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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Juicero, Sprig and Teforia Among 2017’s Notable Startup Failures

PitchBook, the financial data and software company, released its 2017 Startup Graveyard list today, highlighting eleven companies that raised more than $1 billion combined in VC funding, and all of whom shut down this year.

Of the eleven notable startup failures, three were in the food tech space: Juicero, Sprig and Teforia. Together, these companies had raised $197 million and had a valuation just shy of $700 million. That they all met an untimely demise should serve as a cautionary ghost story for any company looking to get into, or get more funding for, a high-end drink device or meal delivery service.

Juicero, creator of the connected (and expensive) juice machine, raised $121 million in funding and had a very Icarus-like valuation of $459 million. That is, until word got out that you could squeeze the juice packets with your hands, decimating the company and any value it had created.

And just last week Teforia, the maker of the $1,000 tea infuser, reached a bitter end after raising $17 million (for a tea maker) and reaching a $35 million valuation.

Then there was Sprig, which waded into the competitive world of on-demand food delivery. The service raised $59 million and hit a valuation as high as $169 before shutting down in May, with the company noting the challenges of scaling meal production and delivery.

While the food tech startups on the list raised their fair share of VC funding, its not like the sector was that egregious. Juicero, Sprig and Teforia almost seem frugal compared with Jawbone, which raised a whopping $542 million and was worth $1.5 billion at one point before crashing and burning.

Nor should this list be interpreted that food tech is dead or on life support. Far from it. There are a number of successes to celebrate this year such as InstantPot, Anova and PicoBrew. And the meal kit companies… well, to be honest, there will probably be more hardships to endure as the space matures, and its likely only a company like Amazon has the level of infrastructure needed to truly make it work.

Food tech has a lot of promise (everyone eats and drinks), and its share of pitfalls. Earlier this week, Mike Wolf here at The Spoon wrote a great piece examining why some smart kitchen companies fail while others succeed. Two of his takeaways were that products should offer consumers new capabilities that would otherwise be too difficult or time consuming without it, and a product should be either affordable or provide immense value.

If you can fulfill those criteria, it’s less likely anyone will dance on your company’s grave.

Why Do Some Smart Kitchen Companies Succeed While Others Fail?

Teforia, the maker of a $1000 (originally $1500) connected tea infuser, announced this week that they would shut down immediately.

In a letter to customers, Teforia CEO Allen Han wrote: “we simply couldn’t raise the funds required in what is a very difficult time for hardware companies in the smart kitchen space.”

I’m not entirely surprised the company couldn’t raise funds. High-priced consumer product startups with a business model that feels even vaguely similar to that of Juicero have experienced pushback from potential investors ever since the high profile juice startup went under. While the two companies are certainly different in many respects, there were enough similarities (high price point, subscription business, easily replaced with alternative methods) to warrant the comparison among a jittery investor class.

But as I read Han’s letter, I started to wonder if what he said is true: are smart kitchen companies having a hard time? Or, as I started to suspect, are some having difficulty while others are flourishing?

On the one hand we have seen companies like Juicero and Teforia struggle and go out of business. But then there are companies like PicoBrew, Perfect Company, and InstantPot, all of which have thrived as they’ve brought new products and approaches to the kitchen.

As I thought about this, I started thinking about the differences between the companies that are succeeding in this space vs. those that go out of business. As it turns out, I think there are some lessons we can learn from observing companies that have had success in this market.

Here are a few characteristics of those companies who are succeeding in the smart kitchen market:

A product should give the consumer new capabilities that would otherwise be too difficult or time consuming without it

A good example is PicoBrew. If you’ve ever wanted to make beer but didn’t want to the mess of traditional home brewing, the PicoBrew is a game changer. By applying precision brewing, pre-proportioned ingredients and the ability to brew famous recipes for well-known microbreweries, the startup from Seattle has created a reliably successful model of creating new products every year as they march down the cost curve with each product.

