The Spoon Podcast

We're all sheltering in place, locked down and trying to keep on top of the impact of this global contagion on the world of food tech. We talk about mandatory restaurant shut downs, restaurants and food businesses trying to pivot during COVID and the challenges of writing about food tech during a global pandemic. We want to hear your stories. If you have any unique stories from your place in the w...

It's a confusing and worrying time, so join some of your friends from the Spoon as we talk food tech for a half an hour. On today's podcast, we talk cover the following stories: -Is coronavirus accelerating adoption of certain food tech sectors? -Amazon is selling its next-gen grocery tech to other companies -Sweetgreen looks to make its to-go bowls fully compostable -There is another pizza vendin...

We're back for an editor podcast. This week Mike, Chris and Catherine discuss the following stories: -How the coronavirus is impacting the world of tech, including the Housewares show -Starbucks and McDonalds push waste free cups in San Francisco -A cup that lets you create fizzy water on the go -Another plant based burger, this time from industrial food giant Cargill For more podcasts, visit www....

The Spoon editor pod! Mike, Jenn, Chris and Catherine got together to discuss some of the stories of the week, including: -PicoBrew is up for sale. What happened? -In a related story, PicoBrew also has technology that can "age" spirits overnight. Is this a game changer for the distilling industry? -Coranavirus is impacting nearly every aspect of the economy. How is it going to impact the world foo...

The Spoon team got together talk about the most interesting food and kitchen tech stories of the week, including: -Should food robots take humanoid form? -Miele's next-generation cooking appliance is shipping - what does it mean? -Is hot food the next big thing to be delivered from your grocery shopping list? -Some people think we'll never eat bugs here in the US. Are they right? For more Food Tec...

We spent a week in Vegas scouting out everything food and kitchen at the Consumer Electronics Show! In this episode, Mike, Catherine, Chris and Jenn talk about what we saw, tasted and who we talked to in the world of food tech for the big show. In this episode we cover: -Impossible Pork -Food robots at CES (drinkbots, cooking robots and pizzabots) -All the drink tech -Adaptable, personalized kitch...

The Spoon editors got together to discuss the news of the week, including the recent story we broke on The Spoon about Nomiku closing its doors. We discuss whether Nomiku's ends says anything about the broader consumer sous vide landscape and what categories could replace it as the next-big-thing in cooking. Other stories we cover this week: Blue Bottle wants to become waste free in one year. Is t...

It's another editor podcast where the Spoon gang gets together to discuss some of our favorite stories of the week. Here's what Mike, Jenn and Chris discuss on this week's podcast: -Fatburger's ghost kitchen play -Food tech and stadiums -Joe Ray's Wired article about the smart kitchen being dumb -Amazon's Alexa announcements We'll be discussing many of these topics at SKS (including Mike talking t...

The Spoon team (Mike, Catherine, Jenn & Chris) got together this week to talk food tech! Here are some of the stories we discussed: -The Caper smart grocery cart -The new bill in California that would require gig economy workers to be treated as employees -Impossible's first retail product, which looks like it will be a pound of "ground beef" -A look at this year's class of Startup Showcase finali...

This week the Spoon gang got together to talk about some of the most interesting food tech stories of the week. Chris Albrecht, Jenn Marston, Catherine Lamb and Michael Wolf discuss the following stories: -Starship's new funding round and their expansion to more college campuses -The new cow/plant-based milk blends -The curious crowdfunding campaign of Mealthy, a recipe app and pressure cooker air...

The Spoon team went to Tokyo this month for the third annual Smart Kitchen Summit Japan. It was Chris and Catherine's first time in Japan, so we discuss the magical wonders of this amazing country like Japan's version of 7-11, food robots and the amazing food to be had everywhere. And, of course, we also discuss the hugely successful third edition of SKS Japan, so listen in to hear about what we l...

Beth Altringer first became fascinated in flavor when she joined a competitive wine tasting organization when she was going to graduate school at The University of Cambridge. While it had nothing to do with her field of study (product design and innovation), the very idea one could break down the characteristics of wine and its flavor into highly descriptive and well understood categories was a re...

With all the technology today around our own usage patterns, personal preferences and overall health and wellness, why is it that the restaurant menu still offers a one-sized fits all offering for guests? Host Michael Wolf is joined by The Fit's Scott Sanchez to talk about the evolution of the restaurant menu and when we can expect to see truly personalized menus. via Knit Learn more about your ad...

Imagine you could "delete" the portion in a food DNA sequence that is bad for you. That's exactly what CRISPR and gene editing promises to do, and in this podcast Mike catches up with Deepbranch Biotech's Pete Rowe to learn more about this technology that promises to be one of the food industry's biggest game-changers over the next couple of decades. You can learn more about Deepbranch Biotechnolo...

The kitchen has lagged behind other rooms in the home in the move towards digital service platforms, but that is starting to change. One of the companies at the forefront in building a digital food and cooking platform is Innit. In this conversation, Mike catches up with Kevin Brown, the CEO of Innit, on the great digital kitchen transformation and what Innit is doing to build a digital platform f...

This is a podcast where Mike professes his love...for cereal. After breaking himself free of the morning cereal habit years ago, Mike decides to try Magic Spoon, a new high-protein low carb cereal that sells only through a direct-to-consumer model. This cereal, which tastes like the sugar cereal of our (and maybe your) childhoods, has been on backorder and out of stock despite an eye-popping price...

Welcome to The Food Tech Show with Michael Wolf (formerly the Smart Kitchen Show). The Spoon team is back together for another editorial roundtable (this time with sound effects!). This week we discuss: -Who would use a tiny little countertop dishwasher -The problem with Beyond Meat burgers -The growing robot backlash -Are we ok with Walmart walking into our homes? On the podcast are Michael Wolf,...

As you might expect, working a robot into the busy back of house of a fast food restaurant isn't as easy as just setting it in front of the grill and plugging it in. Nope, restaurants are a complicated mix of workflows, equipment and yes, people, so automating a part of the process with robotics requires planning. For this podcast we talk with some of the folks working on the leading edge of resta...

If you're a reader of the Spoon or a hardcore foodtech nerd (or, more than likely, both), you have read about a nascent but fast-growing group of startups working on technology to make food "out of thin air". These new companies are exciting because they are able to entirely disconnect from using agriculture-based resources - yes, both animal AND plant-based inputs) to create protein with a neglig...

No matter what publication you write for, if you are writing about kitchen products you increasingly have to consider how digital and connected technology impact how people cook. At SKS 2018, Michael Wolf sat down with four of the leading kitchen product reviewers to ask them how they do their job - and how their job is changing - in an increasingly connected world. On the podcast panel were: Lisa...

Like most people, when I think food robots I think about efficiency. More burgers flipped, dishes cleaned and customers served. But what if the precision of robots can actually make food that tastes better? I talk about this, the uncanny valley of meat and more with this week's guest, Ali Bouzari, the chief science officer of Pilot R&D and Render Foods and author of INGREDIENT: Unveiling the Essen...

Like many people, I've long been fascinated with space and one of the most interesting aspects of interstellar travel is what exactly people will eat on space and once they get up there among the stars. This is something that Angelo Vermeulen has been thinking about for a long time. After spending years focused on systems and design for interstellar travel and colonization, Vermeulen was made the...