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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

sous vide

Samsung Adds Bixby AI To Family Hub Fridges

When Samsung debuted Bixby, its AI-enabled home assistant on Galaxy S8 phones, we wondered how well it would do as an Amazon Echo or Google Home competitor. After all, carrying your phone from room to room to control your smart home with voice makes about as much sense as….carrying your phone room to room to control your smart home with an app.

But it didn’t take Samsung long to take Bixby out of the phone and put it in some of its existing smart appliances – namely, the mother of all smart appliances, the Samsung Family Hub 2.0.

The Family Hub debuted at CES several years ago, with a giant touchscreen interface on the front and all kinds of interesting kitchen functions, including grocery ordering and to-do lists for family members. But Samsung clearly had plans to use the technology they were building inside these fridges as more than just glorified tablets.

On Sunday, Samsung announced it will include Bixby’s AI functionality inside Family Hub fridges, allowing users to search for recipes and ask Bixby for news and weather – very similar to competitive AI-powered speakers. But the Family Hub also allows for food ordering through partners such as Nomiku (sous vide company making sous vide-ready meal kits) and Grubhub and with the native voice functions paired with the touchscreen, along with possible connectivity to Samsung’s other smart devices in the home, it makes for an interesting voice solution in the kitchen. Samsung recently invested in Nomiku as they launched their RFID meal kits and laid out clear plans to form a cohesive ecosystem in the kitchen.

According to Pulse News in Korea,

“Bixby’s deep learning will enable the fridge to control temperature automatically, call up recipes based on user’s eating habits or recommend favorite music.”

Samsung recently invested in Nomiku as they launched their RFID meal kits and laid out clear plans to form a cohesive ecosystem in the kitchen. From Mike’s piece on the investment and news, “Fetterman said Samsung plans integrate the Nomiku with their smart home platform, SmartThings….However, the consumer electronics giant has been fairly successful in their effort to integrate SmartThings with their various product lines in the home such as appliances and TVs. While Samsung had previously announced an integration of SmartThings with their own Wi-Fi ovens, Nomiku appears to be the first small precision cooking appliance integrated with the SmartThings smart home platform.”

Current Family Hub users can also get upgraded to include Bixby functionality inside their fridges through a software update – a nice feature for a pricey appliance that we’ve often wondered how appliance giants plan to support with new functionality coming out regularly.

The install of Bixby has just begun and the updates aren’t rolled out yet. But soon, the voice in the kitchen might be your fridge telling you what’s for dinner.

Wanna Sous Vide Some Bacon? Smart Kitchen Data Shows You’ll Do It On Saturday

I don’t know about you, but Sunday evening dinner at my house usually means something simple like sloppy Joes, tacos or even the occasional brinner.

But not everyone mails it in when it comes to the end of the weekend meal. According to data gathered by ChefSteps, which recently reached the milestone of a million meals cooked by users of their Joule sous vide immersion circulator, users of the cooking appliance are making decidedly tastier meals like lamb chops and tenderloin roast for their Sunday evening meals.

Three Joule cooking guides that are popular on Sunday

It used to be that any guess about what people cooked on a given night was just that, a guess, often times based on survey data. But when a device is connected, it’s actually possible to look at usage data in realtime.

Data like cooking frequency and the types of meals people are cooking on what nights. According to ChefSteps CEO Chris Young, about 2 in 10 users are likely to use their Joule on any given day, and about 4 in 10 are likely to use it each week. Each Joule has about a 70% likelihood of being used in a give month.

The way in which ChefSteps determines what a given person is cooking with the Joule is through analyzing the different cooking guides, the visual instructions found in the Joule app that walk users through a recipe.  According to Young, about half of Joule users use the cooking guides when making a meal, with the other half cooking in manual mode.

Young says that as the company has released more cooking guides, usage of ‘guided cooking’ has jumped from 30% to 50% of all cooking sessions with the Joule. He also indicated that the company is also able to effect behavior by releasing certain guides.

“When we create a guide, we can spike demand,” said Young. “When we published the overnight bacon cooking guide, bacon cooking went through the roof.”

And when is bacon cooking popular? Saturday, of course.

You can check out the which days of week each cooking guide are most popular by looking at the graphic below:

Usage of Joule cooking guides by days of the week

And since this is sous vide we’re talking about, it’s not altogether surprising that the most popular type of meal cooked with the Joule is steak. After steak, chicken, pork and eggs also show up as favorites.