Teforia, on the other hand, made tea, something billions of people do everyday in their home without much effort.  While the concept of adjusting flavor notes and antioxidants is an interesting concept for a tea aficionado, as it turns out tea is something that you can make rather easily.

A product should be either affordable or provide immense value 

The Thermomix TM5 is one of those products you’ve probably heard about but very likely don’t have. That’s because the 12-in-1 multicooker commands a pretty penny and has only recently become available in the US.

Normally one would not put the words  “$1500 countertop appliance” and “popular” in the same sentence, but Thermomix has seemingly cracked the code by creating an uber all-in-one appliance that slices, dices and cooks you dinner. The company continues to evolve the product as well, adding a connected recipe community and an associated app that continues to gain traction.

While the Teforia critical acclaim showed its value relative to the status quo, the value wasn’t differentiated enough from low-cost knock-offs like this Gourmia tea diffuser which sells for about a tenth of the price.

Smart Kitchen products need a community

Want to sell lots of product? Create an active and passionate community.

Perhaps the best example of this is the Instant Pot. The popular connected pressure cooker has an extremely active social community which includes a Facebook group of nearly three-quarters of a million Facebook users who share recipes and cooking tips online. Independent Facebook Instant Pot communities, each numbering in the tens of thousands, have also sprung up to facilitate recipe sharing.

While some might say a sizable community is the result of a viral product, Instant Pot’s case suggests the opposite where a product’s success was fueled by the community. Early on, the team behind the Instant Pot worked to actively build a community of Facebook influencers who would spread the word. Word got around, and the product started gaining traction. Eventually, the product moved up Amazon’s sales charts, and the combination of a strong community reinforced by sales momentum created a virtuous circle that continues to this day.

There are others ways to build and leverage communities to sell connected kitchen products. ChefSteps created a community around high-quality video content before they launched their first hardware product in the Joule, while Anova started its community with crowdfunding campaigns and the company continues to water and feed the #anovafoodnerd community even after they were acquired by Electrolux.

Smart kitchen companies need to experiment with multiple business models

Smart kitchen product success often relies as much on business model experimentation as it does on cool technology. The Perfect Company is a good example of this since the company has not only created a successful line of low-cost connected scales like the Perfect Bake and Perfect Drink, but they’ve also actively worked with large appliance brands to create a separate line of licensing revenue for their technology. Last year the company announced a deal with Vitamix for their tech, while this year they announced a new deal that provided the technology foundation for the newest generation of the Nutribullet. The company has also created a new business line that creates insights around consumption metrics tied to their scales.

I don’t know if Teforia was actively looked at other models (the company pointed us to their statement on their website), but I would have been surprised if they hadn’t at least looked for licensing partners for their tea brewing tech.

Of course, it should be noted that often times a fate of a company is due to a number of factors beyond their control. The Juicero news no doubt added strong headwinds for Teforia as they searched for more funding and, if Juicero never happened, we might not be talking about Teforia.

Lastly, while every segment, including the smart kitchen, has their share of Juiceros or Teforias, anything more than a casual look around shows there is no shortage of companies innovating and succeeding in the future kitchen space.

 

Teforia, Maker of the $1,500 Tea Infuser, Shuts Down

Teforia, the startup behind a high-end, $1,500 tea infuser, is closing down. The company announced the closure via an open letter on its site (full text below).

With its high design and granular levels of tea customization, the Teforia captured a lot of attention at our inaugural Smart Kitchen Summit in 2015. The company went on to raise more than $17 million in funding.

But $1,500 is a steep price to steep tea. Reviews were mixed. And hand-blown artisan glass globes weren’t enough to fend off cheaper competitors, such as the Gourmia tea brewer.

Between Teforia and Juicero closing down, it seems as though there is only so much consumers are willing to pay for a specialized drink maker.

