Guest post by Amanda, Merrill and the Food52 team. The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

Dining and technology both have an amazing ability to enhance connections — they each provide a space for people to come together, help us reunite with old friends, give us the tools to learn from each other, and act as a platform where we can share news and ideas. We’ve recognized this overlap and hacked food and dining to bring together more home cooks across the globe.

At Food52, we aim to help people eat well and live better. We recognize that there’s no one way for someone to eat or feed their family, so our community shares what is tried and true from their own kitchens, creating a sense of trust in the recipes. Food52 also provides our community with the tools to follow other like-minded cooks, save and “favorite” recipes, and invite their friends to join them on the site; this helps to create a robust, personalized food community and network for each member.

There’s more to be done, though. We believe in the voice and power of beautiful food photography, but see potential for Instagrams and beautiful recipe photos to do more than just make your followers jealous. What if there was a way to link recipes to photos so that when you tagged a pork buns photo at Momofuku, you immediately received the recipe in your inbox? A way for your friend who liked your Instagram photo to know exactly how you put together tonight’s family meal? Or even some sort of wonderful technology that understood your favorite scents and tastes well enough to translate those senses into recipes? The more recipes we taste, provide feedback on, and share, the greater impact we all have on food and dining.

One thing we love about cooking is how adaptable and constantly changing it can be. For example, think of inheriting your grandmother’s cherished tomato sauce recipe. You’ve tweaked the recipe slightly to suit your tastes, then passed it along to a few friends who have added their own spins to the sauce — say, a little more garlic or a spicy addition. Just like Github did for open source software, there’s space for technology to create a canonical source where one could view changes and updates to recipes. We could view where they diverged when ingredients were added and subtracted and what emerged from those new ideas. Even more than that, it would value the tomato sauce recipes of the best Italian chefs next to the home cook giving it their first shot. And we’d all reap the benefit of being able to track the changes and decide how we’ll make our best sauce yet — one that suits our personal tastes.

We love to dine out, but we think that technology has the biggest ability to change how we dine in. How we impact what’s cooked in our kitchens, how we learn to become better and more knowledgeable cooks, and how we share that food with others. As more home cooks connect with each other and technology brings recipes closer to our fingertips, we’ll hack dining into its best phase yet.

Hacking Dining is online conversation exploring how we might use technology and design to hack a better future for dining. Join the conversation between June 2-30, and share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using #hackdining, Facebook, LinkedIn or Tumblr.

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Amanda Hesser is the co-founder and CEO of Food52.com. She has designed a 17th-century-style herb garden at a French chateau, created the Twitter app Plodt, and appeared in Julie & Julia, playing herself. She was also named one of the 50 most influential women in food by Gourmet.

Before she and Merrill started Food52, Amanda was a reporter at the New York Times, and the food editor at theTimes Magazine. She wrote the award-winning books Cooking for Mr. Latte and The Cook and the Gardener, and edited the essay collection Eat, Memory. Her last book, a Times bestseller and the winner of a James Beard award, is The Essential New York Times Cookbook. Amanda is a trustee of Awesome Food, and is an adviser to The Spence Group.

Merrill Stubbs is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Food52.com. She grew up in New York City and honed her cooking skills at Le Cordon Bleu in London. She interned in the test kitchen at Cook’s Illustrated, worked with Joanne Chang at Flour Bakery in Boston and was a private chef and cooking instructor. Merrill met her Food52 co-founder Amanda Hesser when she signed on to help with The Essential New York Times Cookbook. She has written for T Living, Edible Brooklyn and Body+Soul, among other publications, and she was the food editor at Herb Quarterly. Merrill lives in Brooklyn with her family.

The post Github for Home Cooking: Food52’s Vision For Hacking Dining appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

The momentum continues with six acquisitions in the month of February, and eight investments totaling $75.9m. Grocery was a dominant theme among the acquisitions, with four of the deals adding heft to technology platforms in the grocery sector, while restaurant ordering/delivery was overwhelmingly prevalent among five of the eight investments (perhaps reflecting the anticipation of the upcoming public market debuts). Despite the recent talk of an impending Series B crunch, all but two investments were Series B and beyond, with an average deal size of $9.5m across all deals.

The past couple of weeks have continued to signal there is solid public market appetite for this sector. Coupons.com debuted on the NYSE at $16 per share and closed up 88% at $30 a share on the first day of trading, with a market capitalization of $2.2 billion. Grubhub set the share price range for the IPO at $20 to $22 a share, which would value GrubHub at more than $1.7 billion at the midpoint. And in London, Just Eat is gearing up for an IPO which is expected to value the company at £700m to £900m ($1.2b to $1.5b).

To boot, there is a ton of activity happening in the hyperlocal search sector between Yahoo, Yelp, YP, Grubhub, Opentable, Foursquare, Microsoft, Google, and more. Check out the “Partnerships” section at the end for more color.

M&A

Walmart acquires Yumprint. The Seattle-based startup built recipe search technology that understands recipe semantics, matches ingredients to advertisements, understands consumer taste preferences, calculates nutritional information and prepares shopping lists from recipes, according to the company’s website. The startup will be folded into Walmart’s e-commerce division, @WalmartLabs, and Walmart plans to use Yumprint’s recipe technology for its grocery delivery efforts on Walmart.com and Walmart To Go.

Announced: 2/26/14   Terms: No Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2011

MyFitnessPal Acquires Sessions. The San Francisco-based behavioral health startup pairs people with personal coaches who train via smartphones. According to the Wall Street Journal, the team will join MyFitnessPal, although the current Sessions app will be discontinued, and the “startup’s team [will] build a new one as part of MyFitnessPal’s larger offering.”

Announced: 2/19/14  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Seed  Founded: 2012

Kroger Acquires YOU Technology. The San Francisco-based coupon technology company serves digital coupons for more than 20 retail clients including Kroger, representing a network that includes over 10,000 retail stores. Its retailer-centric, cloud-based platform bridges the gap between online engagement and in-store purchases, creating a measurable way for retailers and brands to drive consumer purchase decisions. You Technology will operate as an independent company within the Kroger organization, and will continue to serve existing and future retail customers. In the release, Kroger mentioned its plan to expand its presence in Silicon Valley, and alluded to future potential acquisitions; “Kroger’s accelerated growth strategy includes targeted capital investments to … strengthen its connection with customers through the growing digital and mobile channels.”

Announced: 2/11/14  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2008

Datalogix Buys Spire Marketing. The Monroe, CT-based shopper-marketing firm uses analytics from grocery loyalty card data, point-of-sale purchase data, and trade-level data to power in-store marketing initiatives which drive spontaneous purchases. The company handles shopper analytics for 24 regional supermarket retailers, who have a combined 30 million households in their loyalty-card database, or roughly a third of U.S. households. This acquisition adds a powerful new dimension for Datalogix, which examines the offline sales impact from ads on Facebook and Twitter for retailers and CPG clients, as CEO Eric Roza reports to Advertising Age; “We think there’s going to be some really interesting cross pollination, which no one really has tried to do, between mid-size specialty retailers and mid-size grocers, which are two groups of retailers who’ve had nothing to do with each other historically, but we think they share a lot in common.”

Announced: 2/11/14  Terms: Undisclosed (cash and stock)  Previous Investment: Undisclosed  Founded: 2007

MyWebGrocer Acquires Buy4Now. The Dublin, Ireland-based software company provides grocery and retail clients with e-commerce solutions, including customized web storefronts, merchandising, fulfillment, ERP integration, customer communication and more. This acquisition builds upon MWG’s earlier acquisition of Buy4Now’s U.S. subsidiary in 2008. In the release, MWG notes that an integration of Buy4Now’s capabilities, including multi-currency and multilingual platforms, will position the company to accelerate international expansion. Buy4Now will operate as a subsidiary of MyWebGrocer.

Announced: 2/06/14  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: €3m Series A  Founded: August 2000

OpenTable Acquires Ness Computing. The Los Altos, CA-based personalized restaurant recommendations app will be discontinued in April, and its technology will be incorporated into Open Table’s restaurant reservation platform. The team will join OpenTable’s San Francisco headquarters. In conjunction with the announcement, OpenTable announced it would be launching a pilot of a mobile payments service in San Francisco. Although the deal was announced to be worth $17.3 million, the $5m in cash that Ness had on its balance sheet means the net value was actually $11.3 million.

Announced: 2/06/14  Terms: $17.3m (cash)  Previous Investment: $5m Series A, $15m Series B  Founded: October 2009

FUNDING

Dash Raises $1.2m. Brooklyn-based mobile payment platform for restaurants, bars and clubs allows patrons to check-in, view, split, and pay their tab from their smartphone. The company intends to use the funds to expand in NY and launch in Chicago. In conjunction with the announcement, the company released a iOS 7 update for the app which includes iBeacon integration.

Announced: 2/27/14  Stage: Seed (extension)  Participating Institutional Investors: New York Angels, Caerus Ventures  Previous Investment: $700k Seed  Founded: January 2011

Granular Raises $4.2m. The San Francisco-based provider of a cloud software and analytics platform for farmers, formerly known Solum, delivers functionality around four core areas: planning, production, marketing and accounting. The solution captures critical production and financial data from each cropping cycle and uses advanced analytics to suggest opportunities for financial, operational and agronomic optimization. In conjunction with the raise, the company announced it sold its soil science business to Monsanto Company. The proceeds from financing (and the sale to Monsanto) will be used to expand the company’s engineering team, as well as the sales and customer support teams across the U.S.

Announced: 2/24/14  Stage: Venture Round  Participating Institutional Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Khosla Ventures  Previous Investment: $2m Seed, $4.5m Series A, $17m Series B  Founded: 2009

Postmates Raises $16m. The San Francisco-based online delivery service is a developer of consumer-facing logistics software that dispatches and guides couriers through major metropolitan areas to deliver local goods including prepared food, groceries and retail goods. The company operates in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and New York, and has partnered with grocers including Whole Foods. Postmates intends to use the funds to grow its operations, design and engineering teams and expand geographically. Of note, in between this round and the Series A, Postmates also added three high profile investors last November for an undisclosed amount to “help to advise as it scales up and continues expansion into even more markets going forward.”

Announced: 2/18/14  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Spark Capital (lead), Matrix Partners, Crosslink Capital, SoftTech VC  Previous Investment: $750k Angel, $1.2m Seed, $5m Series A  Founded: May 2011

iFood Raises $2m. The São Paulo, Brazil-based online delivery platform facilitates the ordering of food online and through mobile apps for iOS and Android, and operates in all major cities in Brazil. In conjunction with the raise, the company also announced the acquisition of rival food delivery platform Central do Delivery (no financial terms were disclosed), which consolidates most online food ordering in Brazil to a central portal ahead of the World Cup and the Olympics. Beyond the expansion of iFood, the most interesting component to this story involves the growth plan of the strategic investor behind the deal, Movile, the largest mobile content and commerce platform in Latin America and Brazil. According to TechCrunch, “Movile’s investment is part of a broader strategy to work closely with and invest in startup companies across the Americas,” and the company is “negotiating with five other undisclosed startups in seed investments ranging from $100,000 to $3 million.” More specifically, as TechCrunch reports, “the company is angling to back companies developing transportation, e-commerce around fashion, and healthcare and lifestyle applications.”

