(upbeat music) >> Man: From the Computer History Museum in the heart of SiliconValley, it's theCUBE! Covering Food IT.
Fork to farm.
Brought to you by Western Digital.
>> Welcome back everybody,Jeff Frick here with theCUBE.
We're in Mountain View, California at the Computer History Museum at Food IT, a really interesting conference about 350 people talking about the impacts of IT and technology in the agricultural space.
Everything from farming,through to how you shop, how you consume, andwhat happens to the waste that we all, unfortunately,throw away way too much.
We're excited to have our next guest, Mike Wolf, he's the creator and curator of The Spoon and the Smart Kitchen Summit.
Mike, welcome! >> Hey, thanks for having me, I'm excited! >> Absolutely! So first off, before we jump in, what do you think of the show here? >> It's great! It's very focused onagriculture and the food chain, which is crucial.
I focus a lot on the kitchen, when food gets to ourhomes, what we do with it, but this is where it all starts,so it's really important.
>> It's so much stuff going on-->> Yeah.
>> With the kitchen and food preparation with all these services that will-->> Yeah.
>> Either bring you your meal, or they'll bring youpre-portioned and uncooked meals.
So let's talk about a little bit, what is the Smart KitchenSummit, and what is The Spoon? >> So I focused on the smarthome a lot over my career.
I've written a book onhow to network your home, but about four or five years ago I noticed no one's really talkingabout how we're going to recreate the kitchen.
We've focused from adigital home perspective on the living room.
We saw the Netflixrevolution, over-the-top, we've seen huge market valuecreation in the living room.
But the kitchen was kind of left behind.
So I said, let's start a conversation, let's focus on how we canrecreate cooking in the kitchen.
And the Smart Kitchen Summitis entering it's third year, it's kind of becomethe premier event about how technology willreshape how we get food, bringing her home, how wecook it, and how we eat it.
>> Well it's funny though, because people would always say, you know, "I have the iPad onthe front of my fridge, "it'll tell me when it'stime to go get milk.
" So clearly, that's a pretty-->> Yeah.
>> Pretty low.
Not of real significant usein this case, I would imagine, there's a lot more to it than that.
>> Yeah, I think tablets and screens, and connecting to things with apps is like five percent of what's interesting.
If you look at the refrigerator,the internet refrigerator, I was just talking to an LG guy, they created the firstinternet refrigerator in 2000, and it was $20,000, and no one bought it, 'cause everyone said "Why would I want to "connect my refrigerator "to the internet?">> Right, right.
>> Well, I kind of thinkwe're at this point where now it becomes interesting.
We can maybe have the fridgeunderstand what our food is.
The fridge itself is kind of a.
The family bulletin board, so why not put a big screen on there if it's only a couple extra hundred dollars? >> Right.
>> And so I thinkthere's all sorts of ways in which we're gettingfood, like you said, new ways like Blue Apron,Cooking By Numbers services, new ways to cook food that are coming from the professional kitchen, like sous vide, high-precisioncooking technology that's democratized for technology, and things like automatedbeer brewing appliances.
I've always wanted a beer, brew beer, but my wife said "Noway, you're going to have "the smelly.
">> Right.
>> "Beer coming in my house.
" But I can use technology tomake this automated and easy? I'm one of those guysthat say "Let's do that.
" Then I can brag to my friends that I've actually made beer at home.
>> Right, right.
>> So.
>> Well, it's funny 'causewe saw this other thing in the kitchen not that long ago, right? Where everybody had to have a Wolf, and it was kind of this, you know, kind of professionalize your kitchen with all these really heavy-duty, you know.
>> Yeah.
>> Appliances, that really, most people probably don't need a Wolfso they can keep their flambe at the perfect temperature-- >> Yeah.
>> For extended periods of time.
>> Yeah.
>> So what are some of these things that are coming down the line that people haven't really thought of that you see as you study this phase? >> Well, so our researchshows that everyone, almost every age group is using more digital technology in the kitchen, and that's iPhones, smartphones, and tablets, because what they're doing is looking for what they'regoing to have for dinner.
So that starts the process ofdigitization in the kitchen, and so you've seen almostfor 15, into 17, years now services like Allrecipes and Yummly creating kind of thisdigital recipe services.
Now, we've also seen, reallyone of the most popular videos on the internet, BuzzFeed Tasty was the biggest video publisherfor many months this year, doing a couple billionviews a year, per month of these simple cooking videos.
So.
>> Right.
>> A lot of it is very much generational.
So millennials are grabbingon to these how-to-cook, you know, how-to-cook videos.
They're very interested in cooking, but the definition of cooking is changing, so what they're seeingis the worrying about cooking through online, but also maybe applying cooking technology in a new way.
Whether that's a verysimple cooking appliance, like a sous vide circulator,or maybe an air fryer, or if you want to go high-endsomething, like a June Oven.
