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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Startup Showcase

Mezli, a Maker of Robot Restaurants, Wins the Smart Kitchen Summit 2021 Startup Showcase

Mezli, a maker of robotized container restaurants, has won the 2021 Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase.

The company, which currently operates a prototype restaurant in San Mateo’s KitchenTown, was started after two of the company’s cofounders, Alex Kolchinski and Alex Gruebele, met while studying at Stanford. Like most college students, the two were always on the hunt for food to fuel their studies but usually found the options lacking.

“Both of us had this problem that we’re trying to solve that it was really expensive to eat good food out,” said Kolchinski from the Smart Kitchen Summit virtual mainstage. “We were pretty busy as Ph.D. students, we can cook all the time. But if we wanted to eat out, it was kind of a choice between going to McDonald’s, which didn’t make us feel great if we ate it every day, or going places like the Stanford dining halls.”

So alongside a third cofounder, Max Perham, they got to work on building a robot restaurant. Unlike many robotic restaurants or kiosk concepts, the trio decided to create a completely customized robot purpose-fit for the job.

“We’ve got kind of a lot of opinions on how to do things in a way that makes the most sense for the problem we’re solving, which is making good with meals on-site that tastes great that are good for you and we do it efficiently,” said Kolchinski. “We’re not using any robotic arms. We’re using custom hardware, some of which we’ve designed in-house and filed some patents on. And some of which we’re adopting from off-the-shelf things. We’ve done some pretty hacky things in here. And I think we’re going to continue to take this kind of hybrid approach in the future too.”

And what does that future entail?

“We’re building up to where we have a whole fleet of these across the country, even across the world, where these are all over the place because they’re cheaper and smaller than restaurants, you can put them in more places.”

According to Kolchinski, Mezli plans on building thousands of containerized restaurants, starting with their current Mediterranean bowl concept and experimenting with other ideas along the way.

“We are building the robotics in a way that can do a lot of different stuff. Basically, anything that goes in a bowl of soup, salads, you name it, curry bowls.”

Mezli joins a series of other innovators participating in the industry’s longest-running food tech startup showcase. In its seventh year, the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase has been a launching pad for a variety of food tech startups such as Tovala, SAVRPak, Bostrista, Cultured Decadance, Millo and Freshstix.

You can watch Alex Kolchinski’s full interview below.

Mezli Wins 2021 Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase

SKS 2021: Meet Ottonomy, Maker of Autonomous Food Delivery Robots

Time to meet Ottonomy, one of the ten startups pitching tomorrow at Smart Kitchen Summit!

Ottonomy is a maker of autonomous delivery robots. Unlike most other sidewalk delivery bots, Ottonomy can navigate through both outdoors and indoor environments. The company, led by longtime robotics entrepreneur Ritukar Vijay, was founded last year and has already racked up mobile ordering partners like Crave.

So why did Vijay, who has worked on autonomous mobility solutions for car makers like BMW, decide to focus on a delivery bot?

“One thing which struck me is that autonomous cars will still take some time to hit the mainstream,” said Vijay. “So what is the best way to actually utilize that know-how to solve a problem of today? That’s how we came down to delivery. Because that’s something which is a real use case that autonomous driving can solve.”

While competition is heating up in this space, Vijay believes his product is hitting the market at just the right time.

“The labor shortage is hitting the restaurants and wages have increased massively,” said Vijay. “So it becomes very, very difficult for large businesses to give a solution the customer expect and have a sustainable future. At the same time, from the customer side, they want a cleaner, faster and cheaper way of getting those kinds of services. So it’s a win-win from both customer and the restaurant side.”

You can watch Carlos Rodela’s full interview with Ritukar Vijay below. If you’d like to connect with Vijay at the Smart Kitchen Summit, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - Ottonomy

SKS 2021: Meet Culineer, an App That Connects Home Cooks With Local Food Producers

Time to meet our next startup for the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase: Culineer. Culineer is an app that helps home cooks find recipes and connects them to local farmers and food producers.

When asked why she created Culineer, company cofounder Jodi Frank said it started with her own challenges as a home cook.

“I wanted to solve my own frustrations with cooking,” said Frank. “Most home cooks share my frustration that it takes so much time and energy to decide what to make, find your recipe, get ingredients. By the time you get home, you don’t have any time to cook. So I wanted to make all that a lot more simple.”

