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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Thermomix

The Kitchen 2030: How Food & Cooking Will Change in the Future (Video)

If you’ve been following The Spoon since the early days of 2015, you might remember that our flagship event that started it all was the Smart Kitchen Summit. Dedicated to the quiet revolution that was happening in the consumer kitchen, SKS became the event to examine the tech disruption upending business models and changing the way we source, cook and eat our food forever.

So it was fitting that our opening panel at the first CES Food Tech Conference was “The Kitchen 2030: How Food & Cooking Will Change in the Future,” featuring some of the leading companies in the kitchen and appliance industries. The panel discussion was hosted by Michael Wolf, CEO and founder of The Spoon and included Khalid Aboujassoum, Founder & CEO of Else Labs, Dochul Choi, Senior Vice President at Samsung, Robin Liss, CEO at Suvie and Kai Schaeffner, executive at Vorwerk (Thermomix).

The panel talked about where and how cooking, storing and even shopping for foods has shifted in the last several years; with more transparency and information about the foods we eat, the digitization of the recipe, guided cooking features and a whole new wave of kitchen appliances that may change the entire layout and function of the consumer kitchen.

“The Kitchen 2030” panel can be viewed in its entirety below — leave a comment with your predictions for the next decade of innovation in the connected kitchen.

4.5 Million Thermomix Owners are Using the Cookidoo Online Recipe Platform

While a number of companies are trying to build cooking robots for the home, the closest thing to a do-everything cooking appliance on the market today is the Thermomix.

And nowadays, it seems a lot of homes have a Thermomix, at least according to a recent post by the company.

According to the post, Thermomix sold one TM6, the latest generation multicooker, every 23 seconds in 2020, which translates to about 1.37 million for the year. While that may seem like a drop in the bucket for an industry that moves almost 700 million units annually, it translates to big numbers when you consider the price of the product. At $1,500 per unit, topline revenue for the TM6 pencils out to about a little over $2 billion, which would be a significant market for any countertop cooking appliance. In fact, compare that to the estimated total pressure cooker market size of $5.5 billion, which puts the TM6 market alone at almost 40% of the market for Instant Pot and all its various copycats.

And that’s not even the most interesting part of the update. According to Thermomix, there are now 4.5 million total Thermomixes connected to the company’s digital cooking platform, Cookidoo. That number includes both TM6 models and the previous generation TM5s. That’s up from about 1 million total users for the appliance’s digital cooking platform since 2017.

Engagement is also pretty high. According to Thermomix, Thermomix users make about 750 thousand meals a day using Cookidoo, which translates to about one in six Thermomix users each day.

As regular Spoon readers know, the company’s recipe platform has come a long way since four years ago. The company has enabled the platform to connect to other appliances for coordinated cooking and last year added the ability to shop for food via the Cookidoo platform. And this year, the company rolled out a new companion appliance in the Thermomix Friend in select markets (the Thermomix Friend is not yet available in North America), which coordinates cooking with the TM6 from one screen.

Thermomix Users Can Now Order Ingredients With Launch of Shoppable Recipes on Cookidoo

Thermomix announced today they have launched ingredient shopping on the Cookidoo, the Thermomix multicooker’s digital recipe and meal planning platform.

The new capability allows Thermomix users to add a recipe’s ingredients to a digital shopping list and order them through the Cookidoo app. Fulfillment of the order (delivery or pickup) is done through a third-party grocery retail partner of the shopper’s choosing.

The new shoppable recipe feature will be available to users of any Cookidoo-compatible Thermomix model (TM5, TM6 and TM31) in the U.S., Germany and the United Kingdom.

You can watch how it works on the video below:

Those using the TM6 can add ingredients from any of the 50,000 or so recipes available through the Cookidoo interface by simply clicking on the “Add to Shopping List” option directly on the appliance’s touchscreen. From there, they head over to the Cookidoo mobile app or website to review the list, remove items they may already have, and add additional items to the list. They can then select a grocery retailer or online grocery service provider like Instacart to fulfill the order.

According to Thermomix’s head of consumer experience, Ramona Wehlig, bringing ingredient shopping and delivery to the users of the Thermomix completes the meal journey for their users.

“We had the weekly planner and curated shopping lists,” Wehlig said by phone, “but we never closed the gap in the meal journey until the ingredients were delivered.”

