The Spoon Podcast

The Spoon Podcast episodes:

• 04.20.2024

  The Food Tech News Show: A Look at Our Food Lives in The Year 2055

  This week Mike and Carlos be joined by Future Market’s Mike Lee to talk over some of the most interesting stories of the week. Mike Lee also tells us about his new book Mise,  which paints four different scenarios depicting...

  
• 04.09.2024

  Food Tech News Show: Apple Eyes Home Robots

  This week on the Food Tech News Show we are joined by Scott Heimendinger, one of the inventors of the home sous vide circulator and a long-time kitchen tech inventor.  Here are the stories we talk about: Apple is...

  
• 03.30.2024

  The Food Tech News Show: Wither Magic Spoon?

  On this week's Food Tech News Show, Mike and Carlos welcome Rachel Konrad, former head of communications for The Production Board, Impossible Foods and Tesla. The stories we catch up on include: People are Scared Sh**tless: It gets real...

  
• 03.25.2024

  The Story of Mill with Matt Rogers

  If you follow the world of kitchen and consumer food tech startups, you know there hasn't been much in the way of venture funded startups targeting food waste in the home. That changed last year when Mill lifted the veil...

  
• 03.16.2024

  The Food Tech News Show: Behold, The Humanoid Kitchen Robot is Here

  This week, the Spoon crew got together to discuss some of the big stories of the week on a new weekly video news show we’re launching called The Food Tech News Show. The stories Carlos Rodela and I discuss include:...

  
• 03.14.2024

  Building Enabling Technology to Power the Smart Kitchen With Fresco's Anthony Sullivan

  Over the past decade, Fresco has been building technology that helps appliance and housewares brands to create smart kitchen products. The journey for Fresco started when the company - then known as Drop - created a connected kitchen scale. After...

  
• 03.01.2024

  The Story of Chefman and Chef iQ with Ralph Newhouse

  Around 2009, Ralph Newhouse's company hunted down excess inventory of small electrics and would re-sell them into the secondary market. However, it wasn't long before Newhouse realized he wanted to make his own appliances, and that's when the Chefman we...

  
• 02.14.2024

  Overcoming Obstacles To Build Kitchen Tech Hardware With Ovie's Ty Thompson

  Ty Thompson and the rest of the Ovie team recently passed a major milestone: They shipped their first piece of hardware. The product, a consumer food waste management system, was over half a decade in the making. Along the way...

  
• 01.28.2024

  Talking AI and the Future of Cooking With Chris Young

  Chris Young is one of the most provocative and interesting thinkers in the future of food and cooking, so any time he visits The Spoon podcast we learn a lot. This time was no exception.  In this episode of The...

  
• 12.23.2023

  Talking Underground Delivery With Pipedream's Garrett McCurrach

  Food delivery through underground tubes? Sounds crazy, but it's already happening today, and Pipedream's Garrett McCurrach thinks it just may be the future of delivery. We catch up with Garrett just a week after they announced their first pilot in...

  
• 11.17.2023

  Why Are CPG Brands Freaking Out About Ozempic?

  This week SuperGut CEO Marc Washington joins the podcast to talk about why new GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are keeping CPG brand CEOs up at night. These new drugs, which got their start as a new class of...

  
• 10.17.2023

  How AI Is Changing Personalized Nutrition

  In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, we welcome Ari Tulla, CEO of Elo Health. Ari got his start in tech working for mobile giant Nokia, where he helped lead the company's mobile app studio.  However, after his wife experienced...

  
• 10.01.2023

  Food Tech News: Wonder Buys Blue Apron, Elon Breaks Ground on Drive In Restaurant

  We're back after a couple weeks off to wrap up some of the top stories of the week.  Mike and Allen talk about these stories: Wonder acquires Blue Apron Scentian wants to replicate insect smell capability using...

  
• 09.01.2023

  Food Tech News: Samsung Launches Food App, Robot Meets Artisan Pizza

  The Spoon is back for another week of food tech news, and this week Michael Wolf and Allen Weiner talk about what's going on in the smart kitchen, alt protein, CRISPR and more. Here are the stories we talk about:...

