Smart Kitchen Show

Food delivery through underground tubes? Sounds crazy, but it's already happening today, and Pipedream's Garrett McCurrach thinks it just may be the future of delivery. We catch up with Garrett just a week after they announced their first pilot in the Atlanta suburbs, where they have built a system that delivers food and other items underground for nearly a mile. During this podcast we talk about how Garrett came up with the idea, what it was like to showcase the system to Jeff Bezos, how the company is working with fast food restaurants to rethink drive-thru pickup and what he sees for the future of underground delivery.  As always, like or subscribe if you haven't already. 

This week SuperGut CEO Marc Washington joins the podcast to talk about why new GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are keeping CPG brand CEOs up at night. These new drugs, which got their start as a new class of pharmaceuticals that help contol type 2 diabetes, have become very popular in recent years as weight loss drug. They are hugely effective in suppressing appetites and reducing the overall calorie intake of those taking them, so much so that some speculate that they could have a significant impact on overall demand for food if, as predicted, tens of millions begin to take them in coming years as the price comes down and more accessible formats (i.e. not shots) become available.   Marc thinks a lot about these drugs because his company, SuperGut, creates a natural alternative to GLP-1 drugs in the form of supplements, snacks and bars. His journey to leading the company was born out of both a personal loss as well as a chance meeting with Dave Friedberg, the CEO of The Production Board.  You can learn

In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, we welcome Ari Tulla, CEO of Elo Health. Ari got his start in tech working for mobile giant Nokia, where he helped lead the company's mobile app studio.  However, after his wife experienced a health scare in the late 2000s, Ari decided to turn his attention to the broken health system and built what he describes as a "search engine for doctors." After he sold that company, he began to think about how the explosion in personal data using wearables and other inputs could help pave a way for food as medicine and personalized nutrition. That journey eventually led to the creation of Elo Health, a company that uses AI to power a personalized nutrition and supplement platform.  Ari will be joining The Spoon and others at the Food AI Summit on October 25th to discuss his journey. If you want to connect with Ari personally (and try an Elo Health personalized supplement!), join us in Alameda. Use the discount code PODCAST for 25% off tickets. 

Andrew Simmons is an open book. When the long-time entrepreneur decided to buy a restaurant in 2020, little did he know that in just a few months he would be forced to close his doors due to COVID.  But instead of giving up, he had to get creative and, after surviving the pandemic, he kept on tinkering, trying to figure out how new technology could make his restaurant more efficient.  During this whole experience, Andrew has been documenting his journey via posts on Linkedin and on a blog. As he reinvents his restaurant through technology, he talks about what works and what doesn't, providing a potential blueprint for other operators who are thinking about how technology could change their business.  During this podcast, Andrew and Mike talk about: How the installation of a pizza robot from Picnic completely changed how he does business How one piece of game-changing technology, like a pizza robot, forces other changes and adoption of new technology throughout the restaurant's work flow The impact of

In this week's podcast, we talk food and AI with Evan Rapoport. Over the past decade, Evan has led teams in Google Research and other organizations looking at how AI could impact biodiversity and change. During our conversation, we talk about a project called Tidal, in which he and Google used AI technology like computer vision and applied it to aquaculture. We also discuss the impact of AI more broadly on the food system and how Evan thinks newer technology like generative AI might have an impact sooner than we think on the world of food.

When you think of the kitchen of the future, do you envision a 3D food printer instantly whipping up a dinner or a snack? While the crazy idea might not happen tomorrow, if life follows the path of science fiction (as it often does), there's a good chance a food printer will be sitting on our kitchen counter in 10 or 20 years. If we're going to get there, this week's guest Jonathan Blutinger might have something to do with it. Jonathan is a 3D food and software-defined cooking researcher who is trying to envision what this future world of cooking looks like. In the podcast, we talk about How Jonathan got started exploring future cooking technologies What is laser-cooking and how does it pair with 3D food printing How the current state of the 3D food printing ecosystem compares to other industries like digital music The difference between printing sweet vs savory products Will consumers ever accept the idea of 3D printed food? And lots more! Enjoy this week's podcast and we'll see you next week!  

