The Spoon Podcast

By Michael WolfTechnology

The Spoon Podcast episodes

August 26 How One Japanese Entrepreneur Built a Food Business in America
In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, Mike talks with Yuta Katsuyama, co-founder of Chicago-based Onigiri Kororin, about his journey from Japan to building an onigiri business in the U.S.
They discuss how a graduate school project turned into a startup, the years of experimentation it took to find the right business model, why calling onigiri a “sushi sandwich” helped win over American retailers, and how frozen onigiri could help the company expand beyond Chicago.

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25 min
July 13 Building an AI from Scratch for Taste and Smell
In this episode, Mike sits down with Kai Schaeffner and Andreas Nicklas, who have been spending the last couple of years building an AI to better understand and predict individual taste and smell preferences.
Kai and Andreas talk about how they've built their platform using scientific cohort and patient data, why taste is often the missing link between healthy eating recommendations and real behavior change, and how personalized taste profiles could eventually power everything from recipe recommendations and connected appliances to restaurant menus and digital food passports. They also talk about why are building their own specialized AI models rather than relying on large language models, and where the company sees opportunities to bring its technology to food brands, healthcare providers, hospitality companies, and consumers.

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39 min
June 25 Reimagining The Future of Farming With Neal Carter
In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, Mike talks with Neal Carter, founder and CEO of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, about buying back the company he and his wife Louisa founded nearly 30 years ago.
Carter reflects on the long journey behind the Arctic apple, the company’s nonbrowning apple created to reduce waste and get “more apples in more places,” and explains how OSF’s early work with RNA interference is giving way to a new generation of genome-edited fruit. He also lays out his bigger vision for the farm of the future, where genetics, automation, AI, and redesigned tree architecture come together to make orchards less labor-intensive, more resilient, and more economically viable for growers.

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40 min
June 08 The Rise and Fall of Brava
This week's guest is former Brava executive Travis Rea, who reflects on building one of the more interesting kitchen startups over the past decade.
Rea shares the story behind Brava's light-based cooking technology, the challenges of creating an entirely new appliance category, and the lessons learned about consumer adoption, hardware startups, and innovation in the kitchen.
The conversation also explores Brava's unexpected impact on accessibility and independent living, why the company developed such a loyal user community, and what the future holds for smart cooking technology.

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45 min
May 22 Can Fermentation Help Save Coffee & Cocoa?
In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, Michael Wolf talks with Jake Berber, the cofounder and CEO of Prefer, a Singapore-based startup that uses fermentation to create coffee and cocoa extenders from ingredients like rice and chickpeas.
Berber explains why rising coffee and cocoa prices, climate pressure, and growing global demand convinced him there was a massive opportunity to help future-proof some of the world’s favorite foods, and his journey from Texas to Israel to Singapore led him into the world of food tech and climate-resilient ingredients.

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20 min
April 28 Creating the Open AI of Food Robotics With Rajat Bhageria
In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, Mike sits down with Chef Robotics CEO Rajat Bhageria to unpack how the company quietly went from years in stealth to assembling more than 100 million meals. Bhageria explains why assembly, not cooking, is the real bottleneck in food production, how Chef is using its ChefOS platform to build a data-driven approach to food manipulation, and why the messy, variable nature of food has historically made automation so difficult. The conversation also explores Chef’s expansion into new categories like airline catering and school meals, as well as Bhageria’s bigger ambition to build the defining success story in food robotics.

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50 min
April 09 Is Brain Health Optimization The Next Big Wave in Wellness?
In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, Mike catches up with Mo Abouelsoud, CEO of U The Mind Company, about the emerging intersection of brain health, wellness, and consumer technology.
Abouelsoud explains how his company’s non-invasive brain stimulation devices are designed to help treat neurological conditions while also opening the door to cognitive enhancement, better focus, and long-term brain wellness.
The conversation explores whether brain health could become the next major category in wellness, alongside sleep, metabolism, and fitness, and looks at how new technologies might one day give consumers a more complete picture of how their brains and bodies work together.
You can find out more about U the Mind Company at https://uthemind.company/

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26 min
April 07 Is AI an Enemy or Ally for Recipe Creators?
In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, Mike catches up with Will Templeton, co-founder and CTO of Allspice, about how the traditional recipe blog model, laden with ads, pop-ups, and static content, is breaking down as users increasingly “lift” recipes into apps, screenshots, or AI tools.
The conversation explores how Allspice is building a new infrastructure layer for recipes, using structured ingredient data and vector databases to make sense of messy, inconsistent inputs from across the web. They also dig into the role of AI in the future of cooking, from conversational interfaces and guided cooking to the tension creators feel between embracing AI as a tool and fearing it as a threat.

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27 min
April 02 Talking About Nature's Trickster Protein With Ali Wing
In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, Mike catches up with Oobli CEO Ali Wing to discuss what Wing calls "nature's trickster protein", the sweet proteins they develop for products like ice teas and chocolate bars.
Wing talks about how the company is positioning its sweet protein technology at the center of two major shifts reshaping the food industry: the rise of GLP-1-driven dietary behavior and the growing demand for protein-forward, lower-sugar products. She also explains why the company has shifted from consumer-facing products like teas and chocolate to a B2B ingredient platform, and how partnerships with companies like Ingredion and Mars are helping drive scale.
The conversation also explores the future of sweetening systems, the role of fermentation in food innovation, and why the industry may be entering a new era of large-scale product reformulation.

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35 min
March 25 Where Are Grocery Stores With AI Adoption in 2026?
Mike is joined by Matthew Schwarz, CEO of Afresh, who discusses the company’s expansion from fresh produce to an all-in-one AI solution for the entire grocery store. Matt explains how the company's AI tech has prevented 200 million pounds of food waste annually and explores the rise of agentic AI, the balance between automation and humans, and more.

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31 min