Announced: 2/06/14  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Movile  Previous Investment: $1.6m Series A, $2.6m Series B  Founded: May 2011

Tapingo Raises $10.5m. The San Francisco-based mobile food ordering platform, which is currently focused on university campuses, enables location-aware discovery for consumers and immediate order fulfillment through operational integration for merchants. The service is live at 25 universities, including New York University, University of Arizona and the University of Southern California, and the company will use the funding to build out its network to more campuses.

Announced: 2/05/14  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Khosla Ventures (lead), Carmel Ventures  Previous Investment: $3.5m Series A  Founded: January 2012

Foodpanda Raises $20m. The Berlin-based food delivery company foodpanda and its affiliate hellofood continue rapid expansion. The new capital will enable foodpanda, which now partners with 22,000 restaurants, to expand its delivery marketplace for restaurants by launching in over 40 new markets. Foodpanda hopes to gain an edge over competitors in the space, like Delivery Hero and Just-Eat, by directing its attention towards Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and part of Africa, where launch costs are relatively inexpensive. Expanding in these markets will also give “Rocket Internet a chance to build a massive customer service and logistics network that it can then leverage to grow startups in other verticals, reports TechCrunch.

Announced: 2/04/14  Stage: Venture Round  Participating Institutional Investors: Phenomen Ventures, Investment AB Kinnevik  Previous Investment: Rocket Internet (Accelerator), $20m Series A, $8m Venture Round  Founded: 2012

Noom Raises $7m. The New York-based mobile app developer creates health and wellness apps that provide intelligent nutrition and exercise coaching. Noom plans to use the funds to enhance its products, and expand its audience. Of note, the company was also recently awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund a study in conjunction with Mt. Sinai Hospital on the impacts of smartphone technology in eating disorder treatment.

Announced: 2/04/14  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: RRE Ventures (lead), Harbor Pacific Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Recruit Strategic Partners, Scrum Ventures, TransLink Capital  Previous Investment: Seed, $2.5m Venture Round  Founded: September 2007

Foursquare Raises $15m. The strategic investment and partnership, which gives Microsoft access to Foursquare’s deep location-based tracking data (see “Partnerships” below), will augment Microsoft’s contextually-aware experiences for Bing and its mobile operating system. The investment was added to the $35 million round Foursquare announced in December, which valued the company at about $650 million. In addition to the $15m, Wired reports that with the license agreement, Microsoft will also “make regular payments to Foursquare that the startup characterizes as a ‘substantial addition’ to its revenue stream” which goes “beyond an advertising share.”

Announced: 2/04/14  Valuation: $650m  Stage: Series D (extension)  Participating Investor: Microsoft  Previous Investment: $1.35m Series A, $20m Series B, $50m Series C, $41m Debt, $35m Series D  Founded: March 2009

PARTNERSHIPS

Microsoft Signs an Extensive Licensing Deal with Foursquare to Power Location Context For Windows And Mobile. The multi-year agreement gives Microsoft access to Foursquare’s new tracking system which passively monitors users’ physical movements and preferences among real-world shops, restaurants, and bars. As Wired reports, using this data, the company can personalize search results (and better target ads) on its Bing search engine. Also, as reported by The Verge, Microsoft will use Foursquare location data in Cortana, a personal digital assistant designed to rival Siri and Google Now, for Windows Phones that will launch this spring.

Yahoo Partners with Yelp to Add Listings and Reviews to Improve Local Search Results. Yahoo closed a deep content licensing deal to bring local data into its search experience, both mobile and desktop. Although this will be deeply beneficial to Yahoo – local search apparently makes up about 25% of Yahoo’s search traffic – Yahoo is still playing catch-up, as TechCrunch notes this partnership comes 2 years after Micorsoft’s Bing partnered with Yelp for a co-branded relationship in Bing’s Local search pages. Yahoo also began integrating OpenTable reservations more deeply into its local search results, however re/code reports this is as a result of a redesign on Yahoo’s part versus a new partnership with OpenTable.

Fortune published a thoughtful article entitled, “What Does the Yahoo-Yelp Partnership Mean for Foursquare?” – it is definitely worth a read. Some highlights: It’s not clear why the Yahoo chose Yelp over Foursquare, though a person familiar with Foursquare says the startup walked away because Yahoo was not interested in the strategic investment part of the deal. And the Foursquare-Microsoft data partnership is not exclusive, so Foursquare could theoretically revisit the topic with Yahoo. Still, this partnership seemed like an easy layup for Foursquare.

… and to complement the above reading (the last of my hidden reading list in this section) StreetFight published a great piece arguing that Yelp, Google and Grubhub are all on a collision course as the three firms look to wrangle local consumers who increasingly expect to search, compare and buy in a single keystroke. Another very worthwhile read.

Yelp Partners with Truecaller, a Caller ID and Reverse Phone Directory App. The partnership will allow Truecaller users to automatically verify business numbers that are calling on their mobile phone, see the Yelp ratings, and the pictures people have uploaded of it. Truecaller partnered with Twitter in December in a similar deal.

Square Partners with Whole Foods and Godiva (and other news). Square will offer its iPad cash register, the Square Stand, at several Whole Foods stores, making the grocer the second national retailer after Starbucks. Chocolatier Godiva will use the Square Register during peak times, such as in the run-up during holidays. In other Square news, the company began testing a Square Pickup app, so that users can order ahead from local restaurants. The company also acquired BookFresh, a San Francisco–based scheduling and appointment booking startup for local merchants.

BrightFarms and Giant Food Partner to Deliver Year-Round Local Produce to Giant Stores Throughout the Washington D.C. Metro Area. BrightFarms will supply Giant stores with produce grown at a 100,000-square-foot greenhouse in Washington, D.C., which will be designed, built, and operated by BrightFarms in partnership with the City’s Department of General Services and the Anacostia Economic Development Corporation.

eat24 Food Delivery Platform Partners with Urbanspoon. The new business venture will integrate Eat24’s platform into the Urbanspoon website and mobile app, allowing Urbanspoon users to order menu items, view personal order histories, and make one-click re-orders.

Revel Systems iPad POS Platform Adds Bitcoin Integration. Revel is working with Bitcoin wallet provider Coinbase to provide a hardware/software solution that allows users to seamlessly accept Bitcoin into the current Revel iPad POS. When a customer is paying with Bitcoin, a QR code will pop up on the POS screen of the Revel iPad POS. A customer will then scan this QR code with their smartphone using a Bitcoin wallet app, which completes the transaction.

CircleUp Partners with Virgin America Help Identify New Snacks and Drinks to Serve on Flights. Thus far, Virgin America has selected two CircleUp-funded companies, the French vintner Le Grand Courtage and San Francisco-based granola bar and snack food company 18 Rabbits. Other partners working with CircleUp include consumer goods giants General Mills and Procter & Gamble.

Google Partners with Singleplatform to Display Restaurant Menus in Search Results. This new feature, which started as a small test, displays the full menu directly in the search results, without needing to click through to an additional page. Search Engine Watch notes that the results also have multiple tabs, so if the menu is in sections (e.g., appetizers, main courses), then you can select any of the tabs to view that particular menu section.

Vice Media Partners with Production Company FremantleMedia to Target Millennial Foodies With New Video Channel. Tubefilter reports the channel doesn’t yet have a name or a specific URL, but will likely have its own YouTube home as well as a presence on the main Vice website.

Tastemade Partners with Ryan Seacrest Productions to Develop Food and Lifestyle Programming for Digital Platforms. Ryan Seacrest Productions has already ventured into food programming with the Emmy-winning reality series “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” and re/code also notes that “RSP has become increasingly active in the digital arena, ranging from an investment in a keyboard for the Apple iPhone called Typo to talks with Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer about possible content partnerships.”

Levelup Partners with Foodler, Users Can Now Choose LevelUp to Pay for Takeout. In addition to giving users another way to pay, Levelup provides loyalty incentives to encourage customers to order more delivery.  LevelUp tells the Boston Globe, “It’s the first time LevelUp will be powering online payments, bridging the gap between the real and virtual worlds.”  The partnership is the result of LevelUp’s Developer Platform which allows third parties to add payment and campaign functionality to their apps via a free API/SDK. The Boston Globe also points out that the LevelUp partnership isn’t the first time Foodler is trying a new payments method, as it started accepting bitcoins last year.

IRI (Information Resources Inc.) and Technomic Partner to Create a Joint Service Offering Aimed at Providing a Holistic View of the Food Industry. The partnership will enable customizable, cross-channel analysis, as well as collaboration between manufacturers, retailers and restaurant operators.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape.

Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2013 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

Would you be interested in a round-up of agriculture-related funding, partnerships and acquisitions? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: February 2014 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

We kicked off the new year with a flurry of private market investments in the food tech and media space, totaling $127.3m for the month of January across eleven deals, and two notable acquisitions. A majority of the companies were focused on the restaurant and hyperlocal sectors, joined by two commerce startups and two ag tech companies.

In terms of public market activity, 2014 has brought a tidal wave of developments on the IPO front with three initial IPO filings already on the books (GrubHub Seamless, Coupons.com, Everyday Health) and a confirmed process underway (Gilt Groupe). With at least two other companies likely to follow (Pinterest, Jawbone), this will be a meaningful year for the ecosystem, especially if you consider that there was only one IPO related to the food tech and media space in 2013. Of note, the markets were anticipating a 2014 IPO from Square as well, but it has been reported that offering will likely be pushed to next year.

For all you data and trend junkies who aren’t familiar with the maze of content that is included in an IPO prospectus, you can always count on the “Business” sections to be chock full of information on the industry, competition, business segments and key metrics. Here are the direct links to the Business section for GrubHub Seamless, Coupons.com and Everyday Health.

As I noted in the annual trends report, in addition to validating overarching trends related to the food tech and media industries, successful IPOs among the 2014 cohort will directly impact startups in the space as the public markets will unlock a new acquisition currency. Between GrubHub Seamless, Coupons.com and Everyday Health, each company explicitly discussed acquisitions as part of their continued growth strategy, with Grubhub Seamless the most specific about key drivers, which include “expansion opportunities in existing and new markets, as well as in core and adjacent categories.” A rising tide lifts all boats, and as more opportunities for successful exits (via acquisition) become available, it is likely that investors will continue to increase their stake in this sector.