We don’t cheer for any company closing here, and hopefully other smart-kitchen appliance makers can learn from Teforia’s missteps. If you are a tea aficionado and curious about the Teforia, they are discounted down to $199 for the limited quantities left.

Here’s the Teforia letter:

Dear Teforia Customers and Partners,

Thank you for being our companion in our journey to elevate the tea experience. From day one we set out to deliver the best tea experience possible, from sourcing the best all-natural tea in the world, to development of the perfect recipes (with tea masters) to developing the most sophisticated and powerful infusion technology.

Your support, feedback and encouragement has fueled our drive on this journey. Even though we’re only sold in the U.S., Teforia Infusers are actively used in twenty different countries, four different continents, and have made almost half-a-million servings of tea in the past nine months.

In our mission to deliver the best tea experience, we didn’t compromise on the Teforia Infuser technology, quality or the premium tea packaged within our Sips. The glass within the infusion globe and carafe are hand blown by a glass artisan, one at a time. We spent a tremendous amount of time pioneering our Sips tea container to be 90% compostable and completely recyclable. We went to these extraordinary lengths because we believe premium loose leaf tea should be delivered in the most delicate and sustainable way possible.

We believe our customers are deserving of the best. Most of you agree with us. In fact, the prestigious World Tea Expo awarded Teforia with the 2016 Best Tea Industry Innovation Award and designated Teforia as the 2017 Best Tea Brewing Device.

We achieved all of this with a most amazing team of 15 highly passionate and highly skilled professionals, with the common belief that the tea experience should be simpler, more elegant and more rewarding.

However, the reality of our business is that it would take a lot more financing and time to educate the market and we simply couldn’t raise the funds required in what is a very difficult time for hardware companies in the smart kitchen space.

Therefore, it is with heavy hearts that we are announcing that all business operations, for Teforia Company, will cease effective today. We will continue to seek a partner that can leverage Teforia technology and/or provide Sips tea sales to continue our mission of elevating the tea experience. Hopefully you will see Teforia technology in future products.

How this affects you:

To ensure you can enjoy our delicious, premium tea as much as possible, you can purchase your favorite Sips and accessories (at a 50% discount) until Friday, November 3rd. Stock up now while the teas are available. We expect to sell out quickly.
https:/checkout.teforia.com/collections/teas

All remaining Teforia Classic inventory is also available for purchase (at a deep discount) until Friday, November 3rd. Buy a second infuser for your home or office or buy one as a gift for friends or family. Inventory is limited, and we expect to sell out quickly.
https://checkout.teforia.com/collections/infusers/products/teforia-infuser

Teforia Classic, Teforia Leaf+ and the Teforia App will function as is with iOS 11 and Android Oreo. Please make sure you have the latest version of the Teforia App, iOS version 674 and Android version 255. The App is certified to work on iOS version 11 and Android Oreo.

For Teforia Leaf customers, we have pushed a new firmware update for your infuser that will change your Teforia Leaf to Teforia Leaf+, which will give you the capability to make your own tea from the Teforia App. To receive the Leaf+ firmware update, please make sure your infuser is connected to a WiFi network that has internet connectivity and leave the infuser powered overnight. Once your Leaf is updated to Leaf+, you will be able to control the infuser from the Teforia App. This is the last action we’ve taken to make sure ALL devices can make their own tea and function independently. For more information, please visit our help page, or contact us at help@teforia.com through November 3rd.

Again, we want to thank you for your support, business and trust. We still believe the world is a better place with tea and hope to find ways to support this vision beyond Teforia.

Best Regards,

Allen Han, Founder | CEO Teforia

Teamosa Wants To Make A Better Cup of Tea With Ultrasonic Extraction

Want to make a great cup of tea? Try using ultrasonic extraction.

That’s the plan at least for the tea entrepreneurs behind Teamosa, a new high-tech teamaker currently raising funds on Kickstarter. The Teamosa campaign, which still has a month to go, has already surpassed its funding target of $100 thousand with $167 thousand raised from 610 backers as of September 27th.

