Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/838473
1. Forget the Checkout Walking out of a convenience store without paying for items might seem counterintuitive, but Amazon plans to make it the norm. Amazon Go, the online retail giant's answer to the c-store of the future, is poised to disrupt the brick-and-mortar retail model by get- ting rid of the traditional checkout process. Thanks to a tracking system coupled with the Amazon Go app, customers can choose items from store shelves and simply walk out with them. Technologies like computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning sense when items are taken from and returned to shelves, and each customer's order is tracked in a virtual cart. Once finished, shoppers simply leave the store and Amazon charges their account and emails them a receipt. The store, which has experienced a few setbacks during beta testing but is set to open to the public later this year, will offer ready- to-eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack options made by on-site chefs, as well as local kitchens and bakeries. Grocery items will range from bread and milk to specialty items like artisan cheeses and locally made chocolates, plus Amazon meal kits. 2. Robot Restaurants Momentum Machines, which describes itself as a collective of foodies and engineers with decades of experience in restaurants and robotics, is making use of artificial intelligence to disrupt the foodservice sec- tor. The company's first offering is a device that makes and dresses up to 400 hamburgers per hour with zero human interaction. The device makes burgers that are freshly ground; grilled to order; topped with customizable sauces, seasonings, and produce; then assembled and bagged. The technology has been teased for quite some time, and Momentum is finally set to open its first restaurant location in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco with the promise of burger prices that everyone can afford. The technology also claims to be more sanitary and expedient while offering a fresh, customizable end product. 3. Replacing Palm Oil with Insect Fats Edible insects are being used in everything from protein bars to baking flour, and now they're poised to disrupt another segment of the food industry. Biteback, an Indonesian start- up helmed by millennial entrepreneur Mush'ab Nursantio, is working toward both helping the environment and address- ing global food insecurity issues by creating cooking oil made with superworm fats. According to Nursantio, the insects are rich in healthy fatty acids and unsaturated fats, and reproduce rapidly enough to surpass palm oil in both yield and efficiency. They're also reportedly an excellent source of iron, which could help prevent the iron deficiency that plagues more than 2 billion people around the globe. With the prevalent use of cooking oil both in home and in packaged goods, Nursantio believes Biteback could make a significant difference. The entrepreneur also hopes to end the global depen- dency on palm oil and even give small farmers an extra source of income with the introduction of the bug-based oil. Large segments of rainforests throughout Southeast Asia are being cleared for palm oil plantations and a fire aimed at clearing the land caused a months-long haze crisis throughout the region. Eventually, the company hopes to create a community empowerment program and sell farm- ing kits to locals and train them on how to grow the insects and sell them back. food tech for the future PHOTO: AMAZON 58 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com