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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Whisk

CES 2021: Samsung’s SmartThings App Adding Shoppable Recipe and Guided Cooking

Samsung announced today that it will be adding shoppable recipes, guided cooking and more such functionality to its SmartThings Cooking mobile app.

The added functionality is powered by Whisk’s Food AI (Samsung NEXT acquired Whisk in March of 2019), some of which has been available as part of the Family Hub software found in Samsung appliances.

With today’s news, smartphone users with the SmartThings Cooking app will be able to:

  • Get personalized recipe recommendations based on taste, preferences as well as what is immediately available.
  • Shop for ingredients and other food through the Whisk network of retailers including Walmart, Kroger, Instacart and Amazon Fresh.
  • Guided cooking instructions along with automatic temperature controls sent out to synced Samsung cooking appliances.

This could be the year where shoppable recipes and appliance integration take off. We are coming off a record year of online grocery shopping, thanks to the pandemic, so more people than ever are accustomed to buying groceries, including perishables, online. So the logical next step is tying together all of the threads in the meal journey: discovery, selection, access and instruction.

Samsung’s integrating functionality does all that and extends it now to the mobile phone. Of course, taking advantage of all of these new features means that you have to buy into the Samsung ecosystem and get all your appliances from the same maker.

As CES is kicking off this week, there will be a slew of kitchen appliance related announcements. Given how much online grocery shopping took off last year, and its projected growth over the coming years, I wonder how much more shopping integration we’ll see.

Whisk Creates Slack App to Help You Shop For Groceries At Work

Like many, I use Slack for a good chunk of the day as a way to communicate and collaborate with coworkers.

But now thanks to Whisk, I can start using the ubiquitous work communication platform as a way to manage grocery shopping lists and access recipes.

Announced via a blog post by Samsung NEXT (the company which acquired Whisk last year) head of product Travis Bogard, the Whisk app is available to anyone with Slack.

Interestingly, while there are plenty of food-related apps available to use on Slack, most of them are for things like ordering from food trucks or managing a work-group catering order. The Whisk app, from what I can tell, is the first one for recipe sharing or grocery lists.

This lack of personal meal journey management apps for Slack probably shouldn’t be surprising since it is, after all, a work tool. That said, the line between work and personal time has become blurry in these work-from-home pandemic times, and nowadays many of us are seamlessly switching back and forth between work projects and personal stuff like meal planning or grocery shopping.

So why not do it in Slack?

I decided to try the app out and added Whisk to our workplace Slack.

For anyone not familiar with Slack apps, using them means typing in command prompts reminiscent of DOS or, for anyone under 40, like those you might tap into an app like Terminal to run scripts or basic web prompts.

Once I had the app running, I used the register prompt to log into Whisk and authorize it to work with Slack. I then used the add item command to add a couple things to my grocery list. I then hopped over to my Whisk browser tab and there were the milk and eggs I had just added to the list.

I also used Whisk Slack app commands to bring up recipes and check out the items on my shopping list.

Would I use it in the future? Maybe. Since I use Slack all day, I like how easily accessible it is. That said, I’ve always found Slack apps a little annoying since every app has a different set of commands and I usually have to look them up when I use them. I also use voice assistants like Alexa to add items to my list (Whisk also has an Alexa integration), so I’m not sure this would replace that.

But if you are a Slack or Whisk user, you can try it out for yourself.

Whisk Launches B2B Content Management Tool to Structure and Organize Recipe Data

Samsung subsidiary Whisk today announced the launch of its new artificial intelligence-powered recipe content management platform for CPG companies and retailers.

In a nutshell, Whisk’s new tool allows companies to unify and organize recipe data that may be scattered across multiple platforms. For instance, a retailer could have recipes that exist in a website, as downloadable PDFs or even in spreadsheets. Whisk’s tool hoovers up all of that disparate data, gives it structure and unifies it so all the legacy recipes are unified into a new, single platform.

In addition to pulling in all of the pre-existing data, Whisk’s new platform also tags that data and automatically provides enhanced nutritional information, and continues to do so as new recipes are added. Since Whisk does that data work on the back-end, all a retailer or CPG company needs to do is build out the front-end for a web or mobile app and plug it into the Whisk platform.

Because all of the data is tagged and nutritional information added, end users can then easily search and filter results (e.g., if someone is diabetic or hates mushrooms) for a more customized experience.

In addition to recipe discovery, any company building a new recipe experience with this content tool can also add a commerce option using Whisk’s shoppable recipe technology.

Finally, the Whisk content tool also lets companies publish their recipes on the Samsung platform, which means those recipes are discoverable on the screens of Samsung appliances like the Family Hub smart fridge.

Whisk’s content platform arrives at a time when more people are buying food online (thank you, pandemic) and also during a period where food brands are launching their own D2C channels. If Whisk’s tool works as promised, its ability to re-surface, re-purpose and enhance legacy recipes into a new digital experience could help create a new level of customer engagement for retailers and brands alike.

Whisk’s recipe content management tool is available today, and uses a SaaS model, charging a monthly fee that depends on the usage.