As a child, Oliver Zahn was a self-described "mathy" kid who had a fascination with how the world worked. This early interest in the mechanics of the universe would lead him to the study astrophysics and embark on a career that would land him at one of the world's top universities teaching cosmology. But as Zahn went on to become a world-recognized astrophysicist and cosmologist who would also work at places like SpaceX and Google, his interest in another childhood interest - food - continued to grow, especially as he realized the potential of complex mathematical models to effect change in the food system. That realization led him to found Climax Foods, a company using artificial intelligence models to discover new, more sustainable plant-based ingredients that can replace those derived from animals.  In the episode, Zahn talks about this journey from astrophysicist to future food entrepreneur and the work Climax has done using AI to create cheese with plant-based ingredients.  Podcast Timeline:  Ho

This week we catch up with Wired's Joe Ray. Here at The Spoon we're fans of Joe's kitchen reviews, where he cuts to the quick and tells the reader exactly why he or she should (or shouldn't) buy a product.  In this episode, we take a look back at how Joe got started in food, why he picked up one day and went to France to become a writer, his tutelage under the famous restaurant reviewer François Simon, and his approach to kitchen technology journalism. We also talk about the current state of kitchen tech and the smart kitchen and where we see it all going. Enjoy!

In this podcast interview, Mike catches up with SideChef's Kevin Yu in the wake of the company's recent funding round to discuss the evolution of SideChef and the smart kitchen market. A lot has happened since Mike and Kevin first met on the roof deck of a restaurant at SXSW, so they reminisce about old times, talk about the cyclical nature of innovation, and how AI will impact the connected kitchen space. Kevin shares SideChef's AI strategy, his plans for the company, and where he thinks this is all going.   Podcast Outline: Introduction: (00:00) -Host: Michael Wolf -Guest: Kevin Yu, CEO and founder of SideChef Early days and the birth of SideChef (02:29) SideChef's recent funding round (03:15) The evolution of SideChef (05:42) Plans for the future (07:30) Expansion of SideChef platform into computer vision and machine vision (10:34) Collaborating with Bacardi (12:36) The state of the connected kitchen space (15:59) Overcoming challenges in the industry (17:00) The potential of shoppable recipe

Are VCs still hungry for food robotics investments? We ask S2G's Arthur Chow and Vebu Labs' Buck Jordan what their thoughts are on the food automation landscape. In this podcast we ask: The current investment climate for food automation Why founders should consider monetizing on their vision soon through incremental releases of products The roll-up opportunity for investors Alternative forms of financing for food robotics founders Whether we will see a food robotics unicorn You can watch the video of this session on The Spoon here.  

Do you know what DeSci is? If you don't, don't feel bad, especially if, like me, food is your primary focus. A16Z's publication Future describes DeSci as a movement in which "a growing number of scientists and entrepreneurs are leveraging blockchain tools, including smart contracts and tokens, in an attempt to improve modern science. Collectively, their work has become known as the decentralized science movement, or DeSci." If you're like me and are just learning about DeSci, the reason for that is that while it's a trend that's caught the attention of the biotech and research funding worlds, it hasn't made its way into the future food conversation just yet.  But it's only a matter of time, so I figure there's no better time to learn. To help us do that, our guest for this episode of The Spoon Podcast is Dr. Jocelynn Pearl, a biotech scientist, entrepreneur, and podcaster.  In this episode of the podcast, we discuss the following: What is DeSci? How DeSci is changing the insular and outdated world of

Our special guest is Scott Heimendinger for our weekly food tech news wrapup.  Scott is a long-time kitchen tech inventor and entrepreneur who is currently building his next big thing. In this episode, we discuss the following stories: Tovala intro's new oven Why all the sourdough tech now? Do we need tech to make us better bakers? Good and bad way to use generative AI with food  CloudChef Wants to Capture a Chef’s Knowledge in Software to Recreate High-Quality Cuisine Anywhere Facebook wants us to let us know we're out of milk via our AR glasses. This is ok, but how can AR be made actually really useful?   As always, you can find more Spoon Podcasts at our website or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. 

Up until now, every morsel of food astronauts eat in outer space was created and packaged on earth. However, as we embark on the era of long-term space flight, NASA and other space agencies realize that that will need to change.  As the Senior Project Manager for Space Crop Production and Exploration Food Systems for NASA, this is the problem Ralph Fritsche has been thinking about for the past decade. Ralph, who helped develop the Deep Space Food Challenge, works with his team to try and figure out how exactly they'll feed astronauts when they set up camp on Mars over a decade from now.  If you've ever wondered about how we feed space travelers today and far into the future, this is the podcast for you!

