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....
Nov 29, 2022•34 min•Ep. 140
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 a...
Nov 16, 2022•43 min•Ep. 138
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 Alf...
Aug 16, 2022•34 min
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' ...
Jul 31, 2022•35 min
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 ou...
Jul 18, 2022•41 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 15, 2022•28 min
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 ...
Jul 08, 2022•33 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphon...
Jul 05, 2022•38 min
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 Learn more about your a...
Jun 24, 2022•45 min
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 Learn more about your ad choic...
Jun 20, 2022•43 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...
Jun 12, 2022•39 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 15, 2022•26 min
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...
Mar 25, 2022•49 min
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 ...
Mar 03, 2022•30 min
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 Learn more about your...
Feb 23, 2022•45 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 18, 2022•24 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 16, 2022•28 min
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. ...
Feb 08, 2022•46 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 28, 2022•26 min
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 ...
Dec 28, 2021•24 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 09, 2021•37 min
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 cofo...
Oct 11, 2021•45 min
Collagen is used everywhere, from cosmetics to food to health and wellness applications, and because animal-derived collagen is a by product of the animal farming industry, it has all the same downsides as the factory farming industry. While some companies, like Geltor, are using precision fermentation technology to create animal-identical collagens using precision fermentation technology, a relatively new arriver to the alt-collagen space by the name of Jellatech is using cell-based technology ...
Oct 04, 2021•29 min
In 1985, Adam Lloyd Cohen was in Paris working on a documentary about ancient robots as a project during his senior year in college. After steeping himself in the history of automation during the day and dining on French cuisine at night, he began to think about how we might use robots to make food. It took nearly four decades, but Cohen has built his food robot and is ready to bring his vision of distributed dining to the world. You can listen to the podcast and also read about Adam's journey a...
Sep 24, 2021•29 min
Scott Heimendinger has been building technology in the kitchen for the past decade. It started over a decade ago when he wrote a seminal article for Maker magazine about building a $75 consumer sous vide circulator.From there he went to work for Modernist Cuisine and helped Nathan Myhrvold launch a series of new products built around the Modernist brand. He then started his own company called Sansaire building sous vide appliances. He eventually went to work with Anova to help them launch their ...
Sep 22, 2021•36 min
Innit dropped news this week of a partnership with Google Cloud, so I thought I'd do a quick catch up with him to hear about the news and see what else Innit is up to. You can find my story on Innit and Google Cloud over at The Spoon (www.thespoon.tech). via Knit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 02, 2021•11 min
Koby Nahmias got a call in 2015 that would set the trajectory for next six years of his life and the cell-based meat industry. An investor wanted to know what he thought of Mark Post's 250,000 euro cell-based hamburger. From that point forward, Nahmias would set about reengineering the production for cell-based meat to reach mass market price points. You can ready more about this interview with Koby Nahmias at The Spoon (www.thespoon.tech). via Knit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph...
Aug 30, 2021•49 min
Better Meat Company CEO Paul Shapiro is an alt-protein evangelist. And it's not just for his own company, but for pretty much any company or person helping to contribute to the end of factory farming. In this episode, Mike talks about Better Meat Company's new mycoprotein production facility, the current state of plant-based meat and where Paul thinks the cell-based meat industry is going. via Knit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 03, 2021•37 min
Dr Robert Graham is on a mission to help the world eat better. As a Harvard trained doctor as well as a chef, his business Fresh Med focuses on helping patients get at the root cause of their diseases and move towards healthier lives through diet. As always, you can find more podcasts at The Spoon at www.thespoon.tech. via Knit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Daniel Kurzrock first became interested in upcycling when he first started making bread for his friends using the spent grains from his home brewed beer. This hobby eventually led him to realize that beer brewing industry, as well as many other industries - had many food by products that could be turned into consumable food. Listen as Daniel and I talk about the journey for ReGrained and the growth of the upcycled food industry. via Knit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...
Jul 07, 2021•37 min