You can see the overall ranking of the meal types by popularity below:

Popularity of all meals by type for the Joule

Podcast: Nomiku’s Lisa Fetterman Talks New Hardware, Meal Kits & Samsung Investment

It was a big week for Lisa Fetterman, who not only was named top 30 under 30 by Inc. magazine, but her company also happened to drop the news of new hardware, a new meal delivery service and, to top it all off, an investment by Samsung Ventures.

I caught up with Lisa the day before the Nomiku made their big announcement. You can hear us talk about the latest Nomiku hardware, their entry into meal delivery and – bonus – hear Lisa give details about the planned integration of Nomiku with Samsung’s SmartThings and Family Hub refrigerator.

In the second half of the pod, you can also listen to super smart James Ehrlich of ReGen Villages talk about how he’s trying to create the Tesla of Ecovillages.

Have a listen!

With Investment In Nomiku, Samsung Expands Presence In The “Connected Kitchen”

Today Nomiku, maker of sous vide immersion circulators, announced their latest generation connected cooking appliance and the launch of a subscription meal service that will deliver frozen, pre-cooked meals that owners of the new Nomiku can cook in 30 minutes or less. As part of the announcement, Nomiku also announced that Samsung Ventures had invested in the company.

Food delivery marks an ambitious new direction for Nomiku, one of the original sous vide startups that has been shipping immersion circulators since 2013. By moving into subscription food delivery, Nomiku has its first business line with recurring revenue. The move also makes Nomiku one of the first companies to create a connected hardware device tied to a subscription meal service. While other companies such as Whirlpool and Barilla have been selling RFID powered cooking systems with specially designed packaged food for a couple years, and startup Tovala announced a meal subscription service tied to their cooking appliance last year, Nomiku appears to be the first to launch a meal subscription plan with intelligent auto-reordering built into the connected cooking appliance.

By offering fast-prep meals, Nomiku is also hoping to expose sous vide cooking to a wider audience. Sous vide is often seen as the domain of foodies, the types that are willing to wait longer for a cook to finish in exchange for a better tasting meal. By accelerating the cooking process, the company hopes to change the perception of sous vide circulators from a device synonymous with slow cooking to one that offers both convenience and better tasting food than other fast-cook methods such as microwave ovens.

Nomiku Pork Shoulder pre-cooked meal. Photography by Albert Law

The company plans to start small, shipping to 100 customers in May and expanding to a broader audience in the early summer time frame. The subscription food packages will be modular in nature, consisting of both “mains” and “sides” that can be mixed and matched. The average price of a meal is $15 and, after 20 or so meals, the company says it will credit the price of the Nomiku circulator ($149) towards meals.

The circulator is equipped with an RFID reader, which allows the user to scan an RFID tag on the meals and send the Nomiku circulator specific time and temperature settings for each dish. The device will also be synced with the customer’s existing food inventory and, according to Nomiku, will automatically reorder food when the meals left available are down to four.

The Samsung Connection

One of the most interesting aspects of today’s announcement is the Samsung connection. Samsung’s investment arm invested an undisclosed sum in the company, an amount that Fetterman calls “the most money any single investor has put into Nomiku”. The move marks the second investment in a precision cooking/sous vide startup by a large appliance maker in a short time period, coming just a couple months after the acquisition of Anova by Electrolux.

According to Fetterman, Samsung “is a logical partner for us because they do the connected home.” The investment in Nomiku is, according to Fetterman, a move by Samsung “to dominate the connected kitchen.”

Fetterman said Samsung plans integrate the Nomiku with their smart home platform, SmartThings. Samsung acquired SmartThings almost three years ago, and since that time has had somewhat mixed success in establishing the platform as one which other companies will commit to building around. However, the consumer electronics giant has been fairly successful in their effort to integrate SmartThings with their various product lines in the home such as appliances and TVs. While Samsung had prevously announced an integration of SmartThings with their own Wi-Fi ovens, Nomiku appears to be the first small precision cooking appliance integrated with the SmartThings smart home platform.

Fetterman also told The Spoon that Samsung plans to launch a Nomiku app for the Family Hub refrigerator. The app will come preloaded with the Family Hub and will control the Nomiku device directly from the fridge. Fetterman also believes existing Family Hub models will see in-field software updates that will install the Nomiku app on the connected fridge.