Wehlig said the company has been developing shoppable recipe functionality for the past year and a half. The company started trialing an early version capability through pilots in Germany. These initial pilots, which used technology developed by Thermomix, helped the company to understand the digital grocery shopping process and to fine-tune the ability to do things such as ingredient matching.

However, as the company pushed to accelerate its shoppable recipes efforts, it started looking for a partner to help them scale. This brought them to Whisk, a shoppable recipe and digital food platform startup acquired by Samsung Next last year. Whisk powers a number of grocery commerce capabilities in the connected kitchen, including (not surprisingly) on the Samsung Family Hub fridges.

“The core aim [of working with Whisk] was to scale faster,” said Wehlig. “This allows us to connect our users with more grocery stores in a shorter time frame.”

For Whisk, the addition of Thermomix helps cement an already strong position as one of the primary shoppable recipe platforms. While I haven’t seen updated numbers for a while, back in 2018 Whisk told me its platform touched 20 million users each month. With the addition of Thermomix — first in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S., later globally — the company will get millions more.

For Thermomix, the integration of shopping capabilities from the Cookidoo digital recipe platforms opens up potential new revenue streams through various forms of partnerships with CPG brands and any commissions passed on from the third party grocery platforms. For users, it adds another nice feature and could entrench the Cookidoo recipe platform as their primary digital shopping list manager.

Thermomix and Hestan Cue Connect Up With ‘Smart Cooking Bundle’ and Jointly Developed Recipes

Sometimes the smart kitchen doesn’t feel all that connected, especially when it comes to pairing tech-forward cooking systems from different brands. It doesn’t make much sense if you think about it since the beauty of a connected home is, well, connecting things.

Thermomix and Hestan Cue are trying to change that – at least for Father’s Day – by creating what they’re calling the “Smart Cooking Bundle” and “Smart Cooking” recipe collection.

The bundle part includes a pairing of the two systems at a discount – the TM6 multicooker and the Hestan Cue system (pan and induction burner) for $150 off ($1,749) – but the more interesting part to me is the recipe collection the two companies jointly developed.

The Smart Cooking recipe collection features recipes specifically designed to use both with the Thermomix and Hestan Cue systems. Examples include eggplant with seared tomato sauce or pan seared scallops, where the TM6 is used for prep steps like chopping and steaming, and the Cue is used to finish off the meal by frying, searing or braising.

The recipes will be accessible on both the Thermomix Cookidoo recipe platform on the Thermomix TM6 touchscreen and through the Hestan Cue app.

This isn’t the first outside integration for Thermomix, which announced a partnership with Drop last year. With the Hestan pairing, one can see how Thermomix is positioning the TM6 as a sort of central command cooking hub where they orchestrate cooking with other appliances. While Drop isn’t powering the Hestan integration, I can see the Drop’s “kitchen OS” approach helping the TM6 unify multisystem cooking experiences down the road.

If you’d like to try out the new recipe collection, you can get the Smart Cooking bundle through Father’s day.

Thermomix Takes High-Touch Sales Method Virtual Amid Surging COVID-19 Usage

If the Thermomix sales process were a recipe, it’d feature lots of product demos, in-home mixers and healthy smidges of handshaking and pep talks sprinkled in.

Throw in a pandemic, though, and suddenly you’re left with a recipe bereft of its primary ingredient: in-person sales.

I caught up with the CEO of Thermomix North America Kai Schäffner and the VP of consumer experience Ramona Wehlig to talk about how a company famous for direct sales model has been faring at a time when people can’t get together.

According to Schäffner, the company has had to move entirely to virtual sales during the pandemic, a move that wasn’t all that difficult since it was something they’d been thinking about doing for some time.

“We were planning to make a major move next year towards virtual sales,” said Schäffner. “Coronavirus decided for us. So we took two to three weeks to move all North America to virtual. We started in Canada and the US, and are now fully virtual in Mexico.”

The virtual consultations are available by appointment via the website and, like so many meetings nowadays, are conducted using platforms like Zoom.

The company is also using cooking classes, with some led by regional managers on Zoom and also Facebook Live to reach a national audience. Below is a Thermomix demo on how to make keto friendly biscuits.

This transition to a virtual sales process comes amid a worldwide surge in usage for those Thermomixes already in homes.

“Usage has been rising from 30% to 100% depending on the country,” said Wehlig, “We have seen the highest increase in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Poland where usage has been doubling.”

