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How Mini Melts Built a $250M+ Beaded Ice Cream Business With a Nationwide Network of Automated Kiosks
If you’re like me, you’ve probably bought a beaded ice cream at your local ballpark or fairgrounds during the dog days of summer. You know the kind, that ice cream that comes in tiny cryogenically frozen balls that melt as soon as you scoop a spoonful into your mouth.
I Attended a Workshop on the Impact of AI on The Food World. Here’s What We Discussed
Last month, I headed down to San Luis Obispo to participate in a National Science Foundation-funded project analyzing the impact of automation and AI on the food system. I’d been invited to participate in a workshop headed up by Patrick Lin and Ryan Jenkins, professors at UC San Luis Obispo and the project leads.
Mill Celebrates Standards Group Approval of Upcycled Kitchen Scraps As New Animal Feed Ingredient
Last week, Mill, a company that makes a kitchen scrap upcycling appliance, announced that a standards group had voted to approve a new ingredient feed definition, effectively giving a thumbs up to the output produced by the Mill appliance. According to the announcement, the ingredient definition committee of the Association...
Strella Believes Its Machine Learning Tech Will Help Deliver The Perfectly Ripened Banana
Did you know that there’s a job in the banana industry called a ripener?. It makes sense, right? After all, anyone who eats bananas knows the time it takes to go from rock-hard green banana to brown mushy mess can be as short as a week. This means the banana industry has to work hard to ensure bananas ripen at the right time so they are peaking in bright, beautiful yellow by the time they show up on grocery store shelves.
With Production Milestone, New Culture Eyes Price Parity for Its Animal-Free Mozzarella
New Culture, a company that uses precision fermentation to make animal-free casein, says it has reached a new manufacturing milestone that enables it to produce enough casein for 25 thousand pizzas worth of cheese per manufacturing run. This new production milestone, which the company achieved through partnerships with external manufacturing...
Robomart Debuts Fully Autonomous Mobile Grocery Store Concept As It Announces $2M Seed Round
Robomart, the company that introduced the store-hailing concept at CES in 2019 and started rolling out its first pilot store last year, announced a new model for its mobile store concept this week with the Robomart Haven. The Haven, which will join the first-generation Robomart (now named Oasis), will be available for retail partners starting in 2025.
Barsys Makes Case For Adding Style to Bartender Robot Category With the Barsys 360
Home cocktail-making appliances have gone through lots of phases since we started writing about them in 2016. We’ve seen everything from pod-based systems from Bartesian and Drinkworks to DIY approaches like those from MrBar.io to cocktail robots with names reminiscent of 80s hip-hop artists. And, if we’re honest, most...
Sidewalk Delivery Startup Serve Robotics To Go Public via Reverse Merger
Serve Robotics, the sidewalk delivery robot startup that began life as a research project within Postmates called X, is going public via reverse merger, The Spoon has learned. The news, first reported in Techcrunch, marks one of the first exits for a food automation startup and the first known exit for a sidewalk delivery automation startup.
Ansā’s RF-Powered Countertop Coffee Roaster Attracts $9M in Fresh Funding
Ansā, a Tel Aviv-based builder of micro coffee roasters, has raised $9 million in funding to help the company roll out its technology into the US market, according to a release sent to The Spoon. Unlike traditional coffee roasters, which use gas to heat the roaster chambers. The Ansā...
Innit Debuts FoodLM to Power More Contextually Relevant Answers from Generative AI Platforms
Today Innit, a startup best known for its shoppable recipe and smart kitchen software solutions, announced the release of FoodLM, a software intelligence layer that helps power more contextually relevant food-related answers from generative AI large language models (LLMs). The new platform, which itself is not a new LLM, is...
Why Big Idea Ventures’ Andrew Ive is Excited About the Japan Food Tech Ecosystem
Just over a week ago, we caught up with Big Idea Ventures’ managing partner Andrew Ive in Tokyo to talk food tech investing. Ive was in Japan for SKS Japan, The Spoon’s event that we started in 2017 in partnership with Sigmaxyz, which has grown to become Japan’s preeminent food tech summit.