It will be interesting to see where Samsung takes this investment/partnership. I am sure they will be watching Nomiku’s efforts to enter food delivery closely since that business represents a new potential revenue stream for the company. The South Korean consumer electronics conglomerate displayed an early and aggressive embrace of the smart TV market and the associated revenue streams tied to apps included on these new devices. With their investment in Nomiku and the growth of the connected kitchen, one has to wonder if they possibly see food delivery as an enticing new service model in an era of ever-declining hardware margins.

To see Lisa Fetterman and other leaders talk about the future of the connected kitchen, come to the Smart Kitchen Summit. Get your tickets today.

Sous Vide Startup Mellow Gets New CEO, On Track To Ship This May

The Spoon has learned that Mellow, a startup that has gained attention for development of a hybrid sous vide appliance with unique features such as a built-in refrigeration and a scale, has a new CEO. Long-time supply chain executive Gary Itenson, who served as the company’s COO for the past year, has stepped into the top spot and former CEO and company cofounder, Zé Pinto Ferreira, has left the company.

The change caught me by surprise because it’s a bit unusual for a CEO to leave on the eve of shipping its first product, but also because when I checked in with Ferreira at the end of last year, things seemed to be on track. The company has just secured a new relationship with contract manufacturer Flextronics and the Mellow appliance was expected to ship in the spring.

In an interview, Itenson has told me that the first shipments of Mellow are still expected to ship in May.

“We announced this past Monday to our pre-order customers that Mellow deliveries will start at the beginning of May,” said Itenson. “Based our production schedule and transit time all of our early backers will have a Mellow to cook with in their kitchen by mid-June.”

I also asked Itenson about the departure of Ferreira and the outlook for the company (I reached out to Ferreira for a comment but have not received a response).  You can see Itenson’s answers to my questions below.

Wolf: Ze Ferreira is no longer with the company. It’s unusual for a founder to leave before shipping product, so can you tell us the reason for the departure?

Itenson: I joined Mellow March 2016 as COO and as you know the journey for any startup, especially Hardware, is never easy and in hardware sometimes the COO can play a more pivotal role than the CEO. Both co-founders, Ze and Catarina Violante felt late last year that, as we moved closer to shipping, transforming Mellow from a product development team to a more robust operational entity was vital. At that time, I agreed to take over as CEO, with our investors’ full support.

Catarina has continued on as our VP of Product and has always driven the software and hardware side; while Ze decided on his own to leave the company but did so at a time and in a way to ensure we could keep moving forward without any disruption.

Wolf: Was this a decision made by the board members/investors?

Itenson: It was a decision made by the founders and I, but ultimately it was done with the complete support of the board.

Wolf: What is your background and how is Nex-Solutions (Itenson’s previous company) related to Mellow if at all?

Itenson: I have three decades of manufacturing, operational and business development experience within the hardware industry and I have lead teams that have scaled fast and effectively. Prior to Mellow, Nex- Solutions was a company that I founded 10+ years ago, based on the premise of helping domestic companies source and manage Asian supply networks.

Over the years I have worked with a number of companies and founders in the Bay Area, which is how the co-founders and I got involved. I am a passionate home Chef and I was really enamored with the Mellow product. It has fantastic potential for busy people and to truly bring healthy and convenient eating options to the home.

Wolf: Can you clarify the relationship with Flextronics?

Itenson: After joining the Mellow team last year, we saw that Flex was a clear choice to help us take a product from prototype to mass production. The relationship is one of a customer and supplier partner, however the senior management at Flex in China have really embraced Mellow. They love the product concept and as such, they have been more than supportive in applying resources and assets to insure we ship a great product.

Wolf: Ferreira indicated the technology was “harder to scale than originally thought” when I interviewed him in the fall. Have you overcome the difficulties around trying to do a combo sous vide/refrigeration unit?

Itenson: Yes, very much. Again hardware is hard and taking this extra time has made all the difference. Over the past several months we have had Mellow units in the field with select individuals that range from Sous vide experts to busy families and the feedback has been tremendous.

People are so enthusiastic about the refrigeration aspect and how this brings a completely different experience and convenience to sous vide cooking, with nothing like it in the market. Everything we have thought Mellow could be is now becoming a reality and we are very excited.

Wolf: What is the intended ship date and price point for retail (or ball park)?

Itenson: As mentioned the ship date starts in May and by mid-to late June customers will be able to purchase a Mellow unit from stock via our website. Pre-order pricing will be ending soon and going forward we expect $499.00 to be our target retail price.