If you’re not familiar with ultrasonic extraction, it’s the application of high frequency sounds in rapid cycles to agitate particles in order to accelerate chemical reactions in a variety of compounds. Also called sonification, the technique is used in a variety of industries ranging from cannabis to petroleum and usually requires specialized equipment.

And now, Teamosa wants to use this process to create a better cup of tea.

Making this story of a new approach to an ancient drink all the more intriguing is Teamosa is the brainchild of Dr. Catherine Liu and Irven Liu, a brother and sister team who spent their childhoods on a tea plantation in Taiwan. Both went on to become engineers and are now leveraging their tech backgrounds to bring the company into the new century.

The Teamosa tea brewer isn’t the first modern tea machine to attempt to use modern technology to create a better cup of Tea. The Tê was unveiled in 2013, but never made it to market. The Teforia, which has raised a total of $17 million, has struggled to break through with tea lovers despite early critical adoration from tea influencers for its high-tech tea infuser.

Not all that surprisingly, the Teamosa team hopes to build a recurring revenue with their next-generation tea maker by also selling their own capsules. This business model, also known by within the industry as the “Keurig model”, is attractive for obvious reasons, but also has risks.  Consumers can feel captive to one company with this model, which may be fine if it’s a Keurig or Nespresso – both large companies with a wide set of industry partners who produce coffee capsules for their systems – but not with a startup you are not sure will be here next year.

While companies like PicoBrew are proving that a startup can create a recurring revenue model, others like Juicero were challenged (although one could make the argument Juicero’s challenges were specific to the company). Teforia, which requires users use their capsules (called Sips) for their lower-cost machine (the classic machine, priced at $999, allows you to use your own loose leaf tea), has found the subscription model a source of some consumer annoyance. Perhaps because of these challenges, Teamosa has smartly enabled their machine to brew both capsules and a consumer’s own loose leaf tea with its baseline machine.

The Teamosa team is part of Hax, the well-known hardware accelerator with locations in Shenzen and San Francisco. The Teamosa appliance, is available starting at $259 on Kickstarter and expects to ship to backers starting in September of 2018.

You can see the Teamosa Kickstarter intro video below:

CNET Is Not A Fan Of The Teforia Infuser

As more smart kitchen products hit the market, we’re seeing more consumer-facing reviews of the pros, and of course the cons, of these connected devices. CNET has expanded their coverage into the smart kitchen and reviewer Brian Bennett took a closer look at the new tea Infuser from Teforia, the startup trying to revolutionize how consumers brew tea.

The one obvious thing about Teforia’s flagship product is the price point – $1500 is a lot of money to drop on a specialty beverage maker and CNET harps on this a lot throughout the review.

But price aside, Bennett does mention the sleek design (although complains that it is plastic) and enjoys watching the tea infuse and turn from leaf to liquid. But when it comes to the outcome, he’s generally unimpressed and points out that when he tried the same tea with the $200 Breville tea maker, the Breville came out on top.

When Bennett told Teforia his results, their response wasn’t super reassuring either.

According to Teforia, I’d need to run something truly exceptional through the Infuser in order to really appreciate it — something rare, handmade and close to $100 per pound.

Teforia’s move to elevate the tea business, an ancient beverage and an industry that hasn’t experienced much innovation is noteworthy, even if their first product fails to justify the high price point. Check out the full CNET Teforia review here.

The Spoon Smart Kitchen 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

It’s time for The Spoon’s first annual holiday gift guide! Since Black Friday and Cyber Monday madness have passed and it’s really the first year we’ve seen many anticipated smart kitchen devices hit the market, it seemed like the perfect time to roll out our guide. Picking this year’s selections was not easy – the food tech and smart kitchen spaces are packed with great stuff. But we wanted to limit the guide to stuff you could actually purchase (not pre-order or back on Kickstarter, with a few exceptions) and hand to your loved one around or shortly after the holidays.