M&A

Macmillan Publishers Acquires Cookstr. The NY-based recipe website differentiates itself by featuring recipes exclusively from cookbooks and acclaimed chefs. Macmillan plans to utilize Cookstr to provide new ways to grow its cookbook authors’ audience and to reach recipe fans directly. In addition to Cookstr.com, the company powers recipe searches in partnership with other organizations, and it will continue to operate independently after the acquisition.

Announced: 1/06/14 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Angels Founded: 2008

Leapset Acquires Buzz Table. The NYC-based mobile CRM and waitlist platform for restaurants joined the Sysco-backed restaurant and merchant POS platform to bolster the cloud-based suite of ordering, payments and loyalty/rewards. Leapset has a powerful partner in Sysco, especially as the distribution giant looks to deepen and further monetize the relationship with restaurants. Leapset is currently available in restaurants in California, with select locations in Florida as well. According to Business Times, the Redwood City, CA/Sri Lanka-based cloud POS system intends to continue growth through technology acquisitions throughout 2014.

Announced: 12/29/13 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Seed funding from Microsoft Ventures (Bing Fund), Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, and others Founded: June 2011

FUNDING

GetYourGuide Raises $4.5m. The Berlin-based global booking platform for local activities and tours, such as Electric bike tours around Paris or cooking classes in Thailand, extended into the US market late last year, and opened an office in Las Vegas, NV. Similar to an “Open Table for booking activities,” in an interview with TechCrunch, the founder points out that the business model depends on a platform that offers additional consumer value beyond just choice — such as best price guarantees, fast lane access to museums and last minute availability for mobile bookings. In addition to growth funds, the strategic Series A expansion brings on two new board members – Kees Koolen, former CEO of Booking.com and also (since 2012) an advisor to Uber on scaling globally, and Fritz Demopoulos, founder and former CEO of Chinese-language travel info portal Qunar.com.

Announced: 1/30/14 Stage: Series A (Expansion) Participating Institutional Investors: Kees Koolen, Sunstone Capital, Fritz Demopoulos Previous Investment: $14m Series A, $2m Seed Founded: June 2009

BrightFarms Raises $4.9m. The New York-based urban agriculture company develops hydroponic greenhouse farms at urban supermarkets and grocery retailers. In addition to growing local produce nationwide, the company also finances, builds and operates local greenhouse farms, eliminating time, distance and costs from the food supply chain. The company signs long-term purchase agreements with supermarkets that feature fixed prices and minimum volume commitments. The new capital will enable the company to build commercial-scale greenhouses to meet the increasing demand from the supermarket industry for locally grown produce.

Announced: 1/29/14 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: NGEN Partners, Emil Capital Partners Previous Investment: $4.3m Series A Founded: January 2011

Yiftee Raises $2.1m. The Menlo Park, CA-based hyperlocal social gifting startup allows users to send gifts from local restaurants and shops throughout the U.S. Rather than focusing purely on the consumer market however, the team saw a trend of businesses using the service as sales gifts, employee rewards, etc, and plans to capitalize upon the corporate angle. The new funding will be used to expand Yiftee Pro, as well as look to Asia for potential business opportunities.

Announced: 1/29/14 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Transpacific Ventures (lead), Asset Management Company, Broad Strategy Fund Previous Investment: $850k Seed Founded: 2011

Food Genius Raises $1m. The Chicago-based big data startup provides industry insights and analysis to the food industry, including restaurant chains, convenient store and grocery retailers, consumer packaged goods manufacturers and food distributors. Food Genius currently derives insights through menu and pricing data, using its algorithms to parse the information which then allows suppliers to see and predict what’s most in demand, for example, or help restaurants figure out what their competitors are doing. While the company closed the round in September of last year, the funding was made public this month in Crains Chicago Business, which noted that a large part of the new investment will go to “sales, focusing on things such as actively managing existing accounts to mine them more effectively, and building technology that can automate some parts of selling”.

Announced: 1/28/14 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Hyde Park Venture Partners (lead), Pritzker Group Venture, Chicago Ventures Previous Investment: $1.4m Series A, $75k Seed Founded: May 2010

Drizly Raises $2.25m. The Sherborn, MA on-demand alcohol delivery startup allows users to order beer, wine and liquor through the Drizly app, and have it delivered to their doorstep in Boston and NYC within an hour. In addition to customer convenience, the company’s turnkey solutions provide retail stores a simple and secure way to offer responsible on-demand delivery (delivery drivers authenticate and validate IDs). Drizly will use the funding to fuel its growth, with plans to reach more customers and U.S. cities in the next six months, according to a release.

Announced: 1/22/14 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Atlas Ventures, Abundance Partners, Breakaway Ventures, Continental Advisors, Fairhaven Capital, Reynolds & Company Venture Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: July 2012

Venga Raises $1m. The Washington DC-based restaurant CRM platform links restaurants’ point-of-sale systems with reservation systems such as Open Table. By merging reservations data and point of sale information to create a customer profile, Venga helps restaurants tap into guests’ habits and preferences. The company intends to use the funds to scale their sales team and develop a CRM product for the casual dining market.

Announced: 1/15/14 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Militello Capital (lead), Think Food Group, Big Red Ventures and other angels Previous Investment: $650k Seed Founded: July 2010

FarmLogs Raises $4m. The Ann Arborm MI-based farm management software and mobile app developer helps farmers digitally manage their farms in order to increase yield and profitability. According to a release, the product is now being used by over 5 percent of row-crop farms in the US, as well as 131 countries -an impressive feat – and the company will use the funding to expand the team and roll out an “aggressive product roadmap for 2014.”

Announced: 1/15/14 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Drive Capital (lead), Huron River Ventures, Hyde Park Angels, Hyde Park Venture Partners Previous Investment: $1m Seed Founded: 2012

Main Street Hub Raises $14m. The Austin, TX-based “do-it-for you” marketing platform offers an integrated social, web, and email marketing solution designed to help local restaurants and merchants drive more customers. The funding will be used to further develop Main Street Hub’s technology and content operations, and to expand its sales presence in Austin, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.

Announced: 1/14/14 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners (lead), Harrison Metal Capital Previous Investment: $2.5m Seed Founded: 2009

Culinary Agents Raises $500k. The New York-based professional networking and job matching site is designed specifically for the food, beverage and hospitality industry. Similar to LinkedIn, users (talent) create a free profile (resume) that allows them to showcase their experience, education, skills and other professional accomplishments. Business users may claim and create business profiles (for free), post jobs, and receive automatic matching, streamlined views of resumes, messaging and other applicant management features. The funds will be used to continue to grow the product, including features around job matching and applicant management, in addition to building further professional networking and mentorship aspects into the platform. Check out our full interview with the founder, Alice Cheng, here.

Announced: 1/13/14 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: RRE Ventures, Correlation Ventures Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: October 2012

Delivery Hero Raises $88m. The Berlin, Germany-headquartered global network of online food ordering marketplaces offers its services predominantly in Europe but has also expanded to Australia, South Korea, China, India and Mexico. Although the company turned a profit last year, TechCrunch reports that profits are not a priority, and the company plans to “go back into the red because of ‘big investments'” on the horizon as it continues to rapidly scale in its current markets (no plans to enter the U.S. market at this time).

Announced: 1/13/14 Stage: Series E Participating Institutional Investors: Insight Venture Partners Previous Investment: $80m Series D, $33m Series C, $15m Series B, 5.6m Series A Founded: September 2010

Plated Raises $5m. The New York-based subscription service for ready-to-cook meal ingredients and recipes delivers weekly-changing boxes to prepare locally sourced, healthy meals. The company works with a range of vendors and shipping partners, rather than holding vast amounts of inventory like a traditional grocer, and currently delivers to 90% of the US. The funds will go towards growing the team, especially engineers, regional distribution managers and quality control professionals, reports The Wall Street Journal. Interestingly, the WSJ also notes that the company has also tested out marketing programs, featuring samples of branded products from Chobani, Walkers Shortbread Cookies, OXO (makers of cooking tools) and Johnson & Johnson in its meal kits. Check out our full interview with co-founder, Nick Taranto, here.

Announced: 1/07/14 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: ff Venture Capital (lead), Founder Collective, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Lerer Ventures Previous Investment: $1.4m Seed Founded: June 2012

PARTNERSHIPS

Ordr.in partners with Microsoft for SDK and Delivery.com to expand restaurant network. With the partnerships, the Ordr.in API will access Delivery.com’s portfolio of over 10,000 restaurants. Additionally, Ordr.in has opened its entire platform up to the developer community, and as a result, Microsoft partnered with Ordr.in to build a Windows Phone SDK and reference app.

Micros Systems partners with Dell, Intel and Microsoft to introduce tablet-based sales systems customized for the food and beverage, retail and hotel industries. As a growing group of start-ups and established tech companies are competing to provide mobile point-of-sale services, pressuring Micros to evolve from desktop computers to mobile devices, particularly tablets.

GrubHub Seamless and HBO collaborate on food personality profiles and promotions to celebrate the third season of HBO show GIRLS. In addition to offering promotions, including a video Instagram contest, Free Grub and discount opportunities, GrubHub Seamless and HBO identified the food profiles of America’s favorite New York City twenty-somethings by considering personality traits and food moments in the show’s first two seasons. Upon execution of the promotion however, the Seamless site faltered, apparently under predictable heavy ordering around the NFL playoffs and The Golden Globes, wiping out hours of HBO’s promotion.

Foursquare partners with GrubHub Seamless to order delivery from nearby restaurants within the Foursquare app. Participating restaurants show an “Order Delivery” menu item alongside links to view the restaurant on a map, call or see its menu in the in-app listings. The best way to find restaurants that feature this integration is to search for the type of cuisine followed by “delivery” within Foursquare, the company notes.

NoshList App integrates into the new Clover POS. As one of the first apps available on the Clover app marketplace, Noshlist partnered with the open POS platform (which was acquired by First Data last year) to integrate the wait list management functionalities into the platform.

Restaurant CRM platform Venga partners with Ctuit, restaurant business intelligence software, to combine customer insights and operational intelligence. The partnership allows restaurant operators to analyze business trends, review guest habits and provide a more personalized dining experience for their customers.

MapMyFitness partners with MyFitnessPal to provide API integration. MapMyFitness, the fitness app suite recently acquired by Under Armour, and MyFitnessPal, an online and app-based wellness tracking platform, have announced an integration, allowing users to sync data between the two platforms.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, we created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape.

Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2013 Annual Report here and last month’s round-up here.

Would you be interested in a round-up of agriculture-related funding, partnerships and acquisitions? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: January 2014 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

This annual report looks at the financing and acquisition trends in the Food Tech & Media ecosystem, which encompasses digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics.

Over $2.8 Billion Invested in 2012-2013

With increasing deal activity and deal sizes, the food-related tech and food-related digital media space has continued to gain momentum. In 2013, over $1.6 billion was invested into U.S-based private companies in this ecosystem through 148 investments (versus $1.2 billion and 136, respectively, in 2012). Excluding later-stage investment rounds from consumer internet companies that have a relevant food component (Instagram, LivingSocial, Pinterest, Evernote, Fab.com), $930 million was invested into private companies in this ecosystem in 2013 (versus $560 million in 2012).