While our price is higher than other sous vide products in the market, we feel that the Mellow, being a stand-alone appliance -with the unique ability to refrigerate and cook at a time you choose- justifies the higher price. Of course our long-term goal will be to bring down the price but we don’t see that happening for some time.

Want to meet the leaders defining the future of food, cooking and the kitchen? Get your tickets for the Smart Kitchen Summit today.

Anova Rolls Out Alexa and Google Home Integrations With ‘Guided Cook’ Capabilities

If you’re a member of the rapidly growing sous vide community, there’s a good chance you are one of tens of thousands that go online to share recipes and suggestions for taking the craft – and that evening’s meal – to the next level.

And if you’re an enterprising user of Anova’s sous vide circulator who just so happened to hack a custom Alexa skill to cook with your machine, you might just share your idea and get the attention of both the community and Anova itself.

That’s exactly what happened when David Zielezna shared his new Alexa skill on Reddit. After creating a stir in the /sousvide reddit, an Anova community manager reached out to David to put him in touch with the Anova software team. Before long, the sous vide enthusiast from Australia was offered the opportunity to create the official Anova Alexa integration.

And so today Anova is rolling out their new Alexa skill based on David’s work, as well as a new Google Home action that is available to Android customers.

The Alexa skill and Google Home Actions will have what Anova is calling ‘Guided Cook’ capabilities, which allow the user to access the guide information from the Anova app and work through a series of options to optimize and work through a cook. In the same way a person would navigate a branching tree of selections in the app to optimize cooking a meal, the new Alexa Skill and Google Home Action allow users to input the protein type, doneness and thickness via voice in a series of commands.

Here’s an example of how this will be done using Google Home Invocations (commands) within the Google Home Action.

User: Hey Google, tell Anova to help me cook a steak.
GH: Steak has the following choices: A) Porterhouse, B) Ribeye, C) Strip, and D) Tenderloin. Which would you like?
User: Ribeye
GH: How thick is your ribeye in inches?
User: One point five inches
GH: The ribeye steak recipe has the following choices for how you can cook one point five inch thick ribeye: A) Very rare to rare, B) Medium rare, C) Medium, D) Medium well, and E) Well done. Which would you like?
User: Medium rare
GH: The precision cooker settings for Ribeye Steak using one point five inch ribeye cooked medium rare are 129 degrees for one hour. should I start your cooker with these settings?
User: Yes
GH: I told Anova to start a cook for your Ribeye Steak at 129 degrees for one hour. Please refer to this recipe in the anova app for an ingredient list and full preparation steps.

The Guided Cook capabilities are available today with the Alexa Skill, and will be available via an update to the Google Home Action on April 4th.

With over half of Amazon Echos and likely a similar percentage of Google Home products ending up in the kitchen, Anova’s embrace of voice control makes sense. The kitchen has been a fertile area for skill creation over the past year or more, and now with Google Home doing what it can to ratchet up its third party voice interactions, we’ll see even more.

Bottom line, you can expect a lot more people talking to their cooking devices in the coming years.

You can watch David Zielezna’s Alexa skill in action in the video below:

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Want to meet the leaders defining the future of food, cooking and the kitchen? Get your tickets for the Smart Kitchen Summit today.

Sous Vide Cocktails? Yes Please.

The French technique of cooking food slowly in a warm water bath is not new. In fact, sous vide has been around since the early 18th century. For a long time, it was reserved for exclusive and high-end cooking and remained relatively unknown in the consumer world.

In the last few years, however, it’s gone from being a well-known cooking technique in the hobbyist and professional chef communities to a being a food tech darling. Startups like ChefSteps, Anova and Nomiku have all worked to bring sous vide to the masses at affordable prices with recipes that feel accessible.

But whenever you hear about sous vide, whether in an online review or story or on a panel, you hear people talking about cooking steak. Fish. Chicken. Sometimes vegetables. But cocktails? Preparing the newest libation isn’t synonymous with a sous vide machine, but Tasting Table is profiling some chefs that are using the warm water bath technique to create some delicious concoctions.

So how do they do it – and why? A good cocktail has an array of vibrant flavors – from fruits to herbs and spices to fragrances, there’s a lot that goes into crafting the perfect drink. Sous vide can be an excellent way, it turns out, to infuse several flavors into a liquid in preparation for turning it into a cocktail later on.