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.

Whisk Launches Consumer Facing App That Makes Any Recipe Shoppable

Today Whisk, maker of a B2B food and cooking commerce platform that was acquired earlier this year by Samsung NEXT, announced it was launching its first consumer-facing app on both iOS and Android. The app allows consumers to take any recipe they discover online and make it into a shopping list that they can use to buy food online or take with them on a trip to the corner grocery store.

The new app includes integrations with voice assistants like Alexa and Bixby, allowing users to add ingredients or items to a shopping list with their voice. It also includes a browser extension so users can clip recipes they find on the web and turn them into shopping lists and push into online shopping carts.

Once a user converts the recipe into something shoppable, they can then choose from one of the 32 grocery commerce partners that Whisk has integrated into the app. Online grocery partners for Whisk include Walmart among others.

While there are plenty of shopping list apps out there, the ability to clip and import any recipe discovered on the web and convert it into a shopping list seems pretty useful. Add in the social/family sharing capability, and it’s like a Pinterest meets Pocket for food making.

Previously a user would use Whisk as part of the experience on a Samsung or BSH Appliances fridge or through the website of a publisher partner, but really didn’t connect directly to the brand itself. That all changes with this rollout, as Whisk becomes a consumer facing platform for the first time.

“In the past, a user would have to use Whisk through one of our publisher partners,” said Whisk founder Nick Holzherr in an interview with The Spoon. “Today, anyone can use Whisk anywhere – regardless of whether it’s a user’s own recipe or something they’ve imported from the web.”

Interestingly, while Whisk was acquired by Samsung back in March, the consumer technology giant stayed decidedly low-key when it comes to pushing its brand as part of this new consumer app push. Outside of the new app’s integration with Samsung’s Bixby, a user would be hard pressed to see any real connection to Samsung in the new Whisk offering.

Despite Samsung’s hands-off approach, I imagine Whisk will look to tap its parent company’s resources as it endeavors to get the new app into the hands of consumers. Having consumers download an app is a much bigger ask than having them use a well-know online recipe platform such as Allrecipes (one of Whisk’s publishing partners), so creating trust and enabling discovery will take work. And, once a consumer installs an app, the biggest challenge is making sure they use it.

If you’d like to try out the new Whisk app, you can find it in the following locations: iOS and Android app stores, on the web, Chrome extension, Bixby, Alexa, & Google voice assistants.

The Food Tech 25: Twenty Five Companies Changing the Way We Eat

Here at The Spoon, we spend most days writing and thinking about those who are transforming what we eat. No matter whether a startup, big company, inventor, or a cook working on new approaches in the kitchen, we love learning the stories of people changing the future of food. So much so, in fact, that we wanted to share those companies that most excite us with our readers.

And so here it is, The Spoon’s Food Tech 25: Twenty Five Companies Changing the Way We Eat

What exactly is the Food Tech 25? In short, it’s our list of the twenty five companies we think are doing the most interesting things changing the way we create, buy, store, cook and think about food.

As with any list, there are bound to be a few questions about how we got here and why we chose the companies we did. Here are some answers:

How did we create this list?

The editors of the Spoon — myself, Chris Albrecht, Catherine Lamb and Jenn Marston — got together in a room, poured some kombucha (ed note: except for Chris), and listed all the companies we thought were doing interesting and important work in changing food and cooking. From there, we had numerous calls, face-to-face meetings and more glasses of kombucha until we narrowed the list down to those you see here.

Is this an annual list?

No, this is a list of the companies we think are the most interesting people and companies right now, in mid-2018. Things could definitely look different six months from now.

Is this list in a particular order or are the companies ranked?

No, the list is in no particular order and we did not rank the 25 companies.

Why isn’t company X on the list?

If this was your list, company X or Y would most likely be on the list (and that’s ok with us). But this is the Spoon’s list and we’re sticking to it (for now – see above).

And of course, making this list wasn’t easy. There are lots of companies doing interesting things in this space. If we had enough room to create runners-up or honorable mentions, we would. But we don’t (and you don’t have enough time to read a list like that).

So, without further ado, here is the Spoon’s Food Tech 25. If you’re the type that likes your lists all on one page, click here.


EMBER
Ember bills itself as “the world’s first temperature control mug,” which basically means you can dictate a specific temperature for your brew via the corresponding app and keep your coffee (or tea or whatever) hot for as long as you need to. The significance here isn’t so much about coffee as it is about where else we could implement the technology and relatively simple concept powering the Ember mug. The company currently has patents out on other kinds of heated or cooled dishware, and Ember has cited baby bottles and medicine as two areas in which it might apply its technology. And yes, it allows you to finally stop microwaving all that leftover morning coffee.

 


INSTANT POT
The Instant Pot is not the highest-tech gadget around, but its affordability, versatility, and speed have made this new take on the pressure cooker a countertop cooking phenomenon. It also has a large and fanatical community, where enthusiastic users share and reshare their favorite Instant Pot recipes across Facebook groups and online forums. By becoming the first new breakout appliance category of the millennial generation, the Instant Pot has achieved that highly desirable (and rare) position of having its brand synonymous with the name of the category; people don’t go looking for pressure cookers, they go looking for an Instant Pot.