This industry is still very much in growth mode, as 65 percent of the investment rounds were less than $5 million (excluding those five late-stage deals listed above). On average, however, companies in this space secured larger investments in 2013 vs. 2012 ($5.6 million vs. $4.6 million in 2012), which is due to a combination of larger Seed/Series A rounds and more companies in 2013 pushing past the Series A crunch to later stage investments. Restaurant-related technology won the most attention from both investors and acquirers with 54 percent of the investments (representing $453.1 million across 76 deals), and 51 percent of M&A activity.

M&A Activity Increased 44% in 2013

M&A activity was steady throughout the year, with 46 M&A deals (up from 32 in 2012). OpenTable was the top acquirer with four acquisitions (FoodSpotting, JustChalo, Rezbook and QuickCue), followed by Pinterest with two acquisitions (Punchfork and Livestar), and Yahoo with two acqui-hires (Alike and Jybe). In terms of disclosed price, UnderArmour’s acquisition of MapMyFitness for $150m in November was the largest acquisition of the year, with GoDaddy’s $70m acquisition of Locu coming in second. The GrubHub Seamless merger was also significant, though the terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

IPOs on The Horizon

In the public markets, RetailMeNot was the only company related to the food tech and media ecosystem to IPO in 2013. The stock has been well-received, and it closed 37 percent above the IPO price on December 31, 2013 with a market capitalization of $1.5 billion.

As we consider the IPO prospects for 2014, however, the pipeline is padded with a number of companies that are relevant to this space, including Grubhub Seamless, Coupons.com, Pinterest, Square, Jawbone, Gilt Groupe, and potentially Evernote (but more likely to be another year or two). Successful IPOs among the 2014 cohort will be meaningful in that they will validate overarching trends related to the food tech and media industries. But there is a more direct implication for startups in the space: the public markets unlock a new acquisition currency, and as more opportunities for successful exits (via acquisition) become available, it is likely that investors will continue to increase their stake in this sector.

(1) Adjusted; excludes investment data for: Evernote, Fab.com, Instagram, LivingSocial and Pinterest.
(2) Does not include M&A deals.
Note: Data for U.S.-based companies only. Investment data does not include any M&A data or public market offerings. “Food Tech/Media” includes the following sectors: CPG/Grocery Loyalty & Coupon, Digital Content, Recipes, CPG/Grocery Ad Tech, Product Guides, eCommerce, B2B Commerce, Online Grocery, Catering Marketplace & Meal Delivery, Online/Offline Community, Online Ordering/Delivery, Restaurant/Food Search, Reviews, Restaurant Deals, Coupons, Loyalty, Online Marketing and Advertising, Ordering / Payment / Checkout, Reservations / Queue Management.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, we created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape.

Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out our detailed December 2013 Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A Partnerships Report.

The post 2013 Food Tech Media Funding & Acquisition Trends Report appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

Ending on a strong note, the deal activity for December was spread across many distinct industries, including food and meal distribution and delivery, mobile wallets and payments, hyperlocal marketing, content, indoor farming and even the connected kitchen. There were eight notable acquisitions – seven of which were early-stage startups) – six early-stage investments (totaling $11.7 million) and two later-stage investments (totaling $43 million).

Over the month a number of large players made some interesting announcements about their growth in the food and restaurant categories. Apple, which hasn’t participated much in this space beyond its App Store as a distribution platform and the growing adoption of iPads for restaurants, took a more definitive step into the food tech arena as it filed a patent for an ordering and reservation system for restaurants. Apple also filed a patent for a new type of “layered” map that could have implications for the local discovery space. MasterCard announced that its Big Data division will be building a restaurant reviews site that is built on customer payment data with the plan of representing, “how people are voting for restaurants with their wallets.” In supporting Urbanspoon’s quest to focus more deeply on high quality editorial content (as we discussed in July), the company hired a new executive to focus on rejuvenating the Urbanspoon brand. Amazon is said to be launching Pantry to offer bulk CPG items, and Microsoft updated the Bing Food & Drink platform.

M&A

Coupons.com Acquires Yub. The San Francisco-based card-linked loyalty company enables restaurants and merchants to promote in-store sales through online offers, and will enable Coupons.com to offer better tracking of online offers and sales, according to the Wall Street Journal. Yub was spun out in early 2013, from TrialPay, a larger company which helps websites and app developers sign up new users by dangling promotions. The deal is a fast payout for investors, as Yub just closed a round in November, and a number of them also received shares as part of the spin out.

Announced: 12/31/13  Terms: $30m  Previous Investment: $12m Series A  Founded: January 2013

Cookpad Aquires Allthecooks and Mis Recetas. Japan’s top recipe site, which is publicly traded on the TSE, is making a serious push towards global expansion with the acquisition of San Francisco-based cooking app Allthecooks, and the Alicante, Spain-based recipe website Mis Recetas. Cookpad launched an English site earlier this year, and the company intends to bring its service to each major language. According to the press release, Cookpad has acquired all of the equity interest of Allthecooks, which was developed by Mufumbo Labs, and was ranked #1 in Google Play’s recipe category.

Announced: 12/20/13  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: Allthecooks – October 2012; Mis Recetas – January 2001

OpenTable Acquires Quickcue for $11.5m. The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based restaurant technology startup offers an iPad-based restaurant wait list, reservation, text message notification and table management system that helps restaurants manage wait lists and collect data on customer preferences to personalize service and offers. OpenTable will discontinue the existing Quickcue app and create a new one that will incorporate features from both companies. Quikcue’s nine team members will continue to operate out of Chattanooga. Given Quickcue’s focus on the casual end of the market, it will be interesting to see if OpenTable will use the service to broaden its client base to include more walk-in establishments.

Announced: 12/16/13  Terms: $11.5m (cash)  Previous Investment: $2.7m Seed  Founded: 2011

Lifelock Acquires Lemon for $42.6m. The Palo Alto-based digital wallet platform, which allows users to store their ID, payment, loyalty cards and other information on their smartphone, was acquired by identity theft protection service LifeLock (NYSE: LOCK) to expand the company’s mobile capabilities. Lifelock will be launching a new application called “LifeLock Wallet,” which is based on Lemon Wallet Plus technology. President Hilary Schneider says the acquisition will allow LifeLock to “accelerate our product roadmap, add additional functionality and data to our platform, expand our market opportunity, better serve our members, and develop a more meaningful relationship with a broad set of consumers.”

Announced: 12/12/13  Terms: $42.6m (cash)  Previous Investment: $8m Series A  Founded: July 2011

Sysco Acquires US Foods for $8.2b. North America’s largest food distributor to restaurants announced it will acquire rival US Foods, which will give Sysco greater geographical reach and new brands, as well as create cost-savings. This should be especially noteworthy to all restaurant-related tech companies, as Sysco has been building up its suite of restaurant technology offerings in order to leverage its salesforce to further monetize its relationships and become more integral to the operations of its customers. With this acquisition it will now have the ear of approximately 25 percent of restaurants in the US. The combined foodservice company will operate under the Sysco name.

Announced: 12/09/13  Terms: $3.5bn ($500m cash and $3b stock) plus assumption of US Foods’ net debt ($4.7b)  Previous Investment: Acquired for $7.1b in 2007 by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Inc. and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P.  Founded: 1989

Amazon and DoubleBeam Acquire Gopago. The San Francisco-based mobile POS-provider was divvied up between Amazon, which acquired the company’s technology and engineering team, and DoubleBeam, which acquired GoPago’s business and existing merchant relationships (but not the remaining members of the team, according to Business Insider). DoubleBeam, a provider of white-labeled mobile payments services, announced it will use the GoPago acquisition to add integrated mobile POS payments to its existing services, which include mobile-based eCheck and remote deposit capture. Amazon, on the other hand, has been tight lipped about when and how it will use GoPago’s technology, but TechCrunch surmises it could be related to either Amazon’s plan for a Square competitor –  its “Log In and Pay with Amazon” feature – or a built-in payment loop between consumers and merchants for its to-be-announced Amazon mobile phone or all three.

Announced: 12/16/13  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Undisclosed amount from JP Morgan Chase  Launched: 2009

Square Acquires Evenly. The San Francisco-based payment solution Evenly allows users to split bills and other expenses will shut down its app in early 2014. Although Square has also made a push into peer-to-peer payments this year with the release of Square Cash in October, the company announced the acqui-hired team will instead be working on Square’s seller initiatives.

Announced: 12/11/13  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: October 2012

FUNDING

Foursquare Raises $35m. Eight months after raising $41 million in debt financing, the location-based social networking software brought in two new investors as it continues to refine the product: DFJ Growth (which is contributing a board member, former AOL CEO Barry Schuler) and the Capital Group’s Smallcap World Fund. Earlier in the month, the company released a new version of its app that includes passive tracking, which serves up recommendations without a user having to check in. The new passive tracking is integral to Foursquare’s new location-based recommendation feature, which checks a user’s location every few minutes to determine whether they should receive a recommendation. CEO Dennis Crowley has “always dreamed of” Foursquare’s ability to alert you to “tucked-away bars as you strolled a neighborhood, sale items as you entered a boutique, or popular appetizers as you sat down for dinner at a new restaurant.” Although the company isn’t currently trying to sell the user location data for analysis, Digiday notes that Foursquare can use this passive data tracking to show advertisers shopping trends and more, which will be all the more powerful now that they don’t have to rely on check-ins. The company will use the funds to continue to grow sales and engineering and expand further internationally, in places like Turkey, Russia and Brazil.

Announced: 12/19/13  Stage: Series D  Valuation: $600m+  Participating Institutional Investors: DFJ Growth, Smallcap World Fund  Previous Investment: $41m Debt, $50m Series C, $20m Series B, $1.35m Series A  Founded: March 2009

Delivery Club Raises $8m. The Moscow-based online food delivery service aggregator has established itself in the Moscow region and plans to use the funds to continue building its presence in the rest of the Russian market and enhance the company’s IT platform. Notably, the investors are particularly bullish on the international delivery market as AddVenture recently invested in food delivery service Chefmarket, while Phenomen Ventures’ portfolio already includes German companies Delivery Hero and FoodPanda.

Announced: 12/18/13  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: Phenomen Ventures, Guard Capital, AddVenture  Previous Investment: $4m Series B, $1m Series A, $400k Seed  Founded: September 2009

The Orange Chef Raises $1.2m. The San Francisco, CA-based smart kitchen products company sells accessories for the digitally connected cook such as the Cutting Board with iPad Stand, the Dishwasher Safe iPad Stand, and the soon to be released Prep Pad(TM), a iOS enabled bluetooth food scale which provides real-time nutritional information for all raw ingredients and scannable food items. The company intends to use the funds to continue to grow the team and ramp up product development by expanding its offering of smart kitchenware.