One restaurant in Santa Monica, California that’s known for its beverage menu uses sous vide in several ways to create delicious liquid flavors to include in their drinks. Tasting Table explains the process,

“For his Rome with a View, he sous-vides a mixture of blood orange peels, blood orange juice, sugar and black pepper pods at 150 degrees for two hours; the sugar and the juice slowly draw oil out of the peel, which in turn infuse with the black pepper.”

The slow infusion of flavors into the liquid is what gives these bartenders the edge; it would be impossible to recreate that type of complexity just with muddling or shaking. Another bar in Brooklyn is using a variety of lemon flavors via a sous vide infusion to recreate a cocktail that probably comes with a stigma in hipster bars – the Cosmo.

Sous vide clearly isn’t going anywhere, and the creative ways to use the machine will only attract more curious home chefs who want to recreate delicious meals and drinks in their own kitchens.

To read about the rest of the delicious cocktails being cooked up with sous vide, check out the Tasting Table piece.

ChefSteps Working On Marketplace To Connect Cattle Ranchers With Consumers

Just last week, ChefSteps announced the rollout of a new Facebook Messenger bot to assist users of its Joule sous vide cooker in the process of making a meal. This just a few months after adding an Alexa skill for the Joule, and we know from conversations with the company they have plans to create a platform that would enable influencers like chefs to create branded content for the Joule.

If this wasn’t enough to convince you the busy Seattle cooking startup has a whole lot of balls in the air, there’s one more business they’d like to add to their juggling act. According to a job posting on ChefSteps.com, the company also has plans to launch a new line of business that allows independent ranchers to sell their meat directly to users of the Joule.

According to the job listing, the new product manager position will oversee a marketplace that connects “independent ranchers with ChefSteps users, offering them direct access to high-quality meat and ingredients at great prices.”  The new position would oversee the marketplace and help to manage the home delivery service portion of this new line of business.

It’s an interesting move for ChefSteps. The world of high-quality meat is one that is largely still dependent on the traditional wholesale food distribution business, with the vast majority of meat still being bought through grocery and food retail.  Changing this business would take a heavy lift, but given that sous vide customers are already somewhat enlightened when it comes to the quality of food, ChefSteps probably believes it can extend that higher awareness into the actual steak purchase itself.

Could it work? Maybe. Success would be dependent on whether there is an underserved market for quality steaks and if ChefSteps can provide a unique way to connect producers of meat and consumers that has interesting economics for both parties.

The motivation for moving into ancillary areas to their current hardware business is clear. The consumer sous vide appliance market is heating up, as companies like Anova, who is now part of Electrolux, and ChefSteps are starting to see increased competition from low-cost brands such as Gourmia and InstantPot.  ChefSteps early success with the Joule resulted from successfully tapping into the company’s large online community, but recent moves suggest that they see continued innovation around new features and services as a way to keep ahead of the crowd.

Sous Vide Chocolate?

Here’s more evidence that, as Chris Young hypothesized a few months ago, sous vide is the new microwave: People are using devices like the Anova to temper chocolate.

I know, I know: We all thought that chocolate appeared in its finished form like a magical food from the gods. But it actually takes a lot of steps to make a shiny, delicious chocolate bar, the last of which is tempering, which means heating and cooling the melted chocolate to the right temperature so that certain crystals develop, making it shiny and shelf-stable. If it’s not, it will develop white blotches and streaks that change the texture entirely.

Pastry chefs and chocolatiers use all sorts of methods to temper chocolate, such as “tabling” it, which is visually and technically challenging. Theo Chocolate, for example, tables all the chocolate for its confections (think thousands of candies every month).

People who aren’t such purists use, you know, a machine to do this work. Those machines are huge, so you’ll often find home cooks tempering chocolate in the microwave.

Or at least, you used to. Recently I discovered a new recipe for tempering chocolate that seems even easier: sous vide! Simply heat the chocolate in a vacuum-sealed bag to a certain temperature in the water bath, “squish it around in the bag,” reduce the temperature of the water bath, squish a little more, and then pull it out. Who says you can only use your Anova to make a steak or some eggs?

I love the idea of this shortcut. It uses updated technology (the microwave is so 1966) in a new and no-nonsense way to transform a technically difficult task into one that anyone should be able to do. At the same time, I’m not sure it would really work. After all, when melted chocolate touches water, it seizes and gets all clumpy and unworkable: With this method, you’re submerging chocolate in the enemy.