Now you might be thinking – I’m the one who loves food and tech in our house! The beauty of this guide is that it’s easily forwardable – perhaps send to your spouse or loved ones with a wink emoji and some subtle hints, and you’ll find that smart kitchen gear you’ve always wanted under the tree.

High-Tech Kitchen Help

joule-sweepstakes-dinner-3If you’ve got an amateur chef on your list this year, you can’t go wrong with sous vide. Sous vide is an older cooking technique using warm water to slowly and evenly cook foods like meat, fish and vegetables. Recent devices like the Joule from ChefSteps have increased the popularity of sous vide and made it easy to incorporate into any kitchen.

The Joule itself is a long, cylindrical water circulator and can be easily dropped into a pot of water to prepare food. It looks kind of like a high-tech rolling pin crossed with an Amazon Echo – but the noticeable difference between Joule and other sous vide cookers out there is the lack of a screen. The smartphone app does all the work – including preheating the device to the right temperature. The only thing left for the chef to do is season, seal and place the food in the water. The lack of a screen makes it more lightweight and smaller than other sous vide cookers, an appeal for some who want to minimize space in the kitchen.

Once cooking is complete, the dish can be removed and seared or finished on the stove for a perfect crust. Reviews of the Joule sous vide cooker promise some of the juiciest, most tender (insert food here) you’ve ever had.

Price: $199 on ChefSteps.com
(ChefSteps say they guarantee shipping by the holidays!)

Turn A Beer Fan Into A Brewmaster

Craft beer, spirits and cocktail related gifts are popular for those who like to imbibe around the holidays (…that’s everyone, right?) You could go a step up and get the beer fan on image001your list their own at home brew system. The folks at PicoBrew created the Pico, a simple pod-based brewing device that allows amateur brewers to customize their favorite IPA, pilsner, stout or pale ale in a week’s time. The PicoBrew PicoPaks and unique system take the mess out of home brewing and fermentation and each contains a different combo of grains, hops and yeast for each craft beer.

The PicoPaks are sold separately but come in over a hundred varieties so it’s easy to pair a few favorites with the system for a killer gift. And unlike older homebrew systems, the Pico’s compact design is ready for prime time – it’s cute enough to sit on the kitchen countertop and has a built-in steam cleaning mechanism. The digital display screen allows the user to adjust alcohol and bitterness levels for any brew and it makes up to five liters of beer at one time.

The Pico is one of those smart kitchen gadgets that will probably win you coolest family member award instantly; you might even get to sample the new brewmaster’s first brew attempt. Check out our complete review of The Pico before you buy.

Price: $799 at Williams-Sonoma

Infuse The Holidays With Perfect Tea

Tea and coffee are common holiday gifts for hot beverage drinkers, but for those who have a special affinity for tea, the smart tea infuser Teforia can create a custom cup of tea brewed to the exact right temperature and strength. The infuser looks like a cross between a traditional coffee maker and a high-tech chemistry set and comes equipped with a propriety technology called the Teforia Selective Infusion Profile System terforia(“Teforia SIPS” ™). Sounds complicated, right? Basically, Teforia has created a device that knows the best way to brew tea, taking into account things like steep time, infusion temperature and the varietal of tea you’re using.

But who really needs a tea infuser? Tea is actually considered most widely consumed beverage in the world next to water and can be found in almost 80% of all U.S. households. Most of us, even avid tea fans (raises hand) use a kettle to boil water and a simple tea bag stuck in a mug. But Teforia claims not all teas are created equal, and consuming tea the typical way actually does the ancient beverage a huge disservice.

So bypass the specialty tea box in the gift shop this year as you’re picking out gifts – chances are, if someone is a fan of tea, the Teforia Infuser, maybe with some of their hand-picked varietals thrown in, will blow their mind.

Price: $1499, starts shipping December 1 if you order on Teforia’s website.

