The episode's guest is Robby Earl, president of Virtual Dining Concepts (the company behind Beastburger). Robby is also president of Linked Eats, a new technology company that makes software for virtual restaurant brand operators. I caught up with Robbie last week to talk about his new company and its technology and to get an update on what is going on in the virtual restaurant space, an industry that has seen some challenges in recent years. We also talk about the reshuffling of the VDC brand portfolio and get an update on the lawsuit between VDC and BeastBurger. Enjoy the conversation! Remem ..read more

This interview is with Rajat Bhageria, an investor and technology founder who debuted his food robot after working stealthily for five years. Bhageria, a master’s graduate of Penn’s Robotics and Machine Learning Lab, started his first company in high school, a social network for young writers. During college and grad school, he founded Third Eye, a company using computer vision to assist the visually impaired. I got to know Rajat in 2019 when he spoke at our food robotics conference called ArticulaTE. At the time, he was just getting started exploring the idea of food robotics while also runni ..read more

This interview is with Rajat Bhageria, an investor and technology founder who debuted his food robot after working stealthily for five years. Bhageria, a master’s graduate of Penn’s Robotics and Machine Learning Lab, started his first company in high school, a social network for young writers. During college and grad school, he founded Third Eye, a company using computer vision to assist the visually impaired. I got to know Rajat in 2019 when he spoke at our food robotics conference called ArticulaTE. At the time, he was just getting started exploring the idea of food robotics while also runni ..read more

The Spoon is launching a dedicated Food Tech News Show podcast. which you can find here on Overcast, on Pandora (and here on our podcast host) and Apple Podcasts. \And, of course, you can listen to this episode on The Spoon feed. In the future, we will focus on interviews and deep dives here on The Spoon Podcast, so make sure to subscribe to FTNS for your weekly shot of food tech news. On this episode, Michael Wolf and Carlos Rodela welcome Peter Bodenheimer, a longtime food tech investor and operator, to discuss the current state of food and ag tech funding. In this episode, they delve into ..read more

For most Americans, the Kraft and Heinz brands have been ever-present in our cupboards and fridges for our entire lives. Products like Oscar Meyer hot dogs, Kraft cheese, Velveeta, and Jello. Household names all. The company resulted from the 2015 merger between Kraft Foods and Heinz. Now the third biggest food brand in North America, we thought it would be interesting to hear how they think about innovation and reinventing their product lineup. To do that, we sit down with Kraft Heinz's President of R&D for North America, Robert Scott. As a part of this conversation, we talk with Robert a ..read more

This episode is the audio from the very first session at SKS 2024, Lessons From the First Wave (And How to Prepare for The Next One). The session included Chris Young (Combustion, ChefSteps, Modernist Cuisine), Scott Heimendinger (Sansaire, Modernist Cuisine and Cuisonic), and Kai Schaffner (Thermomix). The session was moderated by The Spoon's Michael Wolf. It was a lively conversation about how we are seeing patterns of behavior reminiscent of the last wave, as well as what each of the speakers is excited about for the future. We'll be talking about some of these same topics at our next event ..read more

SKS 2024 is in the books, so Carlos Rodela and Mike sit down and talk about the craziness of the past week, some of the products they checked out at the show, and some of the talks by our great lineup of speakers. If you'd like to see a video version of this conversation with interspered photos from SKS, check it out on the Spoon later this week.   ..read more

What would happen if you put a big battery in your induction stove? For one thing, you could cook at a much higher temperature because the power the battery brings to each cooking session is much higher than a traditional outlet. You also have the start of a fractionalized power wall, creating a foundation for what could be your electrified home. We talk about these and other implications of electrification in this conversation with Sam D'Amico, the CEO of Impulse Labs. Sam will be at Smart Kitchen Summit this week talking about kitchen electrification and the Impulse Labs story. If you'd like ..read more

If you follow food Instagram or TikTok, chances are over the past couple of years you've seen a touchscreen toaster from Revolution Cooking.   Revolution's toaster went viral during the pandemic, in part because it has a touchscreen, but also because of a price tag north of $250.    But Revolution CEO Tom Klaff said the toaster was just the beginning, and the fuller vision for the company started to come into focus this past CES when they introduced the Macrowave, a device that combines microwave cooking, infrared heating, air frying and more.    In this podcast, we ta ..read more

This episode's guest is Assaf Pashut, the founder of Chefee, a company that makes home cooking robots.   If there's a category in kitchen technology where there have been lots of startups over the past few years, it's food robotics. Zume, Flippy, Remy Robotics, BurgetBot, and Picnic to name a few. Even Travis Kalanick is getting into the act.   However, most food robots are made for commercial kitchens and that's for good reason. As consumers tend to like appliances we're familiar with, so the idea of having a robot to make our food seems like something out of a science fiction futur ..read more