As she started to focus on solving her own cooking struggles, it didn’t talk for the former industrial safety executive long to realize that so much of what you cook at home is rooted in your local community. “I really started to think about my own needs,” said Frank. “Food like super persona, and it’s inherently connected and communal.”

And because no one is more integrally connected to the local food community than farmers, Frank knew it was critical for Culineer to make that connection.

“Culineer helps bridge that gap between the farmers and what they are producing with the home cook.”

You can watch our conversation Frank in the video below. If you want to connect with Frank in person and see her pitch at the Smart Kitchen Summit, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - Culineer

SKS 2021: Meet Blix, A No-Cleanup Smart Food Maker

We’re just five days away from SKS 2021, which means it’s time to preview another Startup Showcase finalist.

Today’s featured startup is Blix, a company which makes a no-prep, no-cleanup smart food maker. The Blix food maker uses a patent-protected smart lid which incorporates an integrated blade and RFID tag to enable the user to make a variety of instant meals. The user just adds liquid into the mixing cup, pours in pre-prepared ingredients from a Blix meal pouch and the Blix machine prepares the food in minutes.

Watch The Spoon’s Carlos Rodela discuss the Blix story with company founder Ariel Sterngold. If you’d like to connect with Ariel at Smart Kitchen Summit, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - Blix

SKS 2021: Meet ChocoMake, a Smart Chocolate Machine for the Home Kitchen

If there’s one thing the world can use more of, it’s chocolate tech, and we have it for you with our latest Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase finalist interview: ChocoMake.

In this interview, Carlos Rodela talks with ChocoMake founder and CEO Liora Omer. ChocoMake is a countertop home chocolate making appliance that enables the amateur chocolatier to control taste & texture, shape and the composition of their chocolate creations.

You can watch the video below and learn more about ChocoMake at their website. If you would like to connect with Liora Omer at the Smart Kitchen Summit, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - ChocoMake

SKS 2021: Meet Castiron, a Turnkey Commerce and Community Platform For Artisanal Food Entrepreneurs

It’s time to meet Castiron, one of the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase finalists.

So who is Castiron? Castiron is building a turnkey commerce platform for independent food entrepreneurs. The company’s solution gives food makers everything they need to run an online business, including website creation, product management, invoicing, inventory management, and marketing, as well as other access to discounted insurance and other business benefits.

You can hear from company CEO Mark Josephson in the video below. Josephson, who is the former CEO of Bitly, talks with The Spoon’s Carlos Rodela about the importance of the artisanal creator to the broader economy and what pain points Castiron solves for them.

If you’d like to connect with Mark at the Smart Kitchen Summit, head over to Hopin where we are hosting our virtual event, and pick up your ticket today!

The Spoon Interviews - Castiron [a Shopify for Artisanal Food Entrepreneurs]

SKS 2021: Meet Clew, a Startup Making a Home Food Waste Recycling Appliance

We’re heads down in preparation for Smart Kitchen Summit 2021, but we couldn’t be more excited to showcase some of food tech’s more innovative startups as part of the 2021 Startup Showcase.

To whet your appetite, The Spoon team is going to be rolling out almost-daily video interviews with the leaders of these startups over the next two weeks.

First up is Clew. Clew makes a countertop appliance that grinds, heats, and dries all residential food waste (including animal bones, fruit pits, and coffee filters) in under 2 hours into a shelf stable and consistent output that is over 80% mass-reduced. The output can then be easily-refined into compost, gifted to a local garden, or put into an appropriate organics recycling stream for further processing.

You can watch our interview with Clew’s Chief Experience Officer Spencer Martin below.

If you’d like to connect with Clew or any of the other startups pitching at SKS 2021, get your ticket today!

The Spoon Interview With Clew, Maker of a Smart Home Food Waste Recycling Appliance

Meet the Innovators Selected as Finalists for the 2021 SKS Startup Showcase

Every year, we put out a call for innovators who are using tech to disrupt and ultimately improve the way we eat, prep and interact with food. We receive Startup Showcase applications from all corners of the global food system and get to learn about the ideas that will spark change and help shape the future of food and the kitchen. In the end, our editorial team selects 10 or so finalists who represent the most unique and transformative ideas in food tech.