In this week's episode we catch up with Rachel Konrad, a former journalist who has spent the last decade-plus working for Tesla, Impossible Foods and now the Production Board. Rachel joins Michael Wolf and Carlos Rodela to talk about her background, the recent controversy around Bloomberg's article declaring plant-based meat a fad, and how she helped Impossible bring food tech to CES in 2019 with the launch of the Impossible 2.0 burger. It's a really fun conversation that you won't want to miss!  

It's almost the end of 2022 and so we decided to catch up with S2G Managing Director Tonya Bakritzes. In this podcast we talk about: -The impact of inflation and global macroenvironmental headwinds on the food tech landscape -The plant-based meat sales slowdown and what it means for the space longterm.  -Some areas to look forward to in 2023 You can find out more about S2G here.  

Ben Leventhal has nothing if not good timing.  In 2004 the New York entrepreneur launched Eater at the dawn of the blogging era, back when food media was still mostly legacy publications and message boards.  After selling Eater to Vox, he went on to launch Resy in 2014 just as restaurants were beginning to bristle at the data practices of legacy online reservations systems such as OpenTable. He'd eventually sell his second company to American Express.  And now Leventhal is looking to create his third founder success story with the launch of Blackbird, a company which he describes as “a new loyalty, membership, and payments technology company.” In this episode, we discuss Ben's journey from those early days, how evolution of food media, the changes to reservation and other restaurant tech platforms, and how he envisions Web3 and other new technologies could change the game for small and independent restaurants.  You can find out more about Ben's new company at Blackbird.xyz. 

Our guest this week on our weekly food tech news wrapup is Clayton Wood, the CEO of pizza robot startup Picnic. We talk food tech news and then hear Clayton's view on where things are going in the world of food robots. Here are some of the stories we covered: The Food tech venture capital market really dropped hard in Q3.: Food tech venture drops 63% quarter over quarter One sector that seems to be somewhat active in Web3 meets restaurants: Seattle's Forum3 announces funding on heels of launching Starbucks' NFT-centric loyalty program.  Two Fast-Grocery Delivery Giants Have Merged: Turkish fast delivery company Getir has closed its acquisition of German rival Gorillas as fast grocery continues to consolidate. Wonder Lays off 7% of Workers: Marc Lore's food delivery unicorn has its first layoff as growth goes slower than expected. Colleges are embracing delivery robots. Grubhub announced a partnership with Kiwi, adding to their partnerships with Starship and Cartken. Is there something about colleg

We're ramping our Friday food tech casual news wrapups back up again, and this week Mike and Carlos got together to talk about some of the stories that caught their attention this week. The stories we talked about include: Will reusable containers take off at colleges? Maybe. What about restaurants? One startup is trying to make it work. A new smart mixer from GE Appliances stood out as an innovative product in a market that has lacked innovation as of late. Has Amazon's Alexa strategy failed? A startup debuts its new driver-optional electronic tractor.  Is this the future of farming? One sidewalk robot company lands a nice deal with Norway's post office, but how are the others doing? Plus: Cocaine Bear! Join us next week on The Spoon's Crowdcast channel to see the live recording. 

In his previous life, Max Elder worked as a futurist, where he helped food brands develop strategies for the future. One of his primary motivations in this work was the hope that he could help steer them away from animal agriculture and towards a future centered around more humane and sustainable foods. Over time, however, Elder realized that to have a meaningful impact, he'd have to create his own product. So in late 2020, Elder left his job as a futurist and created a plant-based meat company. With Nowadays, Elder envisions a future where he can have a bigger impact by scaling meat utilizing production techniques perfected for traditional animal agriculture. In this episode, we talk about his transition from strategist to entrepreneur and Elder puts his futurist hat back on to look at where things are going in the world of alternative protein.

WTF is going on with alternative protein? To find out, we decided to catch up with one of our favorite people in future food, Indiebio's Po Bronson. Po went from being one of the early chroniclers of the dotcom boom via his novels and nonfiction titles to leading one of the most active investors and accelerators in the future of food in IndieBio, and in this podcast, we talk about his journey and how he become a VC. We also talk about the current struggles facing certain sectors of alt protein and where he sees things going.