  
• 08.25.2023

  Food Tech News: The Anti-Technology Grocery Store

  We're back after a summer hiatus and are back this week with a food tech news wrap-up. This week Michael Wolf and Allen Weiner talk about: Trader Joe's says no to self check out The continuing decline of...

  
• 06.19.2023

  How One Operator is Reinventing His Restaurant's Tech Stack

  Andrew Simmons is an open book. When the long-time entrepreneur decided to buy a restaurant in 2020, little did he know that in just a few months he would be forced to close his doors due to COVID.  But instead...

  
• 06.09.2023

  Talking AI & Food With Evan Rapoport

  In this week's podcast, we talk food and AI with Evan Rapoport. Over the past decade, Evan has led teams in Google Research and other organizations looking at how AI could impact biodiversity and change. During our conversation, we talk...

  
• 05.12.2023

  3D Food Printing & Cooking with Lasers!

  When you think of the kitchen of the future, do you envision a 3D food printer instantly whipping up a dinner or a snack? While the crazy idea might not happen tomorrow, if life follows the path of science fiction...

  
• 04.05.2023

  From Astrophysicist to Cheesemaker With Oliver Zahn

  As a child, Oliver Zahn was a self-described "mathy" kid who had a fascination with how the world worked. This early interest in the mechanics of the universe would lead him to the study astrophysics and embark on a career...

  
• 03.28.2023

  Becoming A Kitchen Tech Reviewer With Wired's Joe Ray

  This week we catch up with Wired's Joe Ray. Here at The Spoon we're fans of Joe's kitchen reviews, where he cuts to the quick and tells the reader exactly why he or she should (or shouldn't) buy a product. ...

  
• 03.17.2023

  The Story of SideChef: From the Smart Kitchen's Early Days to Rise of AI with Kevin Yu

  In this podcast interview, Mike catches up with SideChef's Kevin Yu in the wake of the company's recent funding round to discuss the evolution of SideChef and the smart kitchen market. A lot has happened since Mike and Kevin first...

  
• 03.03.2023

  Robots & Money: The Food Robotics Investment Landscape

  Are VCs still hungry for food robotics investments? We ask S2G's Arthur Chow and Vebu Labs' Buck Jordan what their thoughts are on the food automation landscape. In this podcast we ask: The current investment climate for food automation...

  
• 02.24.2023

  How the DeSci Movement Will Impact the World of Food

  Do you know what DeSci is? If you don't, don't feel bad, especially if, like me, food is your primary focus. A16Z's publication Future describes DeSci as a movement in which "a growing number of scientists and entrepreneurs are leveraging blockchain...

  
• 02.19.2023

  Tater Tot Valentines & Sourdough Starters

  Our special guest is Scott Heimendinger for our weekly food tech news wrapup.  Scott is a long-time kitchen tech inventor and entrepreneur who is currently building his next big thing. In this episode, we discuss the following stories: ...

  
• 02.10.2023

  How Will We Feed Astronauts in Deep Space?

  Up until now, every morsel of food astronauts eat in outer space was created and packaged on earth. However, as we embark on the era of long-term space flight, NASA and other space agencies realize that that will need to...

  
• 02.04.2023

  Food Tech Friday: 3D Printed Meat, Drone Delivery and Spy Balloons

  This week's guest for Food Tech Friday is long time food tech entrepreneur and investor Peter Bodenheimer. Peter talks about his role at cultivated meat startup Steakholder Foods and what he's building at Super Kingdom. Peter joins Carlos and Mike...

  
• 01.27.2023

  The Bloomberg Alt-Meat Hullabaloo with Rachel Konrad

  In this week's episode we catch up with Rachel Konrad, a former journalist who has spent the last decade-plus working for Tesla, Impossible Foods and now the Production Board. Rachel joins Michael Wolf and Carlos Rodela to talk about her...