Usage of the multicooker’s digital recipe platform, Cookido, has also surged, with 2.3 million daily cooking sessions during the quarantine period.

With quarantines starting to come to an end and many places around the globe slowly trying to resume some level of normalcy, I asked Schäffner if the company would get back to doing in-home sales consultations and he said yes, slowly, but it would be ultimately up to the comfort level of the sales consultants and prospects.

“It’s a choice,” he said, but admitted the in-home experience will always be better.

“The experience is totally different. The testing, the feeling, the touching. All of those points you can do better in your home.”

“Cooking,” said Schäffner, “is about tasting.”

With Consumers in Quarantine, Connected Cooking Companies Spring Into Action With Tailored Content

With a good chunk of the world’s population currently in quarantine, most of us are cooking at home a lot more nowadays.

Along with all this home cooking has come a massive spike in demand for information for culinary how-to, ranging from recipe suggestions to tutorials on how to do everything from making rice to baking bread. While many are simply searching Google for recipes, others are settling in to learn cooking skills to help them learn to get food on the table.

This sudden hunger for cooking-related guidance has led some tech-forward cooking startups to ramp up the content as they look to both satiate newfound interest in cooking skills while also giving quarantine bound consumers something to do with their time.

Here are a few ways in which kitchen tech startups have ramped up their efforts to serve homebound consumers:

Hestan Cue

While the Hestan Cue already walks users through recipes with step by step instructions, the guided cooking startup has launched Hestan Cue Cooking School, a series of virtual classes to help users of the connected cooking platform build up on their cooking skills during quarantine.

Built with the virtual class platform Teachable, the initial classes cover techniques for cooking beef, eggs and vegetables. The cool thing is that while the classes suggest you use your Cue for certain steps, you can use the classes even if you don’t have the Hestan device.

According to Hestan Smart Cooking managing director John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen, about one third of the Hestan Cue users have signed up for courses.

Anova

Sous vide specialist Anova has always been active in creating cooking content for their user community, and over the past month they’ve gone quarantine cooking focused by creating content to help consumers with everything from making pantry staples to batch cooking. And for the parents with bored kids, Anova suggests enlisting them to help with the brisket.

Thermomix

Thermomix is known for its in-person sales model for the high-end multicooker, but in the age of COVID-19 they’ve gone virtual with a “quarantine kitchen” series of cooking demos and are also allowing potential customers to book online cooking demos with the TM6 sales team.

You can see one of their latest episodes of their quarantine kitchen series below:

SideChef

SideChef is also ramping up its quarantine specific content. In early March they created a quarantine cooking recipe collection. A month later, and with virtual happy hours firmly planted in the stay-at-home zeitgeist, they’ve created a guide for virtual dinner parties.

Instant Pot

The massively popular pressure cooker is famous for leaning on its Facebook community to create content for them. Still, the company seems to have recognized our new shared reality and is letting people know that Instant Pots can help you cook bread while you’re cooped up during quarantine.

Food Network Kitchen

While the Food Network Kitchen app doesn’t seem to have created any tailored content for quarantine bound consumers, they have seen a big jump in usage and consumers look for more ways to cook. Company spokesperson Irika Slavin told me via email that Foodnetwork.com has seen “double digit increases” in page views and the Food Network App, the guided cooking premium offering launched in October, has seen what Slavin describes as a “triple digit increase” in visitors.

ckbk

ckbk is a ‘Spotify for cookbooks’ app that puts pretty much any cookbook or recipe just a click away.

Since ckbk only offers access to existing cookbooks, the company isn’t creating any quarantine specific content, but they do have a good idea of what people are cooking. Company founder Matthew Cockerill told me he’s noticed most of his subscribers, and the world in general, seem to be moving in sync over the past month through what he calls the ‘seven stages of cooking grief.’

“So first of all it was about the prepping – stockpiling durable good – beans and pasta,” said Cockerill. “Then came the “staff of life” basics bread and baking. And after that, I think, there’s a need for some comfort, yes, but also some relief from the monotony. Which is where I think chocolate and dessert cravings are kicking in. It’s either that or alcohol. And in many cases both!”

“Lastly,” he continued, “we’ve also seen a trend of interest in ways to use the new found time which people see stretching out ahead of them, with longer-term projects” like baking bread.

Cockerill told me that new subscriptions are up 250% over pre-COVID times. If you want to cook your way through grief, the company is giving away 30 days free access to their app to help you cook through your pantry items.