 


DELIVEROO
We chose Deliveroo out of the myriad of food delivery services because of their Editions project, which uses customer data to curate restaurant hubs in areas which have unfulfilled demands for certain chain establishments or cuisine types. This model allows food establishments to set up locations with zero start-up costs, and also gives customers in more restaurant-dry areas a wide variety of delivery food options. Essentially, it’s cloud kitchens meets a food hall, with some heavy analysis to help determine which restaurants or cuisines customers want, and where. These “Rooboxes” (hubs of shipping containers in which the food is prepared) show that Deliveroo is a pioneer in the dark kitchen space, and are doing serious work to shake up the food delivery market.

 

AMAZON GO
There are any number of ways that Amazon could have been included in this list, but its Amazon Go stores are what we think will be the real game changer. The cashierless corner store uses a high-tech combination of cameras and computing power, allowing you to walk in grab what you want — and leave. That’s it. At its first location in Seattle, we were struck by how seamless the experience was. As the locations broaden, this type of quick convenience has the potential to change the way we shop for snacks, (some) groceries and even prepared meal kits.

 


INGEST.AI
Restaurants have more pieces of software to deal with than ever. In addition to all the delivery platforms they are now plugged into, there have to deal with payments systems, HR software, and inventory management software. And right now, none of those applications talk to each other. Created by a former IBM Watson engineer, Ingest.ai promises to extract and connect the data from ALL of those disparate software pieces and tie them together to give restaurant owners a holistic, data-powered view of their business. It also helps them have more precise control over their business and automate tasks like food ordering and staff scheduling.

Want to meet the innovators from the FoodTech 25? Make sure to connect with them at North America’s leading foodtech summit, SKS 2019, on Oct 7-8th in Seattle.

NEXT

Whisk Acquires Avocando to Expand Shoppable Recipe Capabilities

Whisk, the UK-based AI food platform, announced today that it has acquired German startup, Avocando. The move augments Whisk’s shoppable recipe business by expanding the company’s footprint into continental Europe and adding some sizable appliance partners to the company’s partner roster.

As we’ve noted, the recipe is evolving from a static list of instructions and into a discovery and commerce platform. Whisk partners with publishers such as Pillsbury, the BBC and Food network to connect their recipes with retailers. So if you find a pancake recipe that you really like on Food Network, Whisk makes it easy to order all the necessary ingredients. In the U.S., Whisk works with Walmart and Peapod and recently added Amazon Fresh.

Avocando, which launched in 2015 and raised just €1m, has built a shoppable recipe platform that has found traction with publishers and appliance makers in Germany, Austria and France. According to the announcement, the company powers 600,000 shoppable recipes and reaches 20 million monthly shoppers across Germany and Europe.

By acquiring Avocando, Whisk picks up the startup’s user and customer base, which include food publisher Chefkoch and German appliance makers Miele and BSH Home Appliances. With two of Germany’s biggest appliance makers now in the fold, Whisk – who had its own integration with Samsung’s Family Hub – has started to tally an impressive list of hardware partners.

Terms of the acquisition weren’t made available, though Whisk CEO Nick Holzherr told The Spoon that they paid cash for the company out of revenue from continuing operations.  Whisk was founded in 2012, has 22 employees and raised $2 million in seed funding. The Avocando team will be joining Whisk.

Whisk Partners with Amazon to Expand its Shoppable Recipe Reach

In a move that will bolster the trend of recipes becoming center for discovery and commerce, Amazon has partnered with AI food platform Whisk to create shoppable recipes from more than 20 publishers.

Whisk partners with major food brands such as Pillsbury and General Mills and publishers like BBC Good Food and Food Network to connect their recipes with retailers. So, for example, if you like Pillsbury’s recipe for Blueberry Biscuits with Sweet Lemon Glaze, Whisk’s platform lets you automatically order all the necessary ingredients for delivery with just a few clicks.

In the United States, Whisk has been working with Walmart and Peapod for ingredient purchases and with today’s announcement adds Amazon Fresh as another partner. Whisk’s partnership will extend to Amazon UK starting on March 1.

For Amazon, Whisk joins AllRecipes and Fexy Media as another channel for shoppable recipes sales. We pegged shoppable recipes as a trend to watch this year as it has the power to transform the way we think about meal preparation.

Recipes used to be a source of both inspiration and frustration when the contents of our pantries fell short of the ideal meal. With same day delivery, retailers like Amazon, Albertsons, Walmart can now monetize that inspiration with (somewhat) instant gratification. Shoppable recipes make cooking almost any meal more frictionless.

Amazon’s continued expansion into the shoppable recipe space is sure to set in motion more defensive moves from other grocers. Last month, Aisle Ahead bought BigOven to offer shoppable recipes services for grocers. Additionally, Kroger partnered with Myxx to bring shoppable recipes to its stores.