In its 8th year, the SKS Startup Showcase has served as a launching pad for some of today’s most interesting food tech startups. With companies as diverse as smart stove and food delivery startup Tovala, food delivery packaging startup SavrPak, and upcoming Shark Tank contestant IncrEDIBLE Eats, alumni of the Showcase are making an impact across the food innovation landscape.

Each finalist will get a chance to pitch on stage at the 2021 Smart Kitchen Summit, happening virtually in just a few weeks on November 9th and 10th.

If you want to see the finalists pitch and have a chance to network with some of the top leaders and newest startups in food and kitchen tech, grab your ticket to SKS here.

Let’s meet the 2021 Startup Showcase Finalists.

  • AIGecko is powering a touchless checkout kiosk with their AI-powered food recognition API. Customers can select food and place their selection at the kiosk and using artificial intelligence that drives both facial and food recognition at the kiosk. Guests can also get the nutritional information of their dish and get connected to a nutrition expert through the connected app.
  • Blix is a smart food maker that promises to eliminate both the preparation and the cleanup of cooking a meal from scratch. Blix includes a smart lid with an integrated blade and RFID tag to ensure consistent results each time a dish is made.
  • Castiron is a central hub and platform for independent kitchen-based chefs to sell their creations direct to customers. It also includes resources and creator community to support and grow their business. Castiron says their customers include bakers, juicers, jammers and similar culinary artisans to market and sell their goods.
  • Chocomake is a smart home chocolate maker and ingredient kit developed by a female-led startup launching in 2022. The appliance allows users to create custom varieties of chocolate in different shapes, composition and texture. Chocomake can help with allergies and dietary restrictions and can produce vegan, non-GMO and sugar-free chocolate with easy prep and cleanup.
  • Clew is a countertop appliance that grinds, heats and dries home food waste in two hours and transforms it into shelf-stable material that can be refined into compost or place into a recycling stream for further processing. After processing through the Clew appliance, the amount of waste material is reduced by mass by over 80%. Clew is working to produce an early prototype.
  • Mezli is building containerized robot restaurants called “auto-kitchens.” The “restaurant-in-a-box” business leverages automation and shipping containers to power a fully autonomous kitchen able to cook, plate and pack each dish. Mezli founder and CEO told The Spoon that their auto-kitchens can go 48 hours or make 300 meals (whichever comes first) before requiring servicing by a non-robotic worker.
  • Natufia is an integrated and automated indoor smart hydroponic kitchen garden created for at-home food growing. The smart kitchen garden can grow up to 32 simultaneously with automatic watering and lighting and gives users of 40 seedpods. Natufia customers can grow everything from leafy and microgreens to vegetables and flowers.
  • Ottonomy creates autonomous robots that enable contactless deliveries of food and retail products. Ottonomy robots require zero human supervision for navigation and can operate in both indoor and outdoor environments. The company’s proprietary software claims to allow for fully autonomous operation in crowded and unpredictable environments including in airports, malls and office buildings.
  • Culineer is a platform where farms can educate and communicate with consumers looking for locally produced foods. While consumers often don’t know how to cook everything they may purchase direct from farms, farmers don’t have resources and time to provide food level education. Culineer fills that gap with recipes, harvest updates, education and peer support; this gives farms increased customer satisfaction and retention.
  • WSVC is an appliance company that has invented a new type of multi-purpose microwave oven that features traditional microwave cooking as well as Waterless Sous Vide Cooking (WSVC). WSVC cooks food with low consistent heat similar to sous vide but without the water bath and vacuum seal. WSVC will debut for the first time at the 2021 Smart Kitchen Summit.

SKS 2020: Watch the SKS Startup Showcase Finalist Pitches

At last week’s Smart Kitchen Summit, ten finalists made their case on the virtual stage why they should be chosen as winner of the Startup Showcase competition.

The Startup Showcase, which started back in 2015 and is one of the longest running dedicated food tech startup pitch contests in the world, had its most diverse and interesting mix of companies yet, with products ranging from cultured seafood to a food robots to a taste-enhancing cutlery.

While SKS attendees got to see the finalists from the main stage last week, we figured Spoon readers might also like to see the pitches.