SKS Hot Seat: Lynette MacDonald of Thermomix on the 100 Year Old Company and Food Capsules

When you think of Thermomix, you probably think of the future. It is, after all, one device that can do 20 different meal preparation functions like chopping, stirring, and oh yeah, cooking. But here’s a fun fact: Thermomix is actually more than 100 years old (I’m guessing it had a butter churning feature back then?).

Thermomix thrust itself further into the future this year when it announced the new connected TM6 model, which featured a bigger touchscreen display, new cooking functions like sous vide, and guided cooking. The company didn’t stop there. At our Smart Kitchen Summit this past week, Thermomix announced a partnership with Drop to control even more smart appliances and add grocery ordering directly from the TM6.

Since she was showing off Thermomix at SKS this year, we thought it would be fun to put Lynette MacDonald, Culinary Development Manager for Thermomix, in our SKS hot seat to answer a few fun questions about her company and the future of food (spoiler: capsules!).

Check out the video below and be on the lookout for more videos from SKS 2019 to hit The Spoon soon!

SKS Hot Seat Interview: Lynette Macdonald, Thermomix

Thermomix Partners with Drop for Smart Appliance Control and Grocery Ordering

Thermomix is adding Drop’s smart kitchen software to its all-in-one kitchen appliance, the two companies announced from the stage today at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) in Seattle.

Through the partnership the Thermomix TM6 will connect with other smart kitchen appliances and third-party applications through the device itself. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Thermomix will now soon be able to preheat an oven, order groceries and optimize recipe content with the push of a button. Thermomix said the first integrations will hit the market in 2020.

The TM6 has more than 20 culinary features including chopping, mixing, blending, different types of cooking including sous vide and fermentation. The device also features guided cooking for more than 50,000 recipes. All that functionality ain’t cheap, however, as the device itself costs $1,500.

But that hasn’t been a daunting price tag for people outside of the U.S. where the device is more popular. What’s more, people aren’t just buying the device, but as we also learned at SKS this week, the company has a crazy high subscription conversion rate:

In addition to appliance control, Drop’s software also does recipe discovery and re-sizing, ingredient swapping, and grocery lists. Thermomix is not the first all-in-one cooker to integrate Drop’s software. Last month Drop announced that it would expand its partnership with Kenwood to be on the CookEasy+ multi-function cooking appliance. Today’s press announcement also said that 40 million Drop-enabled appliances from brands such as GE Appliances, Bosch, Electrolux and LG Electronics will ship over the next three years.

Here They Are: The Full Thermomix TM6 Specs

I wrote earlier today about the launch of the TM6.  While I highlighted the features I thought were important, a few people have asked for the full specs and,  since I have them, here they are!

This is directly from the TM6 spec sheet sent to me from Thermomix. Enjoy.

Thermomix TM6 Features & Specs

HARDWARE

Outer dimensions & motor of hardware remain unchanged:

Dimensions Height = 13.4”, width = 12.8”, depth = 12.8”

Weight 17.5 lbs

Material High-quality synthetic material, stainless steel

Motor Maintenance-free Vorwerk reluctance motor
500 W rated power, speed continuously adjustable from 100 to 10,700 revolutions per minute (gentle stir: 40 rpm), special speed settings for dough preparation and stirring without chopping

Knife Four blades, maintenance-free sharpened stainless steel

Mixing bowl 2.3-quart stainless steel mixing bowl, integrated heating system and temperature sensor

NEW: Processor

  • Smartphone-like storage & working memory
  • Quad core processor
  • 16 GB Flash
  • 1GB DDR Ram; endless potential for new features and functions to be added through regular over-the-air software updates.

NEW: 6.8” Display Bigger, more brilliant touchscreen, even more intuitive operation

NEW: Heating Precise heating from 100°F up to 320°F in 1-degree steps, with integrated sensors to maintain a constant, precise temperature in the mixing bowl.

NEW: Scale Improved weighing during food processing allows an accuracy of 0.1 oz. throughout the whole weighing range, up to 105 ounces per weighing step. Also weighs negative values for extracting a precise amount of ingredients from the bowl.