But I get it: We’re all obsessed with chocolate, and anything to get our hands on it is going to be popular. Take 3D printing. “The first thing people want to 3D print is chocolate,” said Luis Rodriguez Alcalde, a 3D-printing expert who runs 3 Digital Cooks. Dozens of printers claim that they’ve mastered printing chocolate, which means they have to have mastered tempering, right? Some even say it’s the easiest medium to work with. But anyone who has tried tabling chocolate or making it from scratch knows that’s far from the truth.

Regardless, this kind of innovation only helps transform the tools and techniques that professional and home chefs use in the kitchen, demystifying and democratizing cooking for all.

Subscribe to the Spoon to get the latest analysis about the future of food, cooking, and kitchen. 

The Cool Kids Are Making Sous Vide Cocktails

Sous vide steaks are flawless, but they’re also old news and, frankly, a snooze. Now high-end restaurants and bars are taking their Anova to the next level, using it to make sous vide cocktails like the gorgeous gin and tonic at Betony, featured in the video above.

Before you get the impression that mixologists are dumping a bunch of liquor in a tepid water bath and call it a day, keep in mind that technically they’re using the sous vide to engineer tastier syrups and other elements necessary for a perfectly blended cocktail. Those finished syrups are then added to the spirits and served freshly made.

Why sous vide? “Ingredients like vanilla and star anise are no problem for cold infusions, but lighter flavors like cacao nibs, black pepper, or green apple pose a bigger challenge,” beverage director Vipop “Tor” Jinaphan at Sugar Ray: You’ve Just Been Poisoned, in Bangkok, told Munchies. “It’s better with a sous vide machine.” Sugar Ray serves a take on the classic Martinez cocktail called the Framboise Martinez, with a combination of raspberries, orange, vanilla, and sweet vermouth cooked in a sous vide for hours, then added to gin, lime bitters, and maraschino liqueur. The bar is one of several on the exploding Bangkok cocktail scene to use sous vide, pioneered by mixologist Joseph Boroski.

San Francisco is also chockfull of fancy sous vide cocktails like the Rae Rey at Chino, with lychee-infused Baijiu, Aperol, tea, cucumber, and lime. They used to serve the cocktail only occasionally, as they’d have to wait a year for the lychee to infuse into the Baijiu before being able to make more. Using the sous vide method allows them to make the drink at almost a moment’s notice.

So what’s next: cake?

Why Top Chef’s Ilan Hall Loves the Thermomix

When Top Chef season 2 winner Ilan Hall told me he’s been obsessed with the Thermomix for as long as he can remember, I had to learn more. Hall says he uses the Thermomix—a combination mixer, blender, oven, and more—almost daily at home and often at his restaurants in Los Angeles and New York as well. Here’s why he loves it.

How He Discovered It: Ever since culinary school, long before the Thermomix became available in the United States, Hall was “playing around” with the machines at other people’s houses and restaurants in Europe and mastering the art of combination ovens and thermoimmersion circulators here in the States. When the Thermomix came onto the market here, he got one immediately.

What He Loves About It: Hall said he appreciates how you can do so much in one space with the Thermomix, noting that it’s “pretty advanced” in its capabilities, with a great display and high functionality as well as excellent safety precautions (for example, it won’t let you blend hot soup too quickly, which would create pressure and make it spill over the sides).

He’s also a huge fan of the Thermomix’s Recipe Chips, a digital cookbook with step-by-step instructions. “There are certain things that I want to play with and certain things I don’t want to mess up,” he explained. “The preprogrammed recipes literally make it foolproof.”

Favorite Way to Use It: “At home I use it as a general all-purpose tool,” he said, explaining that he’s made soup, consommé, and bread. In particular he likes to use it to make herb purees, noting that it allows you to heat the herbs “at a delicate temperature” and puree them at the right speed (plus you don’t lose any of the puree to the bottom of the machine, like with some blenders).

That leaves him more time to experiment with his own creations. For example, at his Los Angeles restaurant Ramen Hood, he’s made small batches of vegan dashi broth with kombu and shiitake mushrooms, “changing the texture of the purees by implementing heat” in the Thermomix (think caramelizing onions while keeping them in constant motion, then pureeing sunflower seeds into them), giving the vegan dish “more depth and the mouthfeel of a [decidedly nonvegan] kampachi broth.”

