Smart Kitchen Show

Food tech industry is built on intellectual property. Whether a startup builds alternative proteins, cooking technology, automation/ AI or another food tech product, a large part of its future success relies on its intellectual property. A big part of a startup's success relies on managing a patent portfolio. But navigating the world of patents is confusing, so why not bring in an expert to answer some of our questions? That's exactly what we do on this episode of The Spoon podcast with Anas Alfarra. Anas managed IP for one of the world's biggest industrial equipment makers, has secured his own patent for a food cooking system, and advises startups on how to manage their IP. Topics discussed on this podcast include: -What are the different types of patents? -What is a provisional patent? -How to understand patent strategies of large companies like Amazon and Microsoft -The process of applying for a patent -And much more! If you are at all interested in intellectual property and have questions about how to man

As the former head of food chemistry for Eat Just, Jasmin Hume thought there was a lot of white space for innovation and thought a company should exist to build the next generation of ingredients for plant-based food. So she created it. At Shiru, Hume and her team make novel ingredients by identifying proteins with function such as taste, texture and more utilizing cutting edge tools like machine learning. So far, the company has raised over $20 million and just recently hired Impossible Foods' former VP of R&D and strategic ingredients. On the podcast, Mike and Jasmin discuss the following topics: -how the alternative protein market is evolving from early fully vertically integrated brands to companies like Shiru that build ingredients and solutions for a variety of companies -the new cohort of food companies utilizing AI and ML to build the next generation of food -how what Shiru is doing with precision fermentation is different from that of Perfect Day and others trying to create animal-identical proteins

In this episode of The Spoon, we are joined by long-time restaurant and restaurant tech journalist Nancy Luna. We thought we would have Nancy on to compare notes about some of the challenges we've seen in the last few months in restaurant tech. Some stories we discuss on the show include: -NextBite's layoffs -The shutdown of Chowbotics and pizza robot pioneer Pizzametry looking for a buyer -the state of ghost kitchen players -QR code startup Sunday and their fast-burn through funding and pull out of markets -and Much More! As always, you can find more Spoon podcasts at www.thespoon.tech via Knit

In this episode of The Spoon podcast, we catch up with the CEO of GRUBBRR Sam Zietz and the CTO of BurgerFi (a 120 location burger chain) to talk about how the two companies worked together to roll out self-ordering technology at BurgerFi locations and how the early results show the technology changing consumer behavior. via Knit

Jordan Thaeler doesn't mince words when it comes to the business of restaurant and retail technology business. Anyone who reads Thaeler's Reforming Retail, which he does in addition to running a retail payments analytics and consulting business, knows that Thaeler likes to break down the cost economics and associated business models of some of the biggest names in restaurant tech. In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, we talk about: -The overall restaurant tech market space and why there aren't more publicly traded companies in this market -How point of sale is still the focus and starting point for the digital transition for many restaurants -The ghost kitchen and virtual brand space -Jack Dorsey's fixation with crypto and the potential impact of Web3/crypto on restaurants -Lots more! You can find more Spoon Podcasts at www.thespoon.tech via Knit

Andrew Shakman had a tough job. After two full days of inspiring talks at ReFED's annual food waste symposium, the CEO of Leanpath was asked to give a closing message that would inspire and catalyze action. He delivered, so we asked Andrew to come on the podcast to discuss how he thinks those delivering food waste reduction solutions can do more to help make a bigger impact. As always, you can find more Spoon podcasts at www.thespoon.tech via Knit

Mike and Ashley get together to talk about some of the more interesting food tech stories of the week, including: -The big food brand metaverse trademark landgrab -An NFT restaurant in San Francisco -The faulty rationale for investing big $ in 15-minute grocery -Roku's big play for shoppable food TV -The Spoon's looking for leaders in the food-tech revolution As always, you can find more podcasts at The Spoon. The Spoon podcast is part of the Spoon Media Network. via Knit

If you are in the alt-protein industry or even just interested in the space, chances are you know about the Good Food Institute. In this episode, I caught up with GFI CEO and co-founder Bruce Friedrich to talk about the evolution of the space, the politics of alternative meat, the regulatory environment and where he sees the market going. You'll want to check it out! You can find out more about GFI at www.gfi.org. As always, find more podcast at The Spoon. via Knit