FUNCTIONS

NEW: Functions

Cooking

  • High temperature settings to brown onions, meat and fish as well as for creating caramel, honeycomb and more
  • Slow Cooking Function for first-class, succulent meat
  • Sous Vide Function for tender meat, fish and vegetables
  • Fermentation Function for yogurt or kimchi

On Top

  • Pre-Clean
  • Kettle
  • Automatic Blending

Classic Functions mixing, steaming, blending, weighing, stirring, grinding, whisking, emulsifying, simmering, kneading, cooking, chopping

Guided Cooking: The guaranteed successful cooking method that takes users through recipes step by step with clear on-screen instructions to achieve perfect results. Temperature and timings are set automatically by the Thermomix®, so even sophisticated recipes can be followed with ease by chefs of any skill level.

ACCESSORIES

Varoma: 3.3 l capacity for steaming

Butterfly: Stirring attachment

Lid: Bowl lid with measuring cup insert

Measuring Cup: Improved measuring cup for easier usage

Spatula: Improved Spatula with softer, easier to use material

Basket: Improved simmering basket

COOKIDOO®

NEW: Fully integrated Cookidoo® access for even more experiences (explore, inspire, search, cook, plan, how-to) directly on the Thermomix® screen; a second device is no longer needed.

The world’s biggest cookbook with more than 40,000 delicious recipes from all over the world that work with the unique success guarantee. All available directly on the device via Cookidoo® and via web app, iOS and Android. The Cookidoo® personalizes through tailored recipe recommendations and inspirations. How-tos and tutorials are available for easy or elaborate meals.

PLUS: Personalized customer service, cooking classes

HOW TO BUY

Direct sales: More than 60,000 Thermomix® independent consultants worldwide serve as personal local contacts to ensure high-quality personalized service in more than 40 countries, on all continents.

Online: Thermomix.com

Price: $1,499 includes all accessories, a six-month Cookidoo® membership, a personal introduction to the product world

Website: www.Thermomix.com

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Meet the TM6, Thermomix’s Latest Generation Do-Anything Cooking Appliance

Back before there were Instant Pots, cooking robots and smart ovens, there was the Thermomix.

And today, the original all-in-one kitchen appliance got a little (or maybe a lot) smarter with the launch of the TM6, the sixth generation of the cooking appliance popular with everyone from the world’s top chefs to working moms and dads just trying to put something tasty on the table.

The new appliance, which will cost $1,499 in the U.S. when available later this year, is available for purchase today in Vorwerk’s native Germany as well as Austria, and will be rolling out to other European countries over the next few months.

While I can’t go over in detail every single difference between the TM5 and TM6 (there are a lot), I’ll highlight the major ones:

Integrated Connectivity

While the original TM5 didn’t ship with embedded Wi-Fi, Thermomix did a relatively good job playing catch up by later offering their connectivity module in the Cook-Key (Thermomix tells me as of this month there are 2.2 million Cook-Keys in the field).

With the TM6, both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are integrated directly into the appliance. While you might be thinking “big deal,” since pretty much everything seems to ship with connectivity nowadays, it’s significant for the Thermomix because it will enable things like over-the-air functionality upgrades and access to the ever-growing Cookidoo guided-cooking recipe library.

Speaking of the Cookidoo…

Cookidoo Becomes a Core Integrated Feature 

If there’s a company that has done well at making the concept of guided cooking valuable for both kitchen newbies and old-hands, it’s the Thermomix. I’ve used my TM5 to fearlessly cook lots of new dishes since the appliance walks me through the recipe and helps me create a good-the-first-time effort.

In fact, it’s this ability to cook most any recipe well the first time that makes you want to keep trying new recipes (as Wired’s Joe Ray writes about here), but the problem with the TM5 was you had to add new recipes chips or — after the introduction of the Cook-Key — periodically download the new recipe collections.

That all changes with the introduction of the TM6, which gives users instant access to 40,000 recipes out of the box. And sure, because Thermomix recently launched its Cookidoo 2.0 platform it’s effectively giving any TM5 users with a Cook-Key an all-access pass for the full Thermomix recipe library. But with the TM6, they are fully available from the start.

Bigger Processor, More Memory

While most cooks probably don’t consider how much processing power or memory their cooking appliance has (and they shouldn’t), for a device like the Thermomix it’s an important factor. With a new quad-core processor, the TM6 will have the same processing power of a modern smartphone, and also packs in about 16 GB of memory (the baseline for an iPhone 6) to enable storage of new software features, media-rich recipes and more.

