With outstanding food-tech companies like Sprig (on-demand healthy meals delivery), Instacart (same-day grocery delivery), Foodily (social recipe engine), Love with Food (all-natural snack delivery) and Feast (online cooking school) to name a few, San Francisco has proven to be the capital of food-tech in the past decade.
The good news is: “The trend is on the rise” as Krysia Zajonc, Local Food Labs, said.
Food is something everyone is confronted with almost on an hourly basis. As a Cornell University survey reveals people make more than 200 decisions on food and beverages everyday. Seeing that, food-tech comprises enormous business potential.
It’s no surprise that we had to close the event registration in less than a week, since we were fully booked.
Food-tech is simply a tasty topic.
Even Hollyfood, oh I mean of course, Hollywood agrees with us on that.
Food is one of my favorite parts of the day. Jennifer Lawrence
Thanks to the friendly support from Capital One 360® Café and awesome Lindsay Thornton, we gathered 250 food and tech inspired people in the very heart of San Francisco to share new trends in food-tech and to have a possibility to introduce KptnCook and two other brand-new food startups who are making a positive difference in the way people are buying, cooking, and consuming food:
KptnCook is launching its mobile App this August in the U.S. and is following in the footsteps of HotelTonight, that made hotel discovery instant and enjoyable. KptnCook solves the choice overload problem and adapts recipe discovery to the afterwork weeknight needs. KptnCook equips you with a portion of daily inspiration, a smart shopping list with real products and prices, as well as step-by-step pictures. With this 3-in-1 approach, KptnCook aims to build the habit of daily cooking!
TalkToChef (Cookstream.tv) is a San Francisco based startup, proclaimed to be the world’s first “culinary 911” platform for all desparate home cooks who were not successful with recent culinary experiments. TalkToChef provides you with the possibility to have a real-time chat with a chef any time you need it. You can take a look on my interview with Daniil, CEO of TalkToChef.
Found Eats is another startup from San Francisco providing customers with an online, social marketplace for artisanal food. Customers of Found Eats can follow friends and tastemakers to find amazing new foods made in small batches by artisans across the U.S. and be at the front of the line to take advantage before small producers sell out. The launch of the platform is highly awaited in October, but first samples are arriving everyday.
Panels with food-tech enthusiasts and experts provided various perspectives on the emerging food-tech space.
A big thank you goes out to our guest speakers who made the discussions extremely interesting:
Jean-Paul Bulow – food evangelist dedicated to fighting for good food as part of FullSpoon, Whole Foods Market and currently Blue Apron,
Chef Clare Molla – a Michelin restaurant trained Chef, published food stylist and recipe tester for SF Chronicle Food & Wine Section,
Krysia Zajonc – dedicated social entrepreneur, CEO of Local Food Lab, a platform for innovation and entrepreneurship in local food systems,
Nicole Szanto – the heart and soul of the Sprouts Cooking Club – organizing cooking camps in cooperation with various restaurant chefs for school children in San Francisco 
Ron Rodrigues – a native San Franciscan and a long-long time foodie supporting the new restaurant Kinfolk – “a great neighborhood restaurant with Michelin quality” currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter.
All in all event was full of networking, free drinks and many inspiring stories and has the potential to be organized again soon.
Pitch&Eat 