So if you look forward, starting to add artificial intelligence,image recognition, and these type of technologiesto the cooking process could make things a loteasier and make things faster, and kind of give you cooking super powers that you may otherwise not have.
>> Right.
It's so interesting! It continues to be a trend over and over, that it's kind of thehollowing of the middle, right? You are either you don't ever cook, right?>> Yeah.
>> Everything is DoorDash,or however you get your.
The meal.
Or you kind of get tothese specialty items where you're way into it as a hobby and, I mean, those videos, the cooking videos-->> Yeah.
>> Are fascinating to me, thepopularity of those things.
>> Yeah.
>> But if you're kindof stuck in the middle, in the no-man's-land ofwhat we think of maybe as a traditional kitchen, that's probably not a great place to be.
>> Yeah, I think, you know, I'm that.
I'm a different archetype depending on the day of the week, right? I may be in the middle of the week, and I'm tired, I havekids, I don't want to cook.
Maybe something that automates my cooking maybe makes it easy with fooddelivery, it's fully cooked.
That would be a great idea! But maybe on the weekend, Iwant to become, like, a maker, and really, like I say,the only maker space in the home, right now, besidesthe garage, is the kitchen.
It's where I'm actuallyusing my hands to make stuff.
And I think that's greatnowadays when we're all spending so much time in front of screens, moving around ones andzeros with our mouses, I think.
Our research shows thatpeople want to cook, but the definition of cooking is changing.
So they may be assembling salads, or, and they're buying something from Costco and they're calling that cooking.
But I think if we can have technology that allows us to actuallymake stuff in the home, where it's fresh andtastes good, it's healthy, and we feel like we're rewarding a craft, I think there's a lot ofpeople who would want that.
>> That's so interesting, thatit's makers and craftsmanship, and you think back tokind of the traditional, beautiful cookbooks, right? That people would buy,maybe to actually use, maybe just 'cause theywant to be associated with that type of activity and those types of photographs and stuff.
So it's a very differentway to think about it, as a maker versus, you know,just got to get the food out for the kids, I'm tired ona Thursday night at 6 p.
M.
>> Yeah, sometimes it'sjust sustenance, right? That's why packaged food is great.
We like these protein bars.
They're expensive, but theyprovide everything in one in, like, a flat piece of food.
But at the same time, there'sa whole food movement.
Ever since John Mackey founded Whole Foods back in the early 80's, until the time that Amazon acquired it, thecustomer base has been growing.
What I think is interestingis we can potentially see the democratization ofbetter quality food.
As you see, the decentralizationof processed food, right? So over the past 100 to 200 years, all the technology around food has been towards centralized processing,and putting it into cans, making it.
But what happens is you takeall the nutritional value out of it.
>> Right.
>> But if you can start to think about bringing fresher food in the home, at a lower cost throughoptimized value chains, like what maybe Amazoncan do with Whole Foods.
Maybe that brings fresher food to the home at a lower cost, or it gets beyond the five to ten percent of the consumer, which is buying from Whole Foods.
>> Right.
>> It's a high-end type of retail channel, right? But I think everyone wants better food, so I think that's where I think technology could play a process.
>> Well, just specifically,what are you thoughts on the Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods, and the impact of that? Not only for those twocompanies, specifically, but as a broader impactwithin the industry? >> I am excited for what Amazon could do with this technology.
I live in Seattle, so I'vebeen watching they're, what I would call labexperiments with Amazon Go, which is this recreationof the grocery store, this idea of walk in, walk out, don't ever talk to the cashier,that's really fascinating.
Then you get Whole Foods, which is a pretty traditionalretailer, even though it's kind of created the organicfood movement in a lot of ways.
I think bringing Amazontechnology into theirs is really exciting, butI also think it validates the need for physical store fronts.
I think Amazon's been tryingto do online delivery, rolling trucks at your home for ten years.
They've been working onAmazon for us for ten years, and they haven't been really.
They haven't really reached massive scale.
So I think this validates the idea of you need physical store fronts.
Those physical store fronts may look very different in ten years, but the fact that Amazonis going to need that as a distribution point,as a point of presence in different neighborhoods,I think is fascinating.
>> Alright, well, Mikewe're almost out of time.
I'll give you the last word.
Where should people goto get more information about what you're up to? >> Yeah, go to TheSpoon.
Techif you want to see our writing, podcast, and the futureof food and cooking.
And if you want to come to our event, go to SmartKitchenSummit.
Com.
>> Alright, he's MikeWolf, I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching theCUBE from Food IT.
A lot of really interesting stuff.
Again, it's all the way from the farm, the germination of the seeds, all the way through to what you eat, how you eat, and what you do with the stuff you don't.
So thanks a lot Mike.
>> Yeah, thanks! >> Alright, I'm Jeff Frick,you're watching theCUBE.
We'll be right backafter this short break.
Thanks for watching.
(upbeat music).
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