  
• 12.23.2022

  A Look Back at The Year in Food Tech With S2G's Tonya Bakritzes

  It's almost the end of 2022 and so we decided to catch up with S2G Managing Director Tonya Bakritzes. In this podcast we talk about: -The impact of inflation and global macroenvironmental headwinds on the food tech landscape -The plant-based...

  
• 12.15.2022

  Hospitality in the Era of Web3 with Ben Leventhal

  Ben Leventhal has nothing if not good timing.  In 2004 the New York entrepreneur launched Eater at the dawn of the blogging era, back when food media was still mostly legacy publications and message boards.  After selling Eater to Vox,...

  
• 12.10.2022

  Food Tech Friday: Talking Food Robots With Clayton Wood

  Our guest this week on our weekly food tech news wrapup is Clayton Wood, the CEO of pizza robot startup Picnic. We talk food tech news and then hear Clayton's view on where things are going in the world of...

  
• 12.03.2022

  Food Tech Friday: Farmbots, Smart Mixers and Cocaine Bear

  We're ramping our Friday food tech casual news wrapups back up again, and this week Mike and Carlos got together to talk about some of the stories that caught their attention this week. The stories we talked about include: Will...

  
• 11.29.2022

  Scaling a Plant-Based Meat Company With Nowadays' Max Elder

  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...

  
• 11.21.2022

  Restaurant Tech News: Ghost Kitchens 2.0, Web3 Restaurants & State of Delivery

  This week we talked restaurant tech news with Kristen Hawley, friend of The Spoon and editor of Expedite. We talked about the current state of web3 and restaurants, the evolution of the ghost kitchen, Subway's smart fridges and resilience of...

  
• 11.16.2022

  #138: WTF (Alt-Protein Edition) With Indiebio's Po Bronson

  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...

  
• 08.16.2022

  #137: Navigating The World of Patents As a Food Tech Startup

  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...

  
• 07.31.2022

  #136: Building a Next-Generation Ingredient Company With Shiru's Jasmin Hume

  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...

  
• 07.18.2022

  #135: A Few Dark Clouds Gather Over Restaurant Tech

  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...

  
• 07.15.2022

  #134: How Self-Ordering Tech Changes Fast Food Customer Behavior

  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...

  
• 07.08.2022

  #133: Talking Restaurant Tech With Reforming Retail's Jordan Thaeler

  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...

  
• 07.05.2022

  #132: Talking Food Waste Reduction (And How We Could Do More) With Andrew Shakman

  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...

  
• 06.24.2022

  #131: The Wendysverse, 15-Minute Grocery Struggles & Roku's Big Food Play

  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 $...

  
• 06.20.2022

  #130: Bruce Friedrich of the Good Food Institute

  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...

  
• 06.12.2022

  #129: Food Tech News Show: Electrolux Rethinks the Kitchen

  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...

  
• 06.03.2022

  #128: Food Tech News: Tesla Restaurant, Restaurants in the Metaverse, 'Peach Tree' Dishes

  It's been a while, but we're cranking the podcast machine up for weekly news wrapups. This week's show we talk about: -Circle K's Big Bet on Cashierless Checkout -Tesla's Drive-In Restaurant Ambitions -Taking Restaurants Into the Metaverse -The Politicization of...

  
• 04.15.2022

  #127: Talking Food as Medicine With NourishedRX's Lauren Driscoll

  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

  
• 03.25.2022

  What Does Web3 & NFTs Mean For Restaurants?

  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...

  
• 03.03.2022

  #125: Using Artificial Intelligence to Build The Next Generation of Food with Matias Muchnick

  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...

  
• 02.23.2022

  #124: Wildtype's Justin Kolbeck Talk Cultivated Seafood

  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....

  
• 02.21.2022

  #123: Making Alt Protein Predictions for 2022 With ADM's Leticia Gonçalves

  ADM is one of the world's biggest food companies, so when they share thoughts about where the alt protein market is going, it's worth listening. In this episode, I catch up with ADM's president of global food and specialty ingredients,...

  
• 02.18.2022

  #122: Building The Shopify For Restaurant Robotics With Hyphen's Stephen Klein

  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