Announced: 12/11/13  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Google Ventures (lead), SparkLabs Global Ventures (lead), Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Graph Ventures, Kima Ventures, Social + Capital Partnership  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: April 2011

MomentFeed Raises $5.5m. The location-based analytics and campaign management enterprise platform is used by global brands and multi-store chains to both manage and understand all social media activity around their physical locations. According to StreetFight Magazine, the company hinted they are planning to explore the online and mobile presence of physical locations as a marketable asset. Customers include multi-store chains like 7-Eleven, JCPenney, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and The Home Depot.

Announced: 12/11/13  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Signia Venture Partners (lead), Draper Nexus, DFJ Frontier, Double M Partners, Daher Capital  Previous Investment: $1.8m Seed Extension, $1.2m Seed  Founded: April 2010

Freight Farms Raises $1.2m.  The Boston-based indoor farming startup builds fully automated modular farming systems in recycled shipping containers by leveraging hydroponics, LED lighting, crop-monitoring software and vertical growing systems. The company will use the capital to expand its community of local food producers in North America and beyond and to development include a more elaborate community experience in the smartphone app. In its coverage, Pandodaily brings up a good point about investor mentality in this space (which many food tech companies can probably relate to): “The ironic thing about Freight Farms’ Series A round is, even though investors might complain about boring, ‘astoundingly unoriginal’ startups, investors don’t want to actually back up their words with cash… Because Freight Farms is different from your average social media or enterprise startup in nearly every way, it is a scary proposition to investors.”

Announced: 12/09/13  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: LaunchCapital, Rothenberg Ventures, Morningside Group  Previous Investment: Undisclosed amount from Techstars  Founded: 2011

Gousto Raises $2m. The London-based subscription meal kit delivery service provides chef-developed recipes and organic ingredients in exact proportions. The new funding will be used to grow Gousto’s network of chefs and nutritionists, improve its recipes and strengthen relationships with its farm suppliers and producers.

Announced: 12/09/13  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: MMC Ventures (lead), Angel CoFund  Previous Investment: £500k  Founded: June 2012

Power Supply Raises Undisclosed Equity Funding and $515k in Debt. The Alexandria, Virginia-based healthy meal subscription business partners with experienced chefs to create locally-sourced, healthy, ready-to-eat meals, which are then sold through its e-commerce platform. Customers order and pay for between 3 and 10 meals a week, and then pick up their meals from local gyms and yoga studios, which Power Supply outfits with branded commercial refrigerators. Danielle Gould wrote a thorough feature in December, check it out to learn more about Power Supply’s customer demand, distribution infrastructure, quality control and meal review analytics.

Announced: 12/06/13  Stage: Seed/Debt  Participating Institutional Investors: Center for Innovative Technology’s GAP Funds  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2010

Daily Secret Raises $1.25m. Headquartered in Athens, Greece and New York, New York, the company is a digital media brand that helps young and affluent professionals discover coveted bars, restaurants, shops and other hidden gems in 40+ destinations across the world through a daily email and website. The email also serves as a marketing channel for advertisers and venues that are featured.

Announced: 12/06/13  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $1.85m Series A  Founded: May 2010

PARTNERSHIPS

E La Carte Scores Partners with Applebee’s to provide 100,000 Presto Tableside Tablets to all U.S. Locations By Year-End 2014. The deal comes following a two-year pilot program where Applebee’s tested the tablets across 30 restaurants around the U.S, and will represent one of the largest tableside tablet rollouts to date in any private enterprise.

Food & Wine Magazine Partners with Drync Wine App to Offer Interactive Experience December 2013 Issue. The partnership enables readers to instantly buy any wine featured in the 2013 Essential Holiday Party Planning Guide by simply taking a photo of it in the magazine with the Drync app.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, we created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape.

Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out last month’s round-up here.

Would you be interested in a round-up of agriculture-related funding, partnerships and acquisitions? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: December 2013 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Perhaps the most fascinating, the visualization below aggregates the ratings, number of reviews and number of ingredients from every recipe in the database. Red indicates the highest rated recipes, a larger circle means more ingredients, and circles farther from the black center have more reviews.

“Is It Really Better with Bacon. Almost Always” illustrates how many ingredients, including asparagus and kale, receive higher ratings when combined with bacon, while only pasta (surprising) and dessert see decreased ratings.

“8 Tons of Protein”- illustrates the total amount of meat that the top three recipe proteins- chicken, pork, and beef- would actually yield.

In terms of food trends, the data found that bacon reviews peaked in 2010, gluten-free spiked at the beginning of 2012 and 2013 (new years resolutions, anyone?), and cupcakes had their hay day at the start of 2012, and have steadily declined since.

There are plenty more food trends to discover – check out all 26 infographics here.

The post Infographic(s) of the Week: Wired Mines Food Network Recipes appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

From home cooking to the restaurant experience, technology-focused food startups are enhancing the way consumers engage with food. These startups are creating significant value for consumers and notable opportunities for restaurants and brands to better understand and provide value to their customers. As the food tech sector matures, we are seeing an increasing number of these companies being funded or acquired by industry players. This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, e-commerce, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

There is an interesting race heating up in the payments and POS arena, with major players including Square, Paypal and Groupon unveiling new solutions to own the register of the local merchant. As Mobile Commerce Daily points out, although mobile is key for the future of payments, these companies are all “looking to gain a foothold in physical locations with traditional point-of-sale solutions because their mobile POS strategies are growing slowly.”

Square announced the Square Stand, new hardware that turns an iPad into a digital POS system plus additional accessories like a cash drawer and receipt printer, which creates an opportunity for the company to gain a stronger foothold in restaurants (esp. higher-volume ones) and the big brick-and-mortar commerce ecosystem. Conversely, rather than building its own new hardware, Paypal has taken a collaborative approach with its Cash For Registers program which was launched to encourage merchants to switch to PayPal-powered point-of-sale solutions and leverages the POS partnerships it has been building over the past year. Paypal gave its program a jump start by covering the processing fees for the first six months of the program. Groupon re-branded its merchant payments offering to be called Breadcrumb POS, which broadly expands the restaurant-focused tablet POS system that Groupon acquired last year (previously called just Breadcrumb, the more robust restaurant-specific app will now be called Breadcrumb Pro). The new Breadcrumb POS is a free iPad app, and as TechCrunch notes, in addition to luring new merchants with competitive commission and deposit rates, the company is also bundling the app with a variety of relevant physical hardware (stand, cash drawer, etc.), called the “Bread Box.”

As seen in the deals detailed below, there has been an overall flurry of activity in the crowded payments space as pressure increases for companies to expand and accelerate growth through partnerships and capital deployment. Incumbents have been looking to startups to add new features and functionality to legacy systems such as loyalty, marketing and data insights to secure merchant relationships, while young companies have benefited from the immediate scale and ability to piggyback on an established sales force.

M&A

Seamless and GrubHub announce merger.  The combined platform of the two food-delivery services providers will have over $100m in revenues, and serve diners and companies in more than 500 American cities from more than 20,000 local takeout restaurants. It is reported that GrubHub’s CEO will assume the CEO role of the combined company, and shareholders in both companies will have significant representation in the combined company’s Board of Directors. Once fully integrated, the new company will be well-positioned for an IPO, which would further validate the space among investors. Additionally, as we discussed leveraging existing systems last month, an open API and additional technology could position this new company as a powerful platform for other innovators in the food tech landscape looking to tap into a huge restaurant network (without the expense of a huge sales force).

Announced: 5/20/13  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: GrubHub – $84.1m. Institutional investors include: Origin Ventures, Leo Capital Holdings, Amicus Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Benchmark, DAG Ventures, Greenspring Associates, Mesirow Financial.  Seamless – Not disclosed (since spin-out from Aramark in October 2012). Institutional investors include: Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, CCMP Capital Advisors, J.P. Morgan Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners, Warburg Pincus, Spectrum Equity Partners (which invested $50m in June 2011).  Founded: GrubHub – 2005; Seamless – 1999.

HarvestMark acquires ShopWell Solutions.  In order to create a direct channel to reach to grocery shoppers and drive insights on shopper behavior and preferences, YottaMark, the parent of the fresh food traceability platform HarvestMark, acquired substantially all the assets of ShopWell Solutions, the personalized food recommendation app which had over a million downloads.

Announced: 5/30/13  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $4m. Institutional investors included: New Venture Partners, IDEO.  Founded: 2008

FUNDING

FarmersWeb Raises $1m.  The NY-based online B2B food marketplace and platform connects local farmers and producers with wholesale buyers, such as restaurants, corporate kitchens, private schools and retailers. The company provides the payment and commerce platform, while the farms/producers provide all fulfillment and logistics after the order is placed. In addition to the public wholesale marketplace which is currently focused on the NY metro area, FarmersWeb also offers an eCommerce solution for farms/producers who prefer to sell directly from their own websites vs. the marketplace. The proceeds will be used to expand metro areas as well as the technology platform.

Announced: 5/31/13  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Individual angels  Previous Investment: None  Founded: 2011

LoyalBlocks Raises $9m. The NY- and Israeli-based provider of local marketing solutions offers customer loyalty programs by allowing brick and mortar businesses to automatically reward customers when they enter the restaurant/store through a branded app and an in-store base station. The platform is also integrated with Facebook and other social media and review sites. The use of proceeds will go towards expanding U.S. operations and developing the SMB platform.

Announced: 5/23/13  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: General Catalyst Partners (lead), Founder Collective, Gemini Israel Funds  Previous Investment: $3.2m Venture Round  Founded: 2011

Swipely Raises $12m. The data-driven payments company has developed a platform that provides local merchants similar tools that e-commerce companies use to better understand customers through shopping data. The platform doesn’t require new equipment for merchants, and works with all credit and debit cards. The team expects to double head count to 80 by the end of the year, and proceeds will be used to expand its network of merchants and to accelerate its nationwide growth.

Announced: 5/21/13  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Shasta Ventures (lead), First Round Capital, Greylock Partners, Index Ventures  Previous Investment: $7.5m Series A, $1m Seed  Founded: October 2009

Marqeta Raises $14m. The loyalty company provides both branded and white-label prepaid loyalty cards, allows multiple loyalty accounts to function on a single card, and also (as revealed in the announcement) powers the technology behind recently launched Facebook Card. As PandoDaily points out, the Facebook partnership is a tremendous coup in terms of scaling in the loyalty rewards space, as “there’s nowhere else you can go to immediately get access to 1 billion consumers, and their real identities.”