What He’d Change About It: “I would make a pocket-size one,” he said, “one that’s smaller and more affordable.”

Other Kitchen Technology: He’s playing around with a new sous vide device called the Mellow, which is an all-contained gadget completely controlled by an app and doesn’t even require an additional vacuum sealer. He said he loves its design as well: “It looks like a gentle white fish tank.”

Mellow’s Zé Pinto Ferreira On Flex Partnership, Smart Kitchen & Sous Vide

Last week, Mellow, the maker of an innovative sous vide system that includes features such as built-in refrigeration and a scale, announced a partnership with contract manufacturer Flextronics to help push the product into production.  That’s good news for Mellow’s early backers, since the $400 (presale price) product was expected to ship in early 2015.

But the announcement hinted at more than just a typical contract manufacturing relationship.  The two companies execs not only talked about bringing Mellow’s machine to market, but also said they would collaborate on future products. Adding to the intrigue is Flex, which had moved into the smart home when it acquired the business of distressed smart home company Wink from Quirky last year, sees the smart kitchen fitting nicely into the broader connected home.

From Flex’s president of Global Operations, Mechanical Technology Solutions, Gerhard Zebe: “We believe Mellow’s connected appliance could be an integral part of the smart home kitchen, and something consumers will want and enjoy.”

The Mellow smart sous vide machine

With news of this partnership for a company we’ve been tracking for the last two years, we decided to catch up via email with Mellow’s founder and CEO, Zé Pinto Ferreira, to ask him a few questions.

Below is our email interview. Answers have been edited slightly for brevity.

What is the nature of the partnership with Flextronics?

Ferreira: Flextronics has invested in Mellow in non-traditional ways (no equity or capital have been exchanged) that really come down to a much closer and more trusting working relationship than any customer I’ve ever seen have with a manufacturer. The best I can tell you is that Flex’s upper management is heavily involved in Mellow, and they’ve put a disproportionate amount of care in shipping the best possible product.

Mellow originally was intended to ship in early 2015. What was the reason for the delay in shipment?

Ferreira: The technology was harder to scale than we thought. That’s the hard part of building such a unique product, you never know what problems will show up when you scale from prototypes to mass production, especially when you have the standard for that quality we have. We’re on the cusp of shipping now, and we’re so proud of the product people will get.

The product is unique with its refrigeration and sous vide in one unit. Was trying to do both in one device a challenge?

Ferreira: It was insanely hard, but it was the only way to build the product we wanted to ship: a fully automated sous-chef that cooks while you’re away from home. Back when we started, lot of clever people thought what we were trying to do was impossible. We knew it wasn’t, and we’re about to prove it at scale.

Given how close Mellow is to production, how will things change with the partnership?  

Ferreira: The most exciting thing about a software-driven product like Mellow is that you’re not finished with it by the time it goes into a box. We’re shipping a simple proposition: An app and a device that make a great product together. But we’re extending that product to more platforms and integrations soon.

How do you see a sous vide maker benefitting from a partnership with a company that owns a smart home platform player like Wink?

Ferreira: We don’t see Mellow as a sous-vide device. Bear with me: It cooks food sous-vide, but it’s so different from everything else out there. Most sous-vide devices end up only being used for special occasions, and there’s a limited amount of work connectivity can do for you when you’re cooking a whole hog for 20 people. Mellow is made to be left at home cooking while you’re at work, so working together with the rest of the home to anticipate your needs/changes in your day makes a lot of sense to us.

Will your role change at all now with this partnership?

Ferreira: Not at all. Flex has been great at leaving us to do what we do best – designing a killer product for busy home cooks. Their interest is in taking our designs and making them at a level of quality where it can proudly be in any kitchen from day 1. Usually, when a hardware startup plays Apple, there’s a lot of compromise down the line. We haven’t had to compromise at all working with Flex, they understand our obsession with quality.

It’s been a few years since Mellow was announced. How has the market for consumer sous vide changed in this time?

Ferreira: We’ve seen a few new products come out since we announced, but nothing that really excites me. I have a Joule, Anova and Nomiku at home, and I get a lot of mileage out of them on special occasions, but I still haven’t’ seen anything that really screams mainstream. All (especially Chefsteps) are doing a great job with education and it shows in the category’s growth, but we’re still very far away from sous-vide being in every kitchen. In my opinion, that’s because circulators aren’t the tool for the job. But I’m pretty biased on that 😉