a lot of reasons why,” said Rabie. “The first reason is (you need to be) super clear on the problem you’re solving and making sure it’s a real problem.”

He also said that while he thinks a recurring revenue business is necessary nowadays, it can’t just be an afterthought.

“Whatever that subscription component is, it has to be inherent to the product and it has to make a lot of sense.”

Tovala plans to use the new funding round to increase staff, expand production capabilities and fuel growth. And while Rabie indicated they will build on top of their current technology, he made it clear the funding won’t largely be sunk into developing a next-generation oven.

Makes sense for an oven company that isn’t really an oven company.

If you’re a Spoon Plus subscriber, you can see my full interview with David Rabie discussing his latest funding round here.