Coffee – Right From Your Phone

Onto the coffee lovers – if you’re a true java fan, you know that there’s not one temp fits all for coffee brewing. What makes a good cup of coffee, well, good, often has to do with extraction, or the process of hot water drawing the flavor from the grounbrewer-smds. It’s a delicate process and water that’s too hot will leave coffee tasting bitter. With the Behmor Connected Coffee Maker, that problem is solved through customizable brew profiles that all coffee drinkers to adjust the brewing temperature and pre-soak time before crafting that perfect cup.

And, as the name suggests, Behmor’s coffee maker comes with a connected smartphone app that allows you to program, adjust and monitor your coffee from the comfort of your bed. The app will even text you when your coffee’s done, thus finally giving you a reason to get out of bed on a cold winter morning. In addition to the custom brew control, Behmor’s actually build in some unique technology to optimize coffee extraction with a pulsed water flow and a grounds basket designed to saturate every single coffee ground.

Pair this with a local coffee blend and you’ve got every java lover’s dream come true.

Price: $234 on Amazon

Give The Gift Of An Oven That Knows Exactly What You’re Cooking

Credit: JuneAn oven might seem like an odd gift to give someone – unless it’s your spouse and you’re in the middle of a kitchen renovation, I suppose. But what if that oven was packed with enough technology to recognize the food you place in it and know exactly how to cook it? That’s exactly what the June Oven is designed to do.

Early reviews on the June are mixed – and some are even downright harsh – but we still think the June could be an interesting gift for those with money to spare who want the most cutting edge oven tech on the market.

Price: $1495 for pre-order on Juneoven.com

For The Person Who Actually Loves to Cook

So maybe you don’t want to spend over $1k on a magical oven, but you do have someone on your list who likes cooking and is always on the hunt for new recipes. The Drop Kitchen Scale with companion smart app is a good way to dip your toe into the world of connected kitchen gear without breaking the bank. The Dro1407862226-order_drop5p Scale looks like a basic kitchen scale, but when paired with the app, provides a basic guided cooking system that walks the user through a chosen recipe and helps them weigh out ingredients along the way.

One of the best features of the Drop Kitchen ecosystem is its adaptability. Within the app, you can find and customize a recipe for the exact quantity or taste preference you’d like and the recipe will adjust portions and ingredients for you. So no more guesstimating how much flour you should use for a cupcake recipe you’re trying to half, Drop will give you precise measurements for the amount you need. With so many people using their smartphones and tablets in the kitchen to read recipes, the Drop Kitchen Scale and app will make cooking that much more enjoyable.

Price: $78.98 on Amazon (product is being end-of-lifed as Drop transitions into platform based technology)

Alexa, Finish My Holiday Shopping

160517094422-amazon-echo-alexa-00003213-1024x576Ok, this might not technically be a kitchen-specific gift, but the vast majority of Amazon Echo users I’ve encountered (myself included) keep the device in the kitchen – and for good reason. Alexa isn’t just a helpful virtual assistant, she can also be a pretty handy sous chef. From the very advanced – enable the Allrecipes skill and get step-by-step walk-through of any recipe available on Allrecipes – to the basic – ask Alexa how many teaspoons is in a tablespoon (1 tbl = 3 tsp, handy when your tablespoon constantly goes missing), Alexa is a hands-free help during meal prep.

The other helpful kitchen-specific feature, aside from listening to a news flash, a podcast or Spotify with a simple request, is the shopping list feature. Ask Alexa to add things to your shopping list as you run out of it, ensuring the next trip to the grocery store will result in a full pantry restock.

The Amazon Echo is usually $179.99, but is often on sale (and out of stock) around the holidays.

Connect To Your Tea

Maybe you have a tea lover on your list, but the idea of 800 bucks for the Teforia Infuserappkettle isn’t realistic. Before Teforia, there was a device called AppKettle, a connected tea kettle with less bells and whistles, but an easier price to swallow.

