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The episode's guest is Robby Earl, president of Virtual Dining Concepts (the company behind Beastburger). Robby is also president of Linked Eats, a new technology company that makes software for virtual restaurant brand operators.
I caught up with Robbie last week to talk about his new company and its technology and to get an update on what is going on in the virtual restaurant space, an industry that has seen some challenges in recent years. We also talk about the reshuffling of the VDC brand portfolio and get an update on the lawsuit between VDC and BeastBurger.
Enjoy the conversation!
Remember to subscribe to our new show, The Food Tech News Show. Our latest guest is Molly Wood, longtime podcaster and host of Everbody in The Pool.

This interview is with Rajat Bhageria, an investor and technology founder who debuted his food robot after working stealthily for five years.
Bhageria, a master’s graduate of Penn’s Robotics and Machine Learning Lab, started his first company in high school, a social network for young writers. During college and grad school, he founded Third Eye, a company using computer vision to assist the visually impaired.
I got to know Rajat in 2019 when he spoke at our food robotics conference called ArticulaTE. At the time, he was just getting started exploring the idea of food robotics while also running his venture capital firm Prototype Capital.
He took this knowledge and what he learned as an investor and started Chef, a company that makes a food robot that assembles cooked and ready-to-eat food in high-volume environments. This focus, says Bhageria, is much different from the bulk of robots in the market, most of which focus primarily on prep and cooking in restaurants and food service.
In this conversation, we talk about:


Why it's important to have great data when building vertical-specific robot like Chef

Why Rajat felt that restaurants is the wrong part of the value chain to start building food robot

How early founders should focus on understanding the pain points of their future clients before building their product

Why Rajat believes that home food robots will never be a big market

Where he sees this space going over the next decade

and much more!


If you'd like to explore how AI and automation will change food, you won't want to miss our upcoming Food AI Summit on September 25th. Visit the website and use the coupon code PODCAST to get 15% off tickets.

The Spoon is launching a dedicated Food Tech News Show podcast. which you can find here on Overcast, on Pandora (and here on our podcast host) and Apple Podcasts. \And, of course, you can listen to this episode on The Spoon feed.
In the future, we will focus on interviews and deep dives here on The Spoon Podcast, so make sure to subscribe to FTNS for your weekly shot of food tech news.
On this episode, Michael Wolf and Carlos Rodela welcome Peter Bodenheimer, a longtime food tech investor and operator, to discuss the current state of food and ag tech funding. In this episode, they delve into:

The decline in agrifoodtech investments in the first half of 2024, with startups raising $7 billion across 427 deals, a significant drop from H1 2023.

Upside Foods’ recent layoffs and industry challenges due to legislative bans and decreased venture capital funding.

SharkNinja’s latest innovation, the Ninja SLUSHi™ Professional Frozen Drink Maker, which brings commercial-grade slushies to home kitchens.

Chef Robotics emerging from stealth mode to showcase its new robot and announce early customer partnerships.

Thimus’ groundbreaking technology, the T-Box, which reads brainwaves to assess consumer reactions to food products.


Tune in to The Spoon's new dedicated weekly food tech news show!

For most Americans, the Kraft and Heinz brands have been ever-present in our cupboards and fridges for our entire lives. Products like Oscar Meyer hot dogs, Kraft cheese, Velveeta, and Jello. Household names all.
The company resulted from the 2015 merger between Kraft Foods and Heinz. Now the third biggest food brand in North America, we thought it would be interesting to hear how they think about innovation and reinventing their product lineup.
To do that, we sit down with Kraft Heinz's President of R&D for North America, Robert Scott.
As a part of this conversation, we talk with Robert about:


The company's partnership with NotCo and how they are using the Guiseppe AI to develop new plant-based products.

How he sees AI becoming interwoven into the company's product development cycles

Why they created a Freestyle-like machine for custom condiments called the Heinz ReMix

The idea behind the 360Crisp and innovating our food products and how they cook in our kitchens

How Robert would advise aspiring food scientist to pursue a career path in food research and development

And much more!


At the Food AI Summit in September in Berkeley, we will explore how big CPGs can interweave AI into their product development and discuss lessons from the front lines. You can learn more about the Food AI Summit at our website, and make sure to use the coupon code PODCAST for 15% off tickets.

This episode is the audio from the very first session at SKS 2024, Lessons From the First Wave (And How to Prepare for The Next One).
The session included Chris Young (Combustion, ChefSteps, Modernist Cuisine), Scott Heimendinger (Sansaire, Modernist Cuisine and Cuisonic), and Kai Schaffner (Thermomix). The session was moderated by The Spoon's Michael Wolf.
It was a lively conversation about how we are seeing patterns of behavior reminiscent of the last wave, as well as what each of the speakers is excited about for the future.
We'll be talking about some of these same topics at our next event, the Food AI Summit. Use discount code PODCAST for 15% off tickets. 

SKS 2024 is in the books, so Carlos Rodela and Mike sit down and talk about the craziness of the past week, some of the products they checked out at the show, and some of the talks by our great lineup of speakers.
If you'd like to see a video version of this conversation with interspered photos from SKS, check it out on the Spoon later this week.