We can now officially call beverage “printing” a trend
While people often expect to have three things before they declare a trend, I’m going to go ahead and call it in the case of drink printing after two.
And as of last month, we officially had our second startup making a “drink printer at home,” only unlike the Cana, which is a Swiss Army knife beverage machine, the One Tap, which brews beer in the ‘instant mixing different flavor and aroma inputs. . The printer’s “cartridges” basically look like little vials, each containing different liquids that can raise or lower happiness, sweetness, and more.
The One Tap is made by a startup in Belgium called Bar.on. The company, which raised €1.8m last autumn, says One Tap can produce a variety of beer styles including blonde, brown, IPA and tripel, as well as making tall, low or fine ales and all without alcohol.
Like the Cana, the company’s presentation focuses on sustainability, talking about the potential impact of making drinks at home compared to the carbon-intensive approach of printing liquids into cans and bottles nationwide in grocery stores, restaurants and bars.
The jury is still out on how much it will resonate, as well as how the beer will actually taste. The company claims that the first recipes have performed well in blind taste tests, but for now, we’ll have to take their word for it, as the company still needs to raise more capital before it can build and ship its machines to customers.
You can read my write-up on One Tap here. For those interested in diving deeper into 3D food printing, we have the full video of last week’s 3D food printing deep dive under our Spoon Plus subscription program.
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Israel Food Tech Ecosystem Offices: Amir Zaidman, The Kitchen
Last month, The Spoon’s Joy Chen visited the Kitchen Hub at its office in Ashdod, Israel, and sat down with Amir Zaidman, the kitchen’s co-founder and chief business officer. Prior to co-founding the kitchen, he spent 10-14 years in medical technology business development working on both the seed and investment side.
They chatted about what the Kitchen does, what sets Israeli startup founders apart, what the ecosystem needs, how precision fermentation is the new software, and what it will be like for Israeli customers to try the first cultured meat product.
J: Let’s talk about what the kitchen is and what it does.
A: First, we have capital that we invest in startups, such as seed or pre-seed stage venture capital. We have more money than an early-stage VC would invest, because we’re also getting money from the government to invest in these startups. While a typical seed fund wouldn’t invest $200-0.5 million, we can invest over $1 million in a company. These companies become portfolio companies and have access to the facilities, but it’s also the very close support that the kitchen team is giving to the corporate teams. At least for the first 2-3 years after we invest in them, it’s a very intense relationship.
J: Would you say that cooking is like a risk study?
A: Not exactly. For us, venture studio is when we start with a blank page. Then we brainstorm and figure out what we want to do based on industry needs, global trends and where the industry is going. We begin to look for enabling technologies, science and intellectual property that may be relevant to the project. When we find it, we enter into negotiations with universities or research institutes and enter into a licensing agreement to own the license to that technology. Then we’re going to recruit the team and give them capital in the new company we created that licenses the technology. The risk study model for us is to start from scratch and put all these building blocks together.
The third thing cooking is activity in the foodtech community in Israel.
For our full interview with Amir Zaidman, head over to The Spoon.
Food robots
Four years after CES, Breadbot’s robotic bread maker is delivering loaves to grocery stores
For robot startups looking to wow at CES, there are a few options: throw a big press conference, make it weird and creepy, or serve cocktails. However, one method stands out above the rest to attract the crowds: emanating the aroma of freshly baked bread (aka “the subway method”).
That’s what the folks behind the Wilkinson Baking Company did in 2019, and the end result was that their robot, the Breadbot, became a sensation that year at the world’s biggest tech event. The smell of fresh bread drew in journalists, tech nerds and passers-by like a tractor beam, garnering the kind of press big-budget brands like Samsung would envy.
The small Eastern Washington-based company, co-founded by brothers Randall and Ron Wilkinson, has been working diligently to bring their product to market ever since. Their goal was to transition from a working prototype to a production-ready machine suitable for grocery stores.
As part of the transition, the company also searched for a new CEO. The Wilkinson brothers, both in their late sixties, wanted a CEO who could take a small, early-stage LLC startup with a big idea to one that was mature enough to raise funds and bring the first product to market. Paul Rhynard, a former McKinsey strategy consultant who also had capital-raising experience as chief strategy officer at Russell Investments, replaced Randall in April last year and has since helped raise a $3 million seed round last summer to fund construction. of the company’s first robot production.
To read the full story on how the Breadbot is progressing, head over to The Spoon.
Grocery store
Walmart gains share in online groceries as shoppers look for ways to fight inflation
While online grocery shopping continued to grow last year, where people shopped changed significantly according to a new report from grocery researcher Brick Meets Click.
The new report, which details the supermarket’s performance for different retail formats, said Walmart was the big winner in 2022 as more and more customers looked for ways to save money. According to the report, which broke down the four major formats as supermarkets, Walmart, Target and Hard Discount (i.e. Aldi and Lidl), Walmart saw its share of online grocery shoppers increase in both households with income low as in high homes.