Here’s how the Showcase worked: The pitch sessions were one of two portions of the showcase. After the founders pitched from the virtual stage on the first day, the next day they headed to their virtual breakout rooms where they showed off their products and answered questions from the judges.

The judges for this year’s Startup Showcase included Wired’s Joe Ray, Good Housekeeping’s Nicole Papantoniou, test kitchen expert Jane Freiman, Modernist Cuisine author/ChefSteps founder Chris Young and rlTLK/Pieshell founder Cheryl Durkee. The judges went into virtual “exhibit” areas where the founders could show off their wares and answer questions.

Since contactless pick up pod startup Minnow was declared the winner, we thought we’d also include a clip from the Minnow booth explaining how the product works.

Minnow’s Contactless Delivery Pods Win the SKS 2020 Startup Showcase Award

Minnow, which makes IoT-enabled lockers for food delivery, is the winner of the Smart Kitchen Summit 2020 Startup Showcase. The prestigious annual award highlights independent companies doing the best and most innovative work in the food tech space.

Though this year’s showcase went virtual, it still attracted hundreds of applicants from across the food tech landscape. And while all our finalists were compelling, Minnow’s solution wound up impressing our judges the most.

Meant for residential buildings, offices (whenever those re-open) and other high-traffic locations, a Minnow pod has a number of cloud-connected cubbies. When a food order arrives, it’s placed into a cubby and held until the end customer comes to unlock the cubby and retrieve their food.

One aspect of the Minnow pod that is particularly useful during this global pandemic is that it’s contactless. There is no human-to-human interaction when delivering food. These pods can also integrate even more convenience to home meal delivery process by allowing customers to pick up their food orders when they are ready, not the exact second the food arrives. To say Minnow pods could be useful during the time of COVID-19 is a bit of an understatement.

On a more personal note. It’s fun to see Minnow win this award because we’ve been covering the company for a number of years and have watched it change and grow. We first covered them back when they started in Portland, Maine, were called Veebie and were creating a mobile locker system that would park on busy sidewalks. Then they changed their name to Kadabra and settled on the stationary locker and went cross-country to the other Portland, in Oregon. Then this year, Minnow launched its pods, raised $2.2 million and now they are crowned the SKS Startup Showcase winners.

Congratulations to Minnow and thank you to all the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase finalists this year.

A Quick Walkaround Tour of Smart Kitchen Summit Virtual

Here at the Spoon, we’ve been spending most of our days getting ready for Smart Kitchen Summit 2020, which takes place Oct. 13–15 and, this year, is completely virtual.

One thing that’s become clear over the past few weeks is that many folks haven’t attended, let alone spoke or exhibited at, a virtual summit before. Heck, for us, this is our first big one as well.

So I thought it would be worth while to give a quick guided tour of what our event will look like by giving a tour of Hopin, the virtual event platform where we are hosting SKS 2020.

One of the reasons we chose Hopin is that it includes all of the various “locations” you normally see when you attend in-person events: a Main stage, areas for breakout sessions, exhibit areas and, of course, networking space.

And we plan to take advantage of all of these different features to make for a great interactive three days of conversation, workshops, demos and networking.

Some of the things we have on tap:

  • A live demo of 3D printing plant-based meat from NovaMeat
  • A tour of Modernist Cuisine Kitchen
  • A debut of a new restaurant-scale pizza-making robot
  • Live sessions with Startup Showcase finalists demoing everything from cultured seafood labs to taste-altering cutlery to home cooking robots.

And that’s just the beginning. Add in conversations and one-on-one networking with the leaders of companies in kitchen tech, future food, restaurant tech and more, and we are super excited about helping you come away from SKS with great ideas and the right connections to help you build your next business.

You’re probably thinking that’s great, but what exactly does a virtual event look like? Don’t worry. I did a quick walkthrough of Hopin to give you a better understanding of how it all works. Just click play below to take a quick tour.

Once your done, make sure to get your ticket to SKS because you will not want to miss out!

The Food Tech Show: Amazon Intros Palm-Pay, Bear’s New Servi Robot

This week the Spoon team got together to talk about yet another potentially controverisal bit of palm reading tech from Amazon and other news from around the food tech world, including:

As always, you can get the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download the episode directly to your device or just click play below.