Announced: 5/16/13  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Greylock Partners (lead), Granite Ventures, Commerce Ventures  Previous Investment: $5.6m Series A  Founded: 2010

Foodpanda Raises $20m. The Berlin-based food delivery company continues its rapid expansion, focusing on emerging markets in South America, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. This year alone Foodpanda (and its affiliated brand hellofood) have entered 15 new countries, and it is now active in 27 different worldwide markets. The capital infusion will power expansion to additional countries, additional build-out of more cities within existing countries, and customer/restaurant acquisition efforts.

Announced: 5/07/13  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: AB Kinnevik, Phenomen Ventures, Rocket Internet  Previous Investment: Rocket Internet (Accelerator)  Founded: 2012

Panna Raises $1.35m.  The video cooking magazine on the iPhone and iPad allows users to cook recipes along with celebrity chefs in a format that resembles television programming, featuring step-by-step instructions, tips and recommendations. The company plans to use the funding to expand its team, produce new content and increase sales and marketing efforts. As TechCrunch notes, before venture funding Panna used crowdfunding through Kickstarter, where hundreds of home cooks donated to get it off the ground.

Announced: 5/06/13  Stage: Venture Round  Participating Institutional Investors: Anthem Venture Partners, Lerer Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Maveron, Advancit Capital, RSL Venture Partners, Launchpad LA, BoxGroup  Previous Investment: None  Launched: November 2012

PARTNERSHIPS

Food52 partners with Rap Genius to let users annotate recipes.  Calling the tool “Food Genius,” the partnership will allow users of the crowd-sourced cooking site to annotate recipes and articles. As Food52 simply states, it “adds a crowd-sourced layer to the cooking process by allowing cooks to make small variations on and enhancements to recipes”.

VeriFone and CardSpring partner on card-linked services.  The POS maker VeriFone teamed up with the loyalty and rewards startup to integrate the CardSpring web service platform to its payment gateway in order to enable developers to create card-linked services. The partnership will allow merchants to enable loyalty programs, point-of-sale discounts, and more using customers’ existing debit and credit cards.

Loyalty startup FiveStars partners with Canadian media firm Rogers to launch new loyalty service.  With its first international play and first “Powered by FiveStars” alliance, the new program, called “Vicinity” is the same POS-integrated loyalty platform as FiveStars, and Rogers will offer the program to many of its existing clients, including small and medium-sized businesses that already use Rogers for its phone and Internet service.

Serious Eats partners with Conde Nast’s Ziplist to offer recipe organizing tools.  With the partnership, thousands recipes from Serious Eats’ family of websites will be integrated into Ziplist’s recipe box and shopping list, and users will be able to see relevant local grocery deals as well.

MOGL and Hawaiian Airlines partner to offer a new dining rewards program to frequent flyers.  The new partnership is MOGL’s second airline partner (after Virgin America), and allows Hawaiian Air’s frequent flyer members to earn cash-back when dining out in CA restaurants, while also donating meals to people in need.

LevelUp and NCR partner to bolster mobile payments in restaurant sector.  The partnership will allow the top restaurant POS supplier to offer LevelUp’s mobile payment and loyalty solution seamlessly without requiring operators to implement a new system in order to accept mobile payments.

Tabbedout partners with Google Wallet.  The restaurant mobile payments solution, which allows bar and restaurant patrons to pay for their check using an app on their smartphone, announced Google Wallet is now integrated into its mobile app, adding a new distribution vertical for Google’s payment platform and adding a new mobile payment option for restaurant patrons.

OLO partners with CorFire to create an integrated mobile commerce solution for restaurants. The mobile and online ordering platform for restaurants has recently repositioned itself as a digital commerce engine for restaurants (and accordingly, also announced an investment from Paypal in January), thus this new partnership with CorFire, a provider of mobile commerce technology solutions, provides OLO the ability to offer more sophisticated mobile commerce functionality such as mobile ordering, mobile local offers, mobile payment, mobile gifting, mobile loyalty, and mobile social check-ins.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, we created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map  to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape.

Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out last month’s round-up here.

Would you be interested in a round-up of agriculture-related funding, partnerships and acquisitions? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: May 2013 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

As the demand for online education grows, Feast, “the online cooking school for the common man,” is betting that the future of cooking education is online. The San Francisco-based food startup, which is currently participating in 500 Startups’ sixth incubator class, is applying a Lynda or Skillshare-like e-learning model to help make cooking education more affordable, convenient and hands-on. The team definitely has their work cut out for them, though. With innumerable cooking websites, the omnipresent Food Network, and popular TV cooking shows launching their own online programs, cooking content has become increasingly difficult to monetize, especially for newcomers without a well established brand.

HOW IT WORKS

Feast’s interactive, skill-focused classes make it easy for people to learn fundamental cooking techniques at home. Students follow a lesson in real time and are able to interact with both their teacher and other students for support and feedback. “The Food Network creates separation between people and their kitchens and cultivates a fear of failure,” says Feast co-founder David Spinks. Feast, he says, aims to “help people get over intimidation factors and feel comfortable experimenting, becoming more confident and capable home cooks.”

WHO’S BEHIND IT

Co-founders David Spinks and Nadia Eghbal may have no culinary training, but they do possess extensive online community building experience, hence Feast’s emphasis on social. Spinks previously created The Community Manager and consulted for online learning startup Udemy. Eghbal co-produced The Startup Product Summit and worked for Newsbound and GreatSchools. Their combined experience in developing active, engaged online communities could help set Feast apart from other popular online cooking education sites like Cook Taste Eat, founded by Michelin-starred chef Michael Mina. Feast’s sole instructor, Chef and Co-founder, Jeremy Umansky is a CIA graduate who previously worked for Whole Foods and Fairway Market and is currently the Sous Chef of Brooklyn Fish Camp.

Though the online cooking space is crowded, Spinks thinks there’s a big market opportunity. He estimates that cooking education is a $1 billion market based on the amount spent on food related experiences and the amount spent on in-person cooking classes, though he is not certain on the number of people currently paying for online cooking content.

THE BUSINESS MODEL

In the beginning, Feast offered $60 class packages that spanned over four weeks and covered a wide range of techniques from kitchen basics to braising. But the team realized that people craved immediate access to entire lessons– they wanted to prepare a feast from soup to nuts in one session. So they revamped their product to better cater to their community, and as of two weeks ago they now offer 6 one-off classes for $10 each on topics like Stockmaking and Indoor Grilling. Modeled after the curated educational experience of Lynda, Feast’s classes include a step-by-step guide with how-to video nuggets that let you cook and learn at your own pace. If Kimchi strikes your fancy you can take the mini class for free and turn your kitchen into a fermentation station immediately, save the class for later, or send it to a friend who’s pickling forays have been subpar.

To further differentiate Feast from others in the online cooking world, Spinks hopes to grow the site into a marketplace for local cooking teachers, a curated database where all videos and content are packaged using Feast’s easy-to-follow style. So for that amazing cooking teacher down the street who doesn’t quite have a knack for design or UX, Feast may one day offer a ticket to online success. But for now, they will focus on perfecting the platform with their one charismatic instructor. Through curated, easy-to-follow content and an engaged online community Feast hopes to float in the over saturated online cooking space and build a loyal community of empowered, confident Feast-ers.

The post Feast is Bringing Online Cooking Education to the Masses appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Last week, social recipe curation website Punchfork announced it had been acquired by Pinterest, and that it will soon shut down its website, API and mobile apps. CEO Jeff Miller will join Pinterest's engineering team to help improve Pinterest's discovery. Pinterest is not disclosing the acquisition price.

While most have focused on what this means for Pinterest, I'd like to focus on Punchfork and the lessons that other recipe startups can learn from Miller's experience.

Recipe startup business models are tricky. Many (most) go the advertising route, but Punchfork decided to try its hand at the API subscription model (read our in depth interview here). The startup developed an API that gives developers direct access to its recipe database. With this access, developers are able to integrate recipes into their own website or mobile app and, for example, perform a diet classification of any list of ingredients. It allows bloggers or publishers to syndicate their recipes directly into Punchfork's database and, using Punchfork's analytics tools, track their popularity. Below is a screen shot of Punchfork's offering and pricing plan.

Evernote Food is, perhaps, Punchfork's most publicized user, using the API to power its Explore Recipes feature on Evernote Food. Other users include DuckDuckGo, AnyList, Pulse, Good Genius, CookItForUS and FastFood. Miller would not comment on the number of paying API users he has, but he admits that it's not enough to make it a scalable business. While the Punchfork API might be scalable from an operational standpoint Miller “never saw evidence that there is a particularly large market of strictly recipe API users out there. Instead it seems to be a small-to-medium market,” he told me by email.

His greatest challenge with getting people to pay for access to the API is the lack of available data, like nutriti

on and preparation steps, to support the needs of potential users.

He also experimented with coupons and targeted offers without much success because of Punchfork's lack of scale. “The profits on coupons and targeted offers are naturally low, so you need huge volume, to a degree that I underestimated,” Miller explained. “Another problem was that there is no “AdWords for Ingredients” API out there that lets you match a list of ingredients with relevant ad inventory. To build one ourselves would have been another huge undertaking, although I considered it for a while before reality set in :).” Ultimately, Yummly beat Miller to the punch on that one.

In the end, however, focusing on the API business model may ultimately have paid off for Miller, pushing him to develop a robust technology that can also be used in other verticals. Adweek has some interesting predications about how Pinterest may want to integrate Punchfork's technology:

“Yet a more robust recipe offering may be small-minded when considering the larger potential Punchfork brings with it. Developers and marketers have been awaiting developer tools from Pinterest that would let them plug into the platform to do things like accurately measure Pinterest’s impact on sales and brand awareness, build apps that pull pins and pinboards as content or run ads targeted according to Pinterest data. Pinterest has kept quiet on any such plans, leading to speculation that any developer tools are way down the road if even on Pinterest’s roadmap. However, Punchfork has already built a developer tool, the Punchfork API, that lets developers pull recipes from Punchfork and display them on their sites or in their apps. That API can stream a real-time recipe feed or sift Punchfork’s content for specific categories like ingredient or publisher. It also lets bloggers or publishers stream their recipes directly into Punchfork and track how they perform; imagine that ported to Pinterest as a way for brands to auto-post products as pins and measure user response.

Pinterest may not want to open up its platform to the point that its content gets aggregated and accessed externally through apps like Flipboard, following the example set by Twitter over the summer, but it’ll likely want to find a way to help brands promote their Pinterest content on their own sites or apps and vice versa. Punchfork’s technology could help them realize that goal.”

A brief note of thanks to Miller for being so candid with me. Hopefully, his experience will prove valuable for some of you.

Are you working on a recipe startup? What innovative business models are you testing?

The post Lessons From Punchfork's API Business Model & Acquisition by Pinterest appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Authored by Hunter Walk and Maya Baratz, two industry veterans, this collection of recipes is inspired by the creative process – a process they believe applies to the kitchen as well as to the white board. With 75 recipes and counting, this work in progress features recipes from founders, investors and writers such as Matt Mullenweg of WordPress, Dennis Crowley of Foursquare and Joanne Wilson of Gotham Gal.

