Meal Kit Mania
Move over HelloFresh and Blue
Apron, superstars are jumping in.
Beyonce has a vegan home delivery
service, and Tom Brady has created
a subscription service with Purple
Carrot. And now that Amazon has
applied for a trademark for what
sounds like a meal delivery service
("We do the prep. You be the chef."),
the possibilities may be limitless. That
said, U.S. consumers' adoption rates
remain relatively small at roughly 5
percent of households, according to
The NPD Group. Expense is a barrier,
but offering consumers more con-
venience, greater accessibility, and
lower prices could shift the numbers,
as will partnerships between meal kit
companies and online grocers, like
the deal between AmazonFresh and
Martha Stewart's meal kits.—D.S.
Whiskey's
Fingerprint
High-end whiskeys have simi-
lar chemical makeups, making
experts' palates the only way
to determine authenticity. But
an "artificial tongue" created
by a team from Germany's
Heidelberg University has
changed the game. Not actu-
ally a tongue, but a handful
of small bottles are filled with
polymer dyes that glow. A
drop of whiskey is added and
the dye reacts to the individu-
al mixture of all the chemicals
present in the whiskey. The
changes in the dyes' fluores-
cence reflect that whiskey's
unique DNA, helping make
sniffing out counterfeit whis-
keys easier.—D.S.
Winter Fancy Food Show Booth 6337
FALL 2017 19
