From robotic chefs to edible crayon that literally paints flavor onto plates, culinary innovators are devouring new technology to sell more food. At the recent Gourmet Food Show, 2,300 exhibitors from 56 countries showcased exotic snacks, meats, cheeses and chocolates across 330,000 square feet of exhibition space at New York’s Javits Center—think six football fields worth of gourmet food.
Here’s a sampling of some of the most delicious and weird new foods that incorporate technology in creative ways and could soon be showing up at a grocery store near you.
Food production using artificial intelligence
Mongo CraftBotswana-based GPT produces recycled, authentic African foods. The company specializes in jams, sauces, syrups and juices. Director Oleme Aganga says the custom GPTs have helped his team review food formulations when shortages prevented them from accessing a key ingredient. And when production managers aren’t available, the custom GPTs, trained with detailed information about the production process, can answer questions from line workers.
Spotify Sounds Helps Sell Buds From Afghanistan
Ziba Zeba sells dried fruits and wild nuts from Afghanistan, and 85 percent of the company’s employees are women. “A lot of people were getting paid in shells, which didn’t seem fair, so we replaced that with cash,” says Patrick Johnson, Zeba’s co-founder and chief operating officer. “We’re in a business that makes money,” says Johnson, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Niger. To spread the word about the company’s sweet apricots, crunchy raisins and other snacks, Zeba has created a Spotify code that curious consumers can scan to listen to Afghan music while they sample the nuts and seeds. One of Zeba’s specialties: bringing some of the 109 varieties of Afghan almonds to global consumers.
Sail powered chocolate
Sail beansAMD’s organic chocolate travels around the world on sailboats to avoid the carbon emissions of airplanes. Cargo ships pick up the cocoa mass in the Caribbean, which is then turned into chocolate in Brittany, France. The treats then slowly sail to the United States. So far, the organic chocolate is only available in a handful of high-end stores, with plans to reach major chains.
Robotic Chef
Robo so chef RoboChef is the latest robot to try to join the food service ecosystem. The refrigerator-sized device has a screen where you can select a recipe. You then drop in a tray with the raw ingredients you’re using, like chicken, vegetables, and grains. It looks like a giant ink cartridge going into a printer. Containers of oil and sauce underneath hold a variety of flavors ready to go. Once the ingredients are in place, RoboChef heats, stirs, flavors, and is done in 12 minutes, or however long it takes to cook a batch of fried chicken. Its culinary repertoire isn’t unlimited, but it can produce the exact same results over and over again with mechanical precision. The company is working on a home version for busy families, and is in talks with a university that feeds 11,000 people at lunch each day to see if four RoboChefs side by side will ease the burden on its chefs.
Track your tea and tip your farmer.
the Nepalese tea set It’s a public benefit organization that puts a QR code on tea bags so you can see who picked your tea and give them a tip. Co-founder and COO Pratik Rijal, a third-generation tea family member, says the tea pickers he works with used to earn about $2 a day. The group has increased that by 45% so far by cutting out middlemen from the distribution process. “The industry has a lot to do,” he says, to move toward a living wage for tea pickers. The group sells about 100 tons of tea a year, and about 30% of tea drinkers check the QR code. Rijal says those who tip typically give about $1 each.
food coloring pen
food coloring pen‘s slogans are “Color Your Food with Flavor” and “Add Flavor to Your Life.” This product works like a crayon sharpener. Twist the crayon base, made with a blend of spices and flavors, to release flakes of flavor onto your food. This product comes in all sorts of flavors – from black garlic, basil and lemon to mushroom, carrot, orange and ginger.
edible candle
let them eat candles Create chocolate candles that won’t drip or melt on your celebration cake. The key is a special short wick that keeps the chocolate solid. Think three steps: light it, blow it out, and eat it. This whimsical chocolate candle isn’t the only edible candle out there. Butter Candles like him Gone diffuse In recent years, both seem to be better than traditional wax. Is chocolate or melted butter in one bite better than leftover wax, right?
Sound absorbers
Put Amos TastySounds lollipop In your mouth, bone conduction technology lets you hear a song while you suck. These products usually come with pre-programmed music. But you can also buy a recordable version to share your own message. The recipient will hear your voice when they place the candy between their lips. Don’t expect nutrition with your treat. Strawberry version ingredients: isomaltitol, maltitol syrup, water, lactic acid, xylitol, artificial flavor, sodium lactate, FD&C red #40.
Frozen coffee pods or gelato
Comet Fort Food freezes their handcrafted coffee in capsules. The company ships you a box of frozen coffee pods filled with liquid nitrogen, so they stay frozen and fresh. If you’re a coffee lover, you’ll appreciate that you don’t need a grinder or any other special equipment. Just take the little coffee pod, drop it into your mug, and pour hot water over it. Or for iced coffee, melt the pod and pour it into a cold mug. Another way to use Fort Food’s single-serve pods is to use them in a cup. Solatowhich makes a new gelato machine for hotels and cafes. Pop in a pre-filled capsule to get fresh, on-demand frozen desserts like vanilla gelato, coffee gelato or lemon mascarpone.
Geothermal Energy Genius
Salt may seem like one of the simplest foods to produce, but Saltwerk Saltverk produces Icelandic sea salt using 100% geothermal energy. The company’s new production process has transformed a 17th-century salt harvesting method into a unique underwater production facility. “We’ve tried a million things, and only 15 have worked,” says Saltverk engineer Gisli Grimsson of the painstaking trial-and-error process. The new evaporators recreate the “octopus of old ideas” using the world’s finest steel. This helps avoid the rust that can occur when the machine is constantly operating underwater surrounded by salt.
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