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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Winc

Alt-Meat, Fancy Wines, and Chili’s: Black Friday/Cyber Monday Direct-to-Consumer Deals

So far, 2020 has been the year of the direct-to-consumer boom when it comes to food and beverage products, with major CPGs, restaurants, plant-based meat companies, and others setting up their own e-commerce sites to better serve homebound customers.

It follows, then, that this year’s enormous crop of Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals is chock full of offers from these companies’ sites, along with deals for meals, booze, and even groceries. And since we’re all stuck at home this year and going out to shop on Friday seems like a terrible idea as far as the pandemic is concerned, here’s a rundown of some of our favorite e-commerce food and bev deals happening over the next few days.

All Beyond Meat products on the company’s newly launched direct-to-consumer e-commerce store will be 20 percent off from 6 a.m. EST to 11:59 p.m. PST on Cyber Monday, Nov. 30. Bonus: if you’re one of the first 500 orders, you get a free Beyond Meat apron.

DoorDash just launched a gifting feature on its app that lets users send a food gift to another person. From now through Black Friday, Nov. 27, every customer that gives a gift of $20 or more gets $10 off their next order on DoorDash or Caviar.

Meat subscription service Crowd Cow is offering 20 percent off on a variety of meats and fish you can order via the Crowd Cow website. At the moment, there’s a healthy variety of shrimp, crap, steak, ground beef, cod, halibut and more available, and the company is adding new items to the sale every day. 

If you’re curious about testing out a meal kit, now might be the time to do so. A number of services are offering Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals this year. A couple notables are HelloFresh, which will give you $90 off your first five boxes, and Hungryroot, which will will offer 30 percent off your first delivery of $99 and throw in a free pack of almond chickpea cookie dough.

For all you winos, plenty of online retailers and subscription services are offering deals on vino. First-time buyers on Winc get 50 percent off their first order. Usual wines has a 21 percent discount going on orders of 12 bottles or more. Vinebox, meanwhile, is offering a 20 percent discount off its 12 Nights of Wine package through Nov. 30.

BonBowl, which makes an induction cooktop and accompanying bowl, is running a $50 off sale on Black Friday for orders placed via the BonBowl website. If you need further convincing this is a good purchase, check my full review of the device.

Finally, restaurants, especially chains, are always offering deals, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday is no exception. The folks at Delish have a solid rundown of these deals, which include chains like Peet’s Coffee, McAlister’s Deli, and, of course, Chili’s. Because it’s not a holiday if Chili’s isn’t somehow involved.

Data-driven Winery Winc Raises Over $5.3M in Equity Crowdfunding

D2C winery Winc’s equity crowdfunding campaign Winc Shares is closing today. The company launched Winc Shares on the platform SeedInvest in August of 2019 to raise its Series D funding round. At the time of this writing, the campaign had seven hours left to go and had raised $5.3 million.

If you’re not familiar, Winc is a winery that develops blends based off consumer data and trends. It sells D2C through tailored wine subscriptions, and also supplies its wine to over 4,400 retail and wholesale accounts. Prior to launching the Shares program Winc had raised $41.6 million.

The minimum investment for Winc Shares is $999 per investor. Each level includes perks of Winc credits and bottles of wine. With its new crowdfunded capital, Winc will launch a new “clean wine” brand as well as a line of saké over the next year. On its site, the company also states that it will acquire its first wine company in Q2 of 2020.

Equity crowdfunding has become a bit of a trend for startup companies in the food and drink world. GoSun, Small Robot Company, Miso Robotics, Mealthy and GOffee have all launched their own crowdfunding campaigns to let regular people buy a piece of their company. Winc’s campaign is one of the bigger and more successful, second in scope only to Miso, which is hoping to raise a whopping $30 million Series C round through equity crowdfunding (its campaign is ongoing).

Equity crowdfunding appeals to startups who want greater control over their destiny. If they get all their money from individuals, they won’t be beholden to the intense pressures that can come with VCs — though that means they also don’t get the connections and advice that comes from working alongside venture firms. Considering that Winc’s whole shtick is that it makes wine geared towards the palates of everyday people, not wine critics, it makes sense that the startup would choose to go the equity crowdfunding route.

One thing to note: the recent COVID-19 outbreak is throwing a wrench into the entire food and drink ecosystem, affecting everyone from farmers to restauranteurs. It’s too soon to tell if the coronavirus will negatively affect Winc specifically. But one thing’s for sure: Winc’s campaign is ending none too soon. With so many people losing their jobs, equity crowdfunding may be one of the areas that struggles in our new COVID reality.

Market Map: Booze Tech in 2019

From countertop devices used in the home kitchen to delivery services, the number of avenues in which companies can get booze to customers has expanded in recent years. And since it’s still the time of year when drinking on patios is a popular sport, we decided to focus our latest market map on all the tech out there currently changing the alcohol space.

In the U.S., alcohol consumption has actually stagnated, according to IWSR, but part of this is due to consumers now seeking quality over quantity when it comes to their drinking. Which might explain the rise in the number of companies offering recommendations apps that rate beers, wines, and spirits as well as at-home devices for the kitchen countertop that give the user a little more control over the quality of their drinks.

For The Spoon’s Booze Tech in 2019 market map, we divvied the market up into several categories where technology is making the biggest impact on the way people get, create, and consume beer, wine, and spirits. That’s everything from apps that update you on the best craft beers available to at-home bartending devices that let you release your inner mixologist to the many ways in which companies are making it possible to get the booze delivered right to your doorstep. We’ve narrowed the companies down to a collection of startups and major corporations alike. As with any post that outlines a market, this list isn’t exhaustive. So if you have thoughts and tips for who else you’d like to see here, feel free to drop us a line.

While we’re on the subject of maps, be sure to check out our 2019 Food Robotics market map and our Food Waste Innovation in 2019 map.

Booze Tech in 2019