Can the design of your kitchen change how and what you eat? Electrolux thinks so. In this week's episode of the Spoon podcast's food tech news wrapup, we discuss Electrolux's new kitchen concept called GRO, Taco Bell's restaurant of the future, a new mushroom grow chamber called Shrooli and a new countertop cooking appliance with a built-in freezer called Celcy. As always, you can read about these stores at The Spoon (www.thespoon.tech). via Knit

In this episode, we talk about the state of the food as medicine market and the how Lauren Driscoll built NourishedRX, one of the fastest growing companies in this space. via Knit

So while it may not be surprising that a restaurant concept by alpha-adopter and Internet celebrity Gary Vaynerchuk can raise millions of dollars selling NFTs, what about that mom & pop place on the corner? In other words, how does a small restauranteur that doesn't have the followers, fame and early adopter advantage of a Vaynerchuk take advantage of web3? That's what we talk about with this week's guest, Adam Brotman, the CEO of Brightloom and former head of digital for Starbucks. via Knit

Matias Muchnick started NotCo in 2015 with a singular idea: Could AI be used to reinvent how new food products are discovered and made? Seven years later, his company is eating up market share in the plant-based milk and other alt-protein categories and he just inked a joint venture with one of the biggest food companies in the world. In this episode., Matias talks about those early days, what he saw as broken in the traditional food development process, and goes deep into how Giuseppe, NotCo's AI platform, helps create new food products. via Knit

Wildtype, a cultivated seafood startup, announced it has raised a $100 million Series B funding round, the largest to date for a cultivated seafood startup. I sat down with company CEO Justin Kolbeck to learn more about the company's plans. Justin and I talk about: -How he and his cofounder started the company -Expansion of production capacity for cultivated seafood -Where the FDA is in its approval process -Convincing consumers to eat cultivated seafood -And more! via Knit

Hyphen announced this week that they'd raised a $24 million Series A funding round. We caught up with Stephen Klein to hear about his food robot platform and his vision for building the Shopify for restaurant robotics. via Knit

One night Mattew Fonte's young daughter suggested they make an instant home ice cream making machine. A few years later, the idea became a reality. Only the ColdSnap does a whole lot more, including margaritas, cold coffee, frozen yogurt and, of course, ice cream. In this conversation we walk with Forte about the appliance that stole the show at CES 2021 and how he sees it changing the home ice cream (and beverage) market. via Knit

When Bill Lee and Brett Beller started talking about the idea of using a DAO and an NFT to buy a McDonald's, they were mostly joking around. Before long, they had started a Discord server and friesDAO had raised over $4 million. Now they had to figure out how to make it happen. In this episode we talk with Bill Lee, an advisor to friesDAO, about their plans to use a DAO to purchase a restaurant (and possibly multiple restaurants) and operate them through a decentralized autonomous organization. The conversation talks about the possibilities of crypto and a Web3 community as a new way to do business in the restaurant industry. via Knit

This week, Cana came out of stealth and announced their "molecular beverage printer", a device the company says will be able to create almost any beverage from the same 80 or so flavor compounds. We talk with Matt about the device, the story behind its creation and where he sees beverage tech going. To learn more about Cana, check out their website at www.cana.com via Knit

While the fast growth of the ghost kitchen industry is exciting, it has some downsides. The industry's rapid expansion has often meant low-quality food, a lack of transparency, and, even health code violations. Kristen Barnett wants to change all that with her newest venture, Hungry House. Barnett, who was formerly with Zuul, wants to be transparent about where the food is made and who is making it and to have tight control over the quality. That means growth will be purposeful in the beginning as the company builds its business one kitchen - and chef - at a time. via Knit

When Steve Simoni originally started BBot, the idea was to create restaurant robots, But things don't always go as planned, and for Simoni and BBot, that's a good thing since BBot is a fast-growing restaurant tech software startup. Mike and Steve catch up on all things restaurant tech, including ghost kitchens, virtual restaurants, the food metaverse and, yes, restaurant robots. Enjoy! via Knit

Unlike many computational biology startups that have emerged in recent years, Kingdom doesn't use precision fermentation technology or genetic engineering to build its new ingredient building blocks. Instead, the company is applies artificial intelligence to analyze a massive database of existing cultures to discover new and interesting potential microbial combinations that could provide new functionality, flavors and more. In this interview, we talk with Ravi Sheth and Kendall Dabaghi, the cofounders of Kingdom Supercultures, to discuss how they are using modern compute to create new novel ingredients at a much faster pace than traditional biology. via Knit