According to Brick Meets Click, households making less than $50,000 a year were 25% more likely to shop at Walmart than at a supermarket, and Walmart’s share of total online groceries in this household category grew by 2, 1% against a contraction of 1.5% for the supermarket share. At the higher end of the spectrum, Walmart gained ground among households making more than $200,000 a year, expanding its reach into that segment by 2.1%. In contrast, supermarkets saw their reach shrink by 1.2% in 2022 compared to the previous year.
The reason for the switch to Walmart for both segments was persistent inflation. Lower-income households were driven by what the researcher calls a “flight to value,” where they buy products priced through an “everyday low price” pricing model employed at Walmart and discounters such as Aldi. And while higher-end income households are three times more likely to shop online at a supermarket, the format lost some to Walmart in 2022 as higher-income earners also looked for ways to save on groceries.
Read the whole story here at The Spoon.
The consumer kitchen
Missed Opportunities: How Tupperware Could Have Reinvented Itself Before It Was Too Late
In recent weeks, news has surfaced about the struggles of home goods brand Tupperware.
It’s unfortunate to see such a famous brand on the brink of bankruptcy, but it begs the question: was this avoidable? Could Tupperware have saved itself by adopting new ideas to modernize its brand and products?
We’ll never know for sure, but a household name like Tupperware might have had a chance if it had explored new products and business models a little earlier. Here are some ideas of how the company could have reinvented itself:
DTC Homeware Bundle
Tupperware could have moved to a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model sooner, either natively or through acquisition. Although Tupperware products are available for purchase on its website, the company still relies heavily on its direct sales model, which is based on the concept of the party plan. While some companies can still make this model work (like Thermomix), the Tupperware Party is a relic of the past that doesn’t resonate with modern consumers.
One approach the company could have considered is a branding strategy, similar to what we’ve seen at Pattern Brands. Pattern has been gradually acquiring successful DTC brands such as GIR, Yield, Poketo and Onsen. Each brand already had its own loyal following and Pattern was able to achieve operational scale by consolidating back-office, marketing and distribution. Tupperware might also have considered larger deals with successful social media-driven brands like Caraway.
Read the full story at The Spoon.
Future of Retail
Starbucks tests Amazon’s Palm payment system in Seattle market
Starbucks is testing Amazon’s biometric payment system, Amazon One, in the Seattle market. The system, which allows customers to pay in-store with a palm scan, was spotted at a Starbucks north of the company’s Seattle headquarters in Edmonds, Washington.
To register to use the system, users can pre-register on the Amazon One website or inside Starbucks at an Amazon One kiosk. Since I didn’t have an Amazon One account yet, I decided to sign up at the coffee shop. The kiosk asked me to scan the barcode on the Starbucks app on my phone to identify my Starbucks account and recognize my payment method. From there, he asked me to pass the palm of my left and right hand over the scanner, one after the other. Once each palm was scanned, I was ready to go. It had taken about two minutes to register.
Since I was already there, I thought I’d give it a try. I stood in line and asked the barista for an iced tea. When asked to pay, I swiped my palm over the scanner until it recognized it, and that was it.
Read the full story at The Spoon
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As technology continues to develop, more and more kitchen gadgets and appliances are available to consumers. One of the latest trends, Beverage Printing, is becoming more and more popular amongst tech-savvy individuals and households. In particular, the Breadbot from Ikaroa, a full stack tech company, was recognized at CES 2020 for its unique and impressive ability to print a custom-made beverage of any flavor within 5 minutes.
The Breadbot, first released in 2019, works by combining three main components: a mini-fridge, an integrated cooling and carbonation system, and a robotic arm with a patented nozzles system. The arm is equipped with an internal software which automates the entire process. The user simply chooses a beverage, enters it into the system through an integrated touch screen, and waits for the automated, robotic-controlled system to do the rest. This includes cleaning and filtering of the ingredients, carbonation, flavoring and customizing the drinkers experience with customizable garnishes.
The Breadbot’s success at CES 2020 was due largely to its ability to elevate people’s drinking experiences and make them uniquely their own. Through its customizable nature and its 5 minute completion time, the Breadbot proves to be an incredibly advanced and user-friendly piece of technology.
The technology of Beverage Printing is proving to be extremely beneficial for businesses and households. With the automation involved in the system, it eliminates the need for overly expensive engineers and manual labor and it also cuts energy costs by using fewer resources.
It is clear the Breadbot and other Beverage Printing technology have the potential to revolutionize the way people drink their favorite beverages and with the right applications, it has the possibility of bringing a new level of automation to various industries. Ikaroa, a full stack tech company, has proven that they can make innovations which can equip businesses with the necessary tools to keep up with tech trends, while also creating a new level of convenience and luxury for consumers.