The cookbook is available to purchase on a sliding scale through Leanpub. All proceeds from the book will go to charities that are committed to ending hunger.

The post The Startup Chef: Cook Like a Tech Superstar appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest Post by Haven Bourque of HavenBMedia

Photo Credit: Clare Barboza & recipe by Kim O'Donnel from “The Meat Lover's Meatless Celebrations”

Let’s face it: Meat is complicated. And it’s emotional. Lines can be drawn in the sand and room temperature can skyrocket when the ‘I eat them to save them’ crowd intersects with the ‘I eat no food with a face’ group. Having munched my way through that entire spectrum, I insist that, when it comes to fixing what’s wrong with America’s meat, even vegetarians need to have skin in the game.

Here’s the proof: A few days before Thanksgiving, I convened a group of Bay Area women to honor one of our heroes, journalist, chef, and author Kim O’Donnel, and celebrate her new book The Meat Lovers’ Guide to Meatless Cooking. In the midst of a whirlwind book tour, Kim was the catalyst to bring together people of distinctly different perspectives on meat.

The crowd was an eclectic mix of culinarians, environmentalists and policy experts.  In deference to strong vegetarian sentiments, our potluck skipped the meat. I nervously noted Kari Hamerschlag, the brain behind EWG’s ‘Meat Eaters Guide to Climate Change’ and very close friend whom I know as a staunchly vocal vegetarian, introducing herself to Marissa Guggiana, co-founder of The Butcher’s Guild and author of Primal Cuts. I’m a huge fan of Marissa’s work, which brings artisan butchers into the limelight. Would a dust-up ensue, or would we all eat our Anson Mills grits and Cheryl’s poached pears and get along?

My mother Szari happened to be visiting from the east coast. She fit right in to our hive of contradictions: Mum has shot rattlesnake for her dinner out of necessity, not sport. And her artwork featuring reclaimed cow bones has appeared in high-end fashion magazines and the Smithsonian. Now retired, about 90 percent of her diet consists of vegetables she grows in her garden.  Comfortable in the kitchen, she stirred the grits and eyed the quinoa kale rolls with guarded curiosity.

As I circulated the room, I heard bursts of conversation about the public health and environmental dangers of industrial meat production, the progress of Consumers Union’s ‘Meat without Drugs’ campaign, and conflicting brining techniques for heritage breed turkeys.  The celebration could have turned into a brawl with so many strong-minded, opinionated experts on both sides of the fence. But it wasn’t just the buzz from the mimosas: I found no such tension.

Throughout the afternoon, voice after voice concurred that problems with meat production affect everyone.  Eating less meat, as modeled by Kim’s work, and eating ‘greener’ meat, as modeled by Kari’s work, are critical for personal health and the environment.  Supporting independent small-scale meat producers, and purchasing from butchers who know their sources, modeled by Marissa’s work, strengthens regional economies and farming communiti

es and offers urban populations a sustainable meat supply. I was encouraged to hear culinary writers recognize that policy initiatives are key, as are grassroots efforts to unite communities negatively affected by industrial-scale meat production, whether they be fast-food consumers, slaughterhouse workers or the animals who end up at the end of our forks.  Whether our efforts led to the consumption of more grass-fed burgers or more beet carpaccio, the sentiment was clear that we all must work to make meat better.

We’ve had some big losses. In 2010 I wrote for CivilEats.com about the USDA’s GIPSA rule, reform of which would have given small meat producers fair market access. A year later, the movement to reinstate the rule lost.  Meanwhile, Meatless Mondays became a household name and artisan butchers kept a firm clamp on their rock star status.

I confess I’m confused myself. This autumn I flirted with hosting my neighborhood’s meat CSA, but felt far more comfortable taking on a CSF (Community Supported Fisheries).  I know a fellow scuba diver and ocean lover who disagrees that sustainable seafood consumption is a key to ocean conservation; she refuses to consume fish. She eats quite a lot of meat. This made me all the more inspired to fly from Oakland to NYC, carbon footprint be damned, for the Meat Hackathon. We need to leverage technological innovation as much as we need to honor the potlucks that deepen our connections with each other, in order to solve our current meat dilemmas.

Let’s fix meat. Let’s invite meat lovers to sit at the table with committed vegans and dream up farm-fresh, seasonal meals that anyone would enthusiastically eat. Let’s support small-scale meat producers, as they are our best advocates to lead more conventional farmers and ranchers in their own communities toward change.  Let’s cheer on programmers, business experts, chefs, farmers and all the other attendees who bring unique perspectives on meat to the table. Let the Meat Hackathon begin!

How can we fix meat and help small-scale meat producers?  Share your thoughts in the comments below, on Twitter using #hackmeat, on Facebook or at the Hack//Meat hackathon happening December 7-9 in NYC.

__________________________________

Haven Bourque founded HavenBMedia in 2010 to bring communications expertise to food system change. Her group develops communications strategies, trains spokespersons, and teaches social media skills for diverse organizations ranging from prestigious non-profits to small businesses, national corporations and community activists working to reform food systems around health and wellness, social justice and environmental conservation. She is proud of her work with IATP's Food & Community Fellows, NRDC, Bon Appetit Management Company and Straus Family Creamery. She is a judge for NASFT's first-ever Leadership awards, a contributor to CivilEats.com and was a co-organizer of the nation's first TEDx conference to focus on farmworkers. Follow her on Twitter: @HavenBourque.

The post Hacking Meat: Why Vegetarians Should Care About Meat Production appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Hacking Meat is an online conversation exploring how can information and technology be used to hack (or reimagine) a more sustainable, profitable and healthy future of meat. Join the conversation and share your ideas or product requests in the comments, on Twitter using #hackmeat, on Facebook or at the Hack//Meat hackathon happening December 7-9 in NYC.

Guest post by Kara Rota of Cookstr

Photo: CB2

I advocate a shift in how we eat that emphasizes the flavor, the quality and the provenance of meat over its quantity. In order to eat differently, we need to learn to cook differently. Eating less meat is never an eater’s only priority: dietary considerations and nutritional needs, taste preferences and skill level all play a large role. Helping users find tested, trusted recipes that are outside their existing comfort zone is what I focus on.

I work at Cookstr, a technology company focused on food, driven by the power of metadata. Cookstr is powered by a content management system (CMS) created by and for non-technologist food experts. Culinarians use this CMS to apply their expert knowledge to each recipe, providing the context that makes the recipe meaningful: is the dish kid-friendly? Is it gluten-free? Is it good for Thanksgiving, or Valentine’s Day? Is it Cantonese or Szechuan? What are the mood, taste and texture? Cookstr’s nutritional platform then allows full nutritional information to be calculated for each recipe. Recipe (content) + metadata (context) = powerful, customized search, and a seamless user experience around discovering recipes that are just right, right now.

This Italian recipe for Pasta and Lentils uses four ounces of pancetta to flavor a recipe that serves six ­­– a perfect example of meat as a condiment. A Hungarian Goulash Soup stretches a half-pound of beef chuck for a soup that makes eight servings, bolstered by plenty of onions and stock.

Technology is a big part of the answer here, but not in the form of in vitro meat. Creating artificial non-animal meat products doesn’t address the health concerns of eating too much meat, nor does it challenge us to think about ways of cooking and eating that are different from the meat-centric plates we are so used to. In vitro meat pushes eaters even further from th

inking about the origins of their food. Good technology should help us adapt, rather than spending disproportionate resources in order to cling to outmoded and unsustainable systems. When applied to something as tangible and “real” as food, technology can spur incredible positive change on an individual and institutional level.

Cooking together is as important now as it’s ever been. Societies are shaped by how and what they eat. Moving meat away from the center of the plate, treating it as a condiment, a treat, as just another unfetishized ingredient, represents a tremendous cultural shift. It’s intimidating, because many of us don’t know how to cook that way. We never learned.

I’m not the first to say that this country has a tendency to be more than a little all-or-nothing. If crash dieting and bacon sundaes have taught us anything, it’s that we like excess, and we like limitations in excess. The idea of being vegetarian-ish, or flexitarian, or vegan much of the time, challenges the way we’ve identified ourselves as eaters. It’s also a plausible way forward. For the last four years, Americans have been eating less and less meat per person. The shift has started, but eaters need resources to follow it. Adding recipes to home cooks’ everyday repertoires that treat meat as a small percentage of a dish rather than its focal point represents the long-term dietary lifestyle change we need.

How can we use technology to help us cook more and eat less? Let us know in the comments, on Twitter using #hackmeat, on Facebook or at the Hack//Meat hackathon happening December 7-9 in NYC.

___________________________________

Kara Rota is Director of Editorial and Partnerships at Cookstr, a technology company dedicated to recipes and nutrition and co-founded by Tipping Point Partners, a New York City-based “institutional entrepreneur.” Kara is a board director of Girls in Tech NYC and an Angel Alliance member of the Lower Eastside Girls Club. She earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she wrote her undergraduate thesis on technoethics, posthumanism, cyborgs and RoboCop. She tweets @karalearota.

The post Hacking Meat: Cook More, Eat Less Meat appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Hacking Meat is an online conversation exploring how can information and technology be used to hack (or reimagine) a more sustainable, profitable and healthy future of meat. Join the conversation and share your ideas or product requests in the comments, on Twitter using #hackmeat, on Facebook or at the Hack//Meat hackathon happening December 7-9 in NYC.

Guest Post by Leah Selim of Global Kitchen

Chef Veda Sukhu teaching how to make Guyanese roti

At first impression, I’m probably the last person who should be writing about hacking meat. I am not a techie and I have been a vegetarian since I was 18 (with a few more-than-insignificant relapses in the earlier years). However, I do care deeply about our food system, particularly how it both influences and diverges from food systems elsewhere in the world.

It is this passion that led me, along with two of my friends from graduate school, to start Global Kitchen, a social enterprise that both teaches and preserves traditional, authentic recipes through immigrant-led cooking classes. Often, the dishes that center on meat hold deep social and cultural significance for the people who prepare and share them.

One of our chef instructors, Ragab Rashwan, grew up in Egypt and moved to the US a few years ago with his wife Jennye. They explained to me how eating meat was treated as a special occasion once a week (on Fridays), and the meat was always sourced locally, either raised and slaughtered in the home or purchased from a halal butcher. Jennye and Ragab also described the meat holiday, Eid al-Adha, during which animals are slaughtered and shared with family, friends and those who are less fortunate. “There's a lot of symbolism and meaning, [both] religious and cultural. Meat isn't just something that has to decorate every plate at every meal,” Jennye explained.