AppKettle is a connected tea kettle with a companion app that allows users to heat water on demand, from anywhere. With a nice stainless steel finish and both app and native device controls, this is a nice little upgrade to your traditional tea kettle. With the ability to control the temp of the water, AppKettle might be a perfect gift for new parents on your list who are bottle feeding. There’s nothing worse than waiting for water to heat up while your new baby cries for milk.

Price: AppKettle sadly is only shipping in the UK for around $160, but the CEO told The Spoon they have plans to ship in the US in 2017 with added Alexa integration.

Celebrate The New Year With A Perfect Drink

The season of gift-giving will soon be over which means it’s not too early to be making New Year’s Eve plans. And generally speaking, the most vital part of a good New Year’s Eve at17509bc290a4e2ab8ed6ca1c193d86e6 home, whether you’re parenting a toddler and stuck home playing Cards Against Humanity or single and hosting a fancy dinner party with a DJ and a large crowd, are the beverages. And if you’re going to be at home, you want cocktails that taste like they were made by a professional mixologist at a swanky bar, no?

That’s why the Perfect Drink 2.0 Smart Scale and Interactive App make such a great gift – it’s the smart kitchen substitute for an expensive bartending course. The Perfect Drink scale has over 400 drink recipes and walks you through ingredients, letting you know when you’ve poured the perfect amount of each. And if you pour too much, let’s say, gin, Perfect Drink Scale will help you adjust the rest of the ingredients so you don’t ruin the drink. The Cabinet feature lets you keep track of what you have on hand and there are recipes for every season, along with tried and true favorites.

Price: $39.99 on Amazon

Make Spaghetti Out Of….Everything

Credit: Williams-Sonoma

Tech lover or not, everyone loves a good kitchen gadget that’s useful and helpful without many bells and whistles. I once asked a well-known chef what he couldn’t live without in the kitchen and he said – basically – a good pan and some heat. But the extras can be fun too, which is why we’re putting the spiralizer into our first-ever gift guide.

The spiralizer is one of those low-tech gadgets that has amazing utility and, as a result, has a huge following. It’s basically a handheld device that turns average vegetables into pasta, creating a healthy (and delicious) meal. The spiralizer is best known for its ability to make zucchini spaghetti, but pictures (and testimonials) indicate it can be used to create garnishes and turn other vegetables into a pasta shape, too.

For anyone on your list looking to eat healthier, add this to their stocking and tell them to look forward to a spiralized 2017.

Price: Depends on the model, this basic one is $12.99 on Amazon while this slightly fancier (maybe less labor-intensive version) is $39.95 at Williams-Sonoma.

Read Up On The Future Of Food + The Kitchen

One of my favorite gifts to give and receive are books – you can’t go wrong. And there are a few books in the food tech and food science space that would make excellent presents under the tree.

The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt – The Food Lab is a tour de force – the food bible for foodlabanyone looking to infuse science through simple techniques to enhance everyday cooking. The 1000+ page plus recipe book is quite a departure from ordinary cookbooks; authored by Serious Eats managing culinary directorJ. Kenji López-Alt, also a James Beard Award winner, The Food Lab focuses squarely on food science. Looking at the interactions between heat, energy & molecules and how they all work together to create truly delicious food. The techniques to achieving better food aren’t necessarily complicated, and for anyone interested in nerding out over the science behind your favorite recipes, this book is a perfect (and heavy!) gift.