A Tale of Two Ghost Kitchens: Why WowBao Wowed and MrBeast Bombed
This week, James Donaldson, known online as MrBeast, sued Virtual Dining Concepts, the company behind his virtual restaurant brand. In the lawsuit, MrBeast and his legal team claim that “Virtual Dining Concepts was more focused on rapidly expanding the business as a way to pitch the virtual restaurant model to other celebrities for its own benefit, it was not focused on controlling the quality of the MrBeast Burger customer experience and products.”
Adam Yee Makes Us Dumplings and Talks About Building His Startup at SKS Japan
Ever since longtime food entrepreneur and podcaster Adam Yee announced his new better-for-you dumpling brand Sobo Foods, I’d been hoping to head to California to try the tasty-looking Asian comfort food. But as it turns out, I won’t have to make that trip to the Bay area to sample...
Take a Peek at TechMagic’s Robot Ramen Restaurant in the Heart of Shibuya
Last year when I visited Tokyo, I ate at a fully robotic pasta restaurant called E Vino Spaghetti. from a Japanese startup called TechMagic. Built by a Japanese startup TechMagic, the restaurant’s pasta robot was able to make a plate of pasta in less than two minutes from the time an order was sent in via the digital order kiosk. The robot prepped the sauces and toppings, heated the noodles (which are pre-cooked and frozen, standard for noodle and pasta restaurants), combined it all in a spinner, and then delivered the meal down along a conveyor belt to the plating station where a human added final garnishes and did a final quality check. The machine also cleaned the prep bowls when it was done.
Kroger Begins Testing Cake Printing Robot From Beehex at Location in Ohio
Late last month, grocery giant Kroger began to trial the use of a cake-printing robot made by Beehex in the Gahanna, Ohio, location, The Spoon has learned. The new Cake Writer machine, which will allow consumers to input a custom message and watch as the cake is decorated in minutes on the spot, is made by 3D food printing startup Beehex. Depending on the message, the decoration process will take two to fourteen minutes. The machines will be loaded with hundreds of different pre-made designs and fonts for the customer to choose from.
Ninja’s Thirsti Drink Machine Shows Why It’s IPOing While Other Countertop Brands Go Out of Business
When I first got the email this morning from the Ninja PR rep, I got excited and thought maybe the company had gone and created a drink replicator similar to the one from Cana. “SharkNinja’s First Hydration System, Ninja Thirsti, Allows Users to Create Thousands of Drinks at the Touch...
Vebu Scores Deal (and Investment) With Chipotle to Trial Avocado Processing Robot
Last week, Mexican food fast-casual chain Chipotle lifted the curtain on a new avocado processing robot called the Autocado. The new prototype robot, developed in partnership with food robotics innovation studio Vebu, will slice, core, and peel avocados before human hands mash them into Chipotle’s famous avocado dip. The...
DiGiorno Debuts Pizza Vending Machine, and It Looks a Whole Lot Like Basil Street Pizza
This week, Nestlé frozen pizza brand DiGiorno debuted its first-ever pizza vending machine, the DiGiorno To Go. When I looked at the machine and watched the video of the DiGiorno to Go in action, I thought the machine looked familiar. That’s when it struck me: This DiGiorno To Go looks like a re-skinned Basil Street pizza machine. Take a look for yourself:
Spinn Coffee is Burning Through Cash, But Says It Will Reach Profitability as It Raises More Money
Spinn, the maker of a grind and brew coffee machine that uses centrifugal force to extract brewed coffee, is currently raising money via Wefunder to fund ongoing operations. The company, which we followed closely in the past to determine when and if they’d finally ship their product, looks like it’s shipping lots of machines nowadays, albeit at a fairly significant loss per unit. And now, with the company’s disclosures via WeFunder, we have a pretty good idea of the company’s current sales volume and its overall financial picture.
As Jobs Disappear, Could Restaurants Become a Battleground For Pushback Against AI & Automation?
Last month, after 29 months straight of job gains, the number of total available restaurant jobs dropped. It wasn’t a huge dip – 800 jobs – but compared to the previous month’s gain of 24 thousand and monthly gains as high as 81 thousand at the beginning of the year, the dip was somewhat surprising, especially as restaurant sales have slowly but surely inched upwards throughout the year.
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