Similarly, our friends and chef instructors at Bunna Café emphasized how Ethiopian cuisine and meat consumption reflects the country’s rich history steeped in religious traditions and values, both Christian and Muslim. “Like most third-world countries, meat is eaten primarily on special occasions, especially religious festivals and parties for guests,” said Bunna Café operator Sam Saverance. But fasting is an integral part of religious observance in Ethiopia, and meat is often omitted entirely during fasting holidays. “For most people there, fasting simply means abstaining from any form of animal product,” Saverance explained. However, most Ethiopians do eat meat and are attached to the flavor, so when it isn’t accessible (ei

ther financially or for religious reasons), they rely on a repertoire of dishes that have been developed over centuries of culinary history to emulate the savory flavor of meat. “The spicyness and earthy flavor of Berbere, the most popular spice base in the country, is a big contributor to this savoriness,” said Saverance. (He and his team at Bunna Café capitalize on this aspect as their food is 100% vegan.)

All of this to say that the historical significance and cultural meaning behind traditional recipes is precisely what I’m interested in preserving through Global Kitchen, because I believe it is this aspect of food and commensality that connects us together as people while reminding us of our history and tying us to our unique identities.

So how does technology fit into the picture? Like many of the other guest writers have mentioned, technology is a powerful tool for knowledge and information sharing. At Global Kitchen, we preserve traditional recipes by first writing them down (often these recipes have never before made it onto a piece of paper) and then sharing them on our website. All of the chef instructors we work with are small food business owners, so we use technology to promote their work as well.

But perhaps technology has the most potential in its capacity to make transparent the connections and resources needed for truly authentic ethnic cooking. After speaking with several of our chef instructors about the US meat industry, all of them had similar complaints: as a result of our meat production systems, our meat doesn’t taste good (or rather, doesn’t taste like anything), and we don’t know where it’s coming from. For many people outside of the US, the experience of cooking and eating an authentic meal is not simply a process of manipulating traditional ingredients in a specific way. It encompasses the entire food system in the context of existing cultural norms—from the farm where the animals are raised to the butcher who can prepare the meat in accordance with religious rules and customs. These practices not only affect the taste of the meat, but also play a part in the experience of eating it. There is enormous potential in using technology to connect immigrant chefs and home cooks to the meat purveyors who know how to source and slaughter their meat in a way that stays true to their traditions and values.

And hopefully as Americans who are eager (dare I say hungry) to learn about food and experience other cultures, we can benefit from this connection as well.

Do you have any ideas for ways that technology can help immigrant chefs source sustainable, flavorful meat and preserve authentic ethnic recipes? Let us know on Twitter using #hackmeat, on Facebook or at the Hack//Meat hackathon happening December 7-9 in NYC.

The post Hacking Meat: Meat, Technology and Authentic Ethnic Cooking appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Tom Mylan

There is a growing movement of do-it-yourselfers (DIYers) eager not just to bring home the bacon, but to bring home the pork, butcher it, cure it, smoke it and make their own bacon. Some enroll in butchery courses, while others are turning to YouTube and the Internet to learn the tricks of the trade. And now it's even more convenient and affordable to learn how to make your own from the best in the business, thanks to Tom Mylan, co-owner and executive butcher of The Meat Hook, and Open Air Publishing.

Earlier this year, Mylan, in collaboration with Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman’s Deli and Open Air Publishing, published “The Better Bacon Book” app (available on iTunes for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch), a how-to guide for learning how to make and cook your own bacon, face bacon, pancetta, guanciale, Canadian bacon and pork belly. The digital book includes 20 instructional videos to help you learn how to butcher and make your own bacon, as well as how to make your own pork smoker. It also includes over 30 bacon-themed recipes from chefs like Fatty Crab's Zak Pelaccio, Hearth's Marco Canora and The Meatball Shop's Michael Chernow and Daniel Holzman. And if you're not up for making the bacon yourself, you can always turn to their bacon buying guide to get expert tips on the best mail-order bacon from Weinzweig.

The digital format is a perfect medium for this kind of instructional book, making it easy to show people how to do something rather trying to describe how to do it.

The Disappearing Pig from Open Air Publishing on Vimeo.

Perhaps one of its more innovative features is the ability to purchase bacon and equipment right from the app, a feature Open Air Publishing also offered in the Food52's Holiday & Recipe Survival Guide. While there is no data available for how many users actually buy smokers or the mail-order bacon, Open Air Publishing CEO Jon Feldman tells me that more than 10 percent of readers have linked out to the Bradley smoker, the Allan Benton's Bacon and some of the knives and kitchen products.

True to the ethos upon which the butchery renaissance is being built, the book strikes an important balance between being hip and informative, and m

akes a compelling case for buying good meat from people you can trust: a butcher, a local greenmarket farmer, a sustainable supplier like Heritage Foods USA, or “a grocery store that doesn't sell meat on sad foam trays.”

“You can't make superior bacon from second-rate meat. Because bacon is such a simple thing- at its most basic, just pork, salt, and time -you need to use the best raw material you can get your hands on…So long as the pig was raised humanely, on a small farm and not in some soul-crushing tenth circle of porcine hell, you're good to go,” writes author Rob Willey.

I had a chance to catch up with Mylan by email to learn more about the book's production process and how technology can transform the future of meat.

_____________________________

Danielle Gould: How can technology be used to hack (or reimagine) the future of meat?

Tom Mylan: I think the best example of how IT can hack meat is the Japanese Wagyu model. Every piece of meat is traceable from birth to slaughter. When you go to a restaurant you can scan a QR code and get the whole family tree of the animal that you're eating, where it was born, who the farmer was, how long ago it was slaughtered and even a ultrasound image of the marbling of it's meat! I think that kind of useful, practical, easy traceability would go a long way towards giving people the information they need to make choices about the meat they eat.

DG: Is technology contributing to the butchery renaissance? If so, how?

TM: Of course! When I was trying to learn how to butcher there were very few resources, not really any books, and I ended up teaching myself a lot of stuff by watching YouTube videos. I would be nothing without YouTube.

DG: Why did you decide to publish The Better Bacon Book as an iPad app and not a print book?

TM: You'll have to ask Jon that as I'm not the publisher, just “the talent” but for me I think that the iPad format is just so much better for doing informative and instructional things. Right now I'm writing the Meat Hook Meat Book and trying to describe to a reader how to do something complicated in print is very difficult and tedious. The Better Bacon Book is like “here, let me just show you!”

DG: What was the production process like? How long did it take?

TM: The actual shooting took two days. One day for the bacon recipes and one day on my roof deck to show how to build the improvised smoker which took for every because my apt was right over the flight path for LaGuardia and a plane came by every 90 seconds so we had to do everything in 45 second segments so it wouldn't sound like we were cooking at the airport.

DG: Why did you choose to work with Open Air Publishing?

TM: They really chose me. I was a little skeptical at first but then I saw the format and how amazing digital books could be and I was sold. I hadn't seen anything like it.

DG: What features of the app do you think are most innovative?

TM: The navigation is amazing and allows you to jump around with the same ease as a real book, which is how I read cookbooks, I get excited, flip from section to section. Most digital stuff I've used is the more flip, flip, flip which makes me crazy. Obviously the video embeds are really cool too but that's not exactly re-inventing the wheel, but they're very well done.

DG: Do you have any more digital projects on the horizon?

TM: Right now, No. I think there will be a digital version of the Meat Hook Meat Book which should be out in Spring 2014 but it's too early to say what that will look like. The devices and the app technology are just changing too fast to even imagine.

Are you or do you aspire to be a DIY butcher? Let us know how you're learning the craft in the comments, on Twitter using #hackmeat, on Facebook or at the Hack//Meat hackathon happening December 7-9 in NYC.

The post Hacking Meat: Tom Mylan on Better Bacon & Technology appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post by Bernard Lahousse of Foodpairing

The future of food will include less meat, but it will be no less delicious.

As a research company supporting some of the best chefs and bartenders in the world, we often get challenging requests from food professionals. Over the last few years, we have seen an increase in requests concerning meat. Driven by a passion for delicious food, we don’t want to compromise flavor, so we try to find solutions combining insights in food, flavor and technology.

So, how can we create dishes with less meat but are no less delicious? How can we support the flavor of aged meat as less meat, but improve the quality of meat served? How can we replace meat with other ingredients to create vegetarian meaty-tasting dishes?

1. Build recipes around vegetables using Foodpairing®

Creating dishes with vegetables that offer enough complexity and satisfaction for most dinners is not easy. Restaurant customers often value a dish by the amount of meat or fish on the plate, challenging the chef to add more value and and more of an experience to the vegetables they serve. We believe that Foodpairing, a method that analyzes flavor to determine which ingredients are bested matched together, is an ideal tool to support chefs in adding complexity to the vegetables they prepare. We have analyzed the aroma of more than 1,300 ingredients with an in-house developed analytical method and created a unique algorithm to calculate the interactions between flavor molecules. We then visualize  possible combinations in a ‘Foodpairing tree.'

A Foodpairing tree is an interactive visualization that provides one overview of all the possible combinations you can make with a particular ingredient. The ingredients are clustered in food categories and each branch represents a different category like dairy, meat, herbs, spices, etc.

In a Foodpairing tree, your selected product is positioned at the center and all around it are products that it can be combined with. The closer a product is to the center ingredient, the better the pairing.

So instead of starting to create a dish based on meat, the idea is to start with a vegetable, like a carrot. As you can see, a carrot can be combined with e.g. peach, olive oil, bacon, etc.

We started a program to analyze more specialty meats at the request of butchers like Hendrik Dierendonck, who revived an old variety of beef: ‘westvlaams rood rund.’ We found that ingredients like Gruyère will support the flavor of this beef.

3. Replace meat by combining ingredients covering the same flavor profile

The flavor molecules of an ingredient are not unique to that specific ingredient. Basil doesn’t taste like basil because there is only one basil flavor, but because there is a blend of flavor molecules, many of which you can also find in other ingredients. The same is true for meats like chicken. The flavor of chicken contains about 20 important flavor molecules, some of them you can find in coffee, bread, potato, mushroom, etc.

The video below shows how we made a vegetarian dish with the flavor of chicken without using any chicken, but by combining chocolate, textures from pine nuts and mushrooms.

Join the conversation and share your ideas or product requests in the comments, on Twitter using #hackmeat, on Facebook or at the Hack//Meat hackathon happening December 7-9 in NYC.

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Bernard Lahousse has worked as a research and development manager at several food companies and as a consultant for innovation processes for various global enterprises. Lahousse organized already 3 Foodpairing events (ranked as one of the most innovative culinary events worldwide) where several of the world’s greatest chefs, including Heston Blumenthal, Albert Adrià,… discussed how they use Foodpairing.com for their own creations. In 2009 Lahousse’s passion led him along with Johan Langenbick and Peter Coucquyt, to start the Belgian-based food research company, Sense for Taste. The company’s mission is to develop methodologies to support chefs in their creativity and create tools for more efficient new product development. Here, Lahousse puts his bio-engineering degree to good use as the company’s science director.

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