Modernist Bread: The Art and Science by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya – The firstmodernist Modernist Cuisine book series spawned a cult-like following of the brand and its founder, former Microsoft CTO and technologist turned food connoisseur, Nathan Myhrvold. These books – hundreds of dollars worth – are truly for the hardcore food science nerd, someone who wants to dive deep into the art, science, design, techniques and research on human diet staple: bread. Housed in a stainless steel case, the five-volume series delivers over 1500 recipes, a wire-bound kitchen manual and over 2300 pages of knowledge on bread. While it’s not available until 2017, the right person will swoon over the gift of a Modernist Bread pre-order receipt. 

sousvideSous Vide at Home: The Modern Technique for Perfectly Cooked Meals – From Lisa Fetterman, the founder of Nomiku, one of the first mainstream sous vide machines, Sous Vide at Home just hit the shelves in early November. Sous vide is becoming increasingly popular as a technique using the slow heat of a water bath (described above in our Joule write-up) and this cookbook is a guide to creating chef-quality food using any sous vide device at home. It would pair well with a brand new sous vide machine as a perfect foodie gift.

So there you have it – our first annual holiday gift guide! We hope you find something for every food and tech lover on your list.

Happy Holidays!

The News Show: Smart Cookie Ovens & Malibu Bay Breeze (Podcast)

Mike and Ashley are back talking about the latest in the world of the connected kitchen and foodtech.

To subscribe to the Smart Kitchen Show in iTunes, go here. To download this episode, click here.

Stories discussed on the show include:

Appliance as a service 
Juicero’s new CEO
SideChef’s smart easy bake oven for cooking
Teforia’s $12 million infusion
Ashley’s experience with the Nima gluten sensor
Jenn-Air’s Nest integration
Ashley explains why Rhode Islanders are still drinking the Malibu Bay Breeze
A discussion of whether George Foreman actually invented a grill
Smart Kitchen Summit pictures are out!
SKS17 pre-registration has begun!

Enjoy!

Tea Startup Teforia Gets $12 Million Infusion In Series A Round

Last year at the inaugural Smart Kitchen Summit, there was a small team gathered around a high-top round table pouring delicious tea for Summit attendees. Their startup, Teforia, was still relatively unknown, having officially introduced itself only a week earlier. A few months later, Teforia announced a $5.1 million seed funding round and began the work of evangelizing the magic its technology was attempting to bring to tea drinkers everywhere. Accepting around 500 pre-orders to early backers, the company is now about to start early shipping and has just announced a $12 million Series A round led by Translink Capital.

Teforia’s premise is based on a propriety technology and sleek design. Using what’s called the “Selection Infusion Process,” users can customize their tea’s caffeine levels, antioxidant levels and flavor profiles. Teforia’s infuser will know exactly the right brew time and temperature and the result is a unique twist on an ancient drink.

The company has enjoyed early success in part based on founder Allen Han, who in a previous life was one of the designers behind the original XBOX. A trip several years ago to Asia and an excellent cup of tea led Han to explore the niche beverage industry and discover a significant lack of innovation or modern investment.

“…the $90 billion dollar global tea market largely consists of commercialized brewing methods and treatments. Most tea drinkers don’t know what they’re missing, so I wanted to create a way to perfect the process of brewing tea while honoring its tradition.”

Teforia’s device uses a pod-based system, made popular first by Keurig but then replicated by many modern beverage machines. The difference in Teforia’s model lies in the customization features. The pre-packaged “Sips” are filled with gourmet teas that can be “read” by the Teforia infuser and the companion app allows tea drinkers to personalize infusions of any loose-leaf tea to their preferences.

Teforia is banking on the continued popularity of tea around the globe, but particularly within the Millennial generations. While older generations typically prefer coffee, surveyed Millennials drink tea and coffee equally – and while the company is currently only shipping in the U.S., the opportunity abroad may be even bigger. Jay Eum, co-founder and managing director, Translink Capital commented, “As the tea market continues to grow globally, we know that as the company gears up for a successful launch in the U.S., that will only be the beginning. We believe the opportunity for the company could be huge in Asia where tea is deeply integrated into the culture.”

The startup’s Series A round included participation from returning investor Upfront Ventures and Lemnos Labs along with new investment from Mousse Partners and Correlation Ventures, bringing total funding to date to over $17M.