Smart Kitchen Show

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

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 to produce collagen, which the company then harvests for use in a variety of different applications. Jellatech's approach is similar to that of Turtletree Labs, which uses cell-based approaches to create human-identical breast milk. For TurtleTree - and Jellatech - the cells are not the products sold to or consumed by the customers - it's the collagen produced by those sells. via Knit

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 at The Spoon: https://thespoon.tech/after-almost-40-years-adam-lloyd-cohen-is-bringing-his-vision-for-food-robots-to-life/ via Knit

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 steam oven. And now, he wants to build the next great category in the kitchen. Listen in to hear about what he is doing and what he's excited about in the kitchen. This is Season 5, Episode 1. via Knit

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

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

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

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

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

Eric Schulze left a long-time position as a FDA regulator to go to Upside Foods (Memphis Meats at the time) to help develop the cutting edge technology. Eric's background would eventually come in handy as the company looks navigate the regulatory environment as it moves towards introducing its first product to market. via Knit

Max Elder had a good thing going. And then he decided he wanted to make a difference in the world. So the last year he worked in stealth on his new plant-based meat company, Nowadays, which debuted this week. via Knit

There's really no one more responsible for the creation of today's plant-based cheese and butter market than Miyoko Schinner. After turning vegan in the 80s, Schinner began a long journey that involved writing a number of best-selling cookbooks, getting on the wrong side of a Japanese mobster and eventually starting Miyoko's Creamery, a huge success story. As always, you can listen to The Food Tech Show at The Spoon (www.thespoon.tech) or wherever you get your podcasts. via Knit