Bigger Touch Screen Display

If there is a complaint I had about my TM5, it’s the screen size. The small screen often has me struggling to read instructions and probably limited what the Thermomix could do (for example, the TM5 doesn’t show videos or images on the device).

With the TM6, the device has a 6.8″ touch screen display, which is a game-changer. Not only will users have a much bigger display to view media-rich recipes, but with a bigger touch screen, they’ll also no longer be limited to a dial as the primary recipe interaction interface.

You can see a close up of the screen here:

The Thermomix TM6 touch screen display

New Cooking Functions

While you’ve always technically been able to do sous vide and other popular cooking techniques with the TM5, those required more manual operation than many of the more straightforward recipes on a Thermomix.

With the TM6, a whole host of cooking functions have been integrated as core features. In addition to sous vide, the TM6 will have a browning feature as well as those for slow cooking and fermentation. These features will take advantage of the same core German-engineered capabilities, including a robust motor that powers stirring, chopping and all the things that set the Thermomix apart and make it a do-most-anything appliance.

And Finally, the First Do-Anything Appliance Enters the Smart Kitchen

Earlier this week I wrote that the Instant Pot was the Millennial generation’s first cooking appliance they could call their own.

However, despite popular opinion, the Instant Pot didn’t usher in the world of do-it-all countertop cooking. That was the Thermomix, which was fostering communities of devotees well-before the creation of the first Instant Pot Facebook group.

But while the Thermomix has had fans going back to the ’60s, the company’s methodical and one-model-at-a-time approach has meant each generation would last for the better part of a decade. The TM5 is five years old at this point, and probably based on decade-old technology since development likely started well before its release in 2014.

This isn’t necessarily bad; having one device that works really well is a pretty good formula for success. But in an era when digital features like guided cooking and recipe libraries are some of the biggest draws for a new appliance, it was clear the Thermomix was ripe for an upgrade.

And while the features I mentioned above are all welcome capabilities of a more modern Thermomix, I think we’re likely only scratching the surface of what’s possible.

What do I mean by this? For one, I think we could see the Thermomix TM6 become a central kitchen hub that works seamlessly with other appliances. While the company started dabbling with this last fall, efforts so far have been hindered by the limitations of the TM5. In the future, we’ll see the TM6 not only communicating with other appliances, but possibly even acting as a central command center as it takes control of other appliances (TM6, turn on my GE oven) through the TM6 screen.

Theromix’s U.S. president, Kai Schäffner, says the company is also looking at integrations with smart-home interfaces like Alexa and Google Home.

Bottom line, the move into the smart kitchen by Thermomix is welcome and, in a way, necessary given the accelerated pace of competition and a generational shift towards digital-powered cooking. While pressure cooker based multi-cookers like the Instant Pot don’t have nearly the feature set of an appliance like the Thermomix, they are much lower cost and can still do plenty. Meanwhile, others are entering this space with Thermomix-like appliances, including kitchen appliance giant KitchenAid.

Thermomix has told me that the TM6 will make its way to the U.S. later this year in late summer.  Like with the TM5, you will be able to buy it both through the direct sales model (the only way to buy it in Europe) and online.

You can find the full spec sheet with all the features for the TM6 here.

You can find out more about the TM6 at Thermomix’s website and watch a video intro to the Thermomix TM6 below:

TM6™: The all new Thermomix®

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Thermomix Head of Product Talks Community, Kitchen Gadgets, & Broccoli Salad

If there was ever such thing as an all-in-one kitchen gadget, Thermomix would be it. Over the last few years, it has attracted a cult-like following with its promise to replace over 12 kitchen appliances. From mixing and kneading to chopping, weighing, and steaming, the device lets users create restaurant-quality meals in a fraction of the time it would take with the usual arsenal of kitchen tools. Its German parent company Vorwerk is edging further into the smart home space by adding connected recipes and guided cooking accessories for step-by-step kitchen assistance.

We recently chatted with Dr. Stefan Hilgers, Vice President of International Product Management at Thermomix, to learn more about the appliance’s secret to success, its struggle to enter the U.S. market, and his favorite dish to whip up in his Thermomix at home.

Head over to the Smart Kitchen Summit Europe blog to read the full Q&A with Dr. Hilgers. 

If you want to hear him speak in person about what Thermomix is doing to further the future of food and cooking, make sure to get your tickets for SKSEurope in Dublin June 11-12th!

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.