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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Vita-mix

Smart Kitchen Startup SideChef Plucks Execs From Anova & Vitamix

SideChef, a smart kitchen app and software platform startup, is growing its executive ranks.

I learned this week that the company is adding execs from both Anova and Vitamix in an expansion of its core team. The company, which is based in Shanghai, China, recently added Anova’s former head of retail, Michael Tankenoff, as head of a new west coast US office focused on business development and strategic partnerships. The company has also hired Ken Zhang, an engineer that had previously worked on Vitamix’s smart kitchen initiatives, to help lead its product management efforts.

I caught up with Tankenoff and SideChef CEO Kevin Yu this week. They explained that the executive expansion is part of a bigger push by SideChef to position the company as a smart kitchen platform and compete with the likes of Innit and Drop.

“I will be focused on continuing to build out [SideChef’s] portfolio of hardware, content, and other partners — as well as help build and scale the marketing arm of the organization,” said Tankenoff. “This comes in conjunction with opening up an office here in San Francisco, which will be the hub for all business development and marketing moving forward.”

These types of moves in a nascent market like the smart kitchen platform space — where everyone knows everyone — are hardly unusual. We saw it with Orange Chef, Whirlpool and Innit, and now we’re seeing with SideChef. While Tankenoff’s departure from Anova is not surprising given the company was acquired last year by Electrolux, the move by Zhang is a bit more intriguing. Zhang worked on the smart kitchen initiative that was led by Vitamix COO Tony Ciepiele, who I also recently learned has left Vitamix as of March to become CEO of toy company Step2 Discovery.

The executive shuffle also comes at a time of increased competition between software startups like SideChef and Innit to provide foundational software platforms for appliance makers to create connected kitchen products, as well as increased focus by big players like Google and Amazon to hook their natural language smart home platforms into the appliance market.

Should be an interesting rest of 2018 in the smart kitchen market.

Smart Kitchen Summit 2017 Announces First Round Of Speakers

The Smart Kitchen Summit is back for its third – and biggest – year yet. Heading back to Benaroya Hall on October 10 and 11 in Seattle, the Summit will once again bring together the who’s who of the smart kitchen world. A combination of leaders from the worlds of Big Food, tech, commerce, culinary, design, delivery and smart home, SKS speakers, sponsors and attendees represent some of the biggest names in their respective industries.

The 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit agenda will be live in the next few weeks, but the Summit crew has started to announce the first round of speakers for this year and it is filled with rockstar talent. Notable speakers this year include CTO of Barilla, Victoria Spadaro Grant who will speak to the role of technology and innovation in the world of Big Food as well as Neil Grimmer, CEO and founder of personalized meal kit delivery startup Habit.

Because the consumer kitchen and consumer food preferences are constantly being influenced, SKS will welcome Top Chef alum and owner of ink, Chef Michael Voltaggio.

The Summit will explore the how the smart appliance is changing in the face of new interface, delivery, commerce and technology models; appliance leaders Yoon Lee, senior VP of innovation at Samsung along with Ola Nilsson, CEO of Electrolux’s small appliance group will join us for those discussions.

With innovation in food tech and the connected kitchen moving so rapidly, Summit themes around business models and startups will help attendees think about their own product roadmaps and understand where the space is headed.  Evan Dash, CEO of StoreBound will be on hand to discuss how his company is helping to bring to market such products the the PancakeBot and SoBro, through a fully integrated model of a go-to-market pipeline.

The Smart Kitchen Summit has also drawn an elite group of journalists who are covering and looking at how technology is transforming the way we eat, shop for and cook our food. Maura Judkis, food and culture reporter for the Washington Post, Ashlee Clark Thompson, associate editor at CNET, Carley Knobloch from the HGTV Smart Home, Lisa McManus from America’s Test Kitchen, Keith Barry, editor-in-chief of Reviewed.com (owned by USA Today) and Amanda Rottier, Product Director of Cooking at the New York Times, will all help facilitate discussions.

Other 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit speakers include:

For the full list of speakers and 2017 sponsors and partners, visit the SKS website.

No other event brings together the decision makers and disrupters from across the food, cooking, appliance, retail and technology ecosystems like SKS. Join us on October 10 and 11 in Seattle to connect with new people, find partners, see the latest technology and startup demonstrations, hear the leaders of the space and make deals.

Early bird tickets are on sale now through July 31, 2017 and if you use code SPOON, you can get 20% off tickets through the end of this month. So, if you want to grab a front row seat as we map the future of cooking and the kitchen, register now.