There is always a wrestling match that ensues when it’s time to get out the plastic wrap. It’s wrap against human as the plastic folds over, clings to itself and taunts its human challenger: “Go ahead punk! I dare you to just try to rip me!” Well, it would seem that Jimbox Foodwrap is up for the challenge. The adjustable end points and feed-thru tension make it easy to pull through and cut off the desired amount with the closing of the lid. While this might make ripping easier, it’s questionable if it will prevent the folding over issue. For £16, backers get one product with an expected delivery of April 2015.
Tag: Food
Coolers are the bulkiest part of any picnic and most only serve to keep food cool. The KruzieCooler has different uses to make eating outdoors even easier. This product boasts different compartments, a bottle opener, bungee cords for convenient toting and large rubber wheels to take the terrain better. While the KruzieCooler does improve upon the traditional cooler design, it unfortunately lacks the pizzazz of the Coolest which has a USB port, lights, and blender attachment on top of the features it shares with Kruzie. KruzieCooler will cost backers $159 and hopes to raise $120,000 on Kickstarter.
The Premise. Eating healthily is difficult. Going out for meals is especially hard because portions have gotten out of control in the US. Counting calories and pouring over nutrition books is hard to do and completely inconvenient for those on the go. Food scales are a nice solution, but can really only be used at home.
The Product. Wellscale is a small portable smart scale that lets you weight what you’re eating discretely. It connects to an iOS and Android friendly app that allows you to track your foods, weight and general nutrition. The app comes with a built-in advisor that can look at your food intake and make suggestions to cut down on certain items. The scale itself is so small that it can fit into your pocket.
The Pitch. The campaign video features the lovely Portuguese creator talking about his product. He shows how the scale can sit below a plate and measure each food item’s nutrition during a meal. A kitten also shows up, eating food off of the scale so that the viewer can see how sensitive the scale is as it changes while the cat eats. Wellscale hopes to raise $37,000 in a month-long Indiegogo campaign.
The Perks. Early healthy birds can get the Wellscale for $65 or $85 at a regular price. Tiers climb from there offering bundles of the product all the way up to $7,650. All tiers have an estimated delivery date of December 2014.
The Potential. Nutrition and health is always on our minds. Whether we do anything about it depends a lot on convenience and connectivity. Wellscale is quite similar to the Smart Food Scale that had a successful Kickstarter campaign a year ago. While the two are comparable in capabilities, the Wellscale app is also Android friendly which the Smart Food Scale lacked. In addition, it’s much smaller and portable which really sets it apart. Again, convenience is hard to pass up and its portability gives it a great chance of success on the market.
Ribs, chicken wings, shrimp cocktail, and olives are all great foods to serve at parties. The only problem is that all leave behind inedible waste. SnacDaddy is a food platter perfect for these types of foods. It has slots to separate foods such as ribs, but that also won’t get in the way for other goods. A hole in the middle can hold sauce and also accesses the bottom layer that holds waste. Simply drop your bones, shrimp tails and pits into the hole so that they’re out of sight until clean up time. SnacDaddy costs backers $20 for delivery in July 2014. This platter hopes to gather $9,000 on Indiegogo.
In science fiction, the idea of a handheld analyzer that can report on details of an environment, creature, or substance have been around for decades. SCiO, a pocket spectrometer and molecular sensor that works with the cloud, is bringing those ideas to life. With a flexible development environment, SCiO ships with apps for scanning food, medicine, and plants, but more functions may arise over time. In terms of food scanning, the SCiO is reminiscent of what was promised by the TellSpec, though hopefully this project is more on the level, without the tricky editing and the production backpedaling. SCiO is available for $179 and will ship out by the end of the year.
The Premise. Children or recovering medical patients tend to stick with smoother foods, like purees and sauces. The only problem with eating these is that they can be really messy and are definitely not portable. Food manufacturers offer foods that come in these pouches, but are always disposable. This can result in a solution that’s less ecologically friendly and offers less choice.
The Product. The Sili Squeeze is a silicone food pouch designed for smoother foods. The removable lid makes it easy to wash the pouch and dispense food into it. The spout has a cover on it to prevent messes. This product comes in several different colors and one other variation called the Sili Squeeze with Eeze which is a more free-flowing version.
The Pitch. For a relatively wet product, the campaign video is a little dry, but does go into some cool details about how the Sili Squeeze is (accidentally) great for medical patients and special needs children. The campaign also shows prototypes and pictures of some adorable kids using the products. Sili Squeeze is aiming to raise $25,000 in a 30-day Kickstarter campaign.
The Perks. The 2 oz. Sili Squeeze goes for an early price of $15. A 4 oz. version costs $19 and a 6 oz. only $20. Other tiers offer different combination packs of these pouches with an estimated delivery date of July 2014. Reward tiers go up to $100.
The Potential. The pouch is perhaps the least appreciated food receptacle. As mentioned in the campaign video, food manufacturers offer disposable pouches, but these can be quite expensive. Similar products, like the Squooshi Reusable Food Pouch offer food pouches in the same way, but are geared only towards children and customer reviews show that they’re hard to clean. The Sili Squeeze offers a unique and portable way to eat pureed foods over and over again. Its added benefit of accessibility to toddlers, hospital patients and special needs children makes it all the more versatile.
The Premise. For many people, pets are not simply animals taking up space in their houses while furring everything up, but are really members of the family. Leaving them for a week-long vacation or even a day at work can be sad. Unlike humans, pets can’t simply pick up the phone to talk which leaves the question: how do you interact with your pets when you’re away?
The Product. Kittyo is a device that lets you play with your cat when you’re not at home. This compact product dispenses treats, comes with a laser for your cat to play with, and has a speaker and camera so that you can watch and talk to your cat. Using wi-fi and an iOS or Android app, pet owners can interact with their pets in real time to control the laser and treat dispenser. Kittyo is roughly the size of a coffee grinder and comes with a shelf mount to keep it from getting knocked over by hungry kitties.
The Pitch. The video shows a bunch of cat people talking about how excited they are for Kittyo. It also shows the device in action, featuring a woman on her phone watching her cat chase around the laser that she’s controlling, pretty cool. The creators talk about how Kittyo is great for engaging fat cats that could use some exercise, which makes sense. The rest of the campaign shows the specs of the dispenser along with cute, irresistible kitten photos. Kittyo needs has a $30,000 goal for its 32-day Kickstarter campaign.
The Perks. Kittyo’s creators offer two early-bird specials of $99 and $119. The Kickstarter standard price of $139 is $50 less than the expected retail price of Kittyo. All tiers have an estimated delivery date of November 2014.
The Potential. Cat people will do just about anything to interact with their pets while they’re away. Recently the market has been flooded with these types of devices that use wi-fi to interact with cats. PetPal and iCPooch also let users talk to and watch their cats while away. Some focus simply on the dispensing of treats or food, like PETLY and Pintofeed. Kittyo is the first of these devices that have the added laser option which actually lets people play with their cats when they’re out of the house which is fairly cool. The price of Kittyo is also on the lower end of these products, which makes it that much more attractive. All in all, the Kittyo’s awesomeness will have backers thinking the product is the cat’s meow.
The Premise. Having pets is wonderful, but it’s necessary to find someone to care for them when you’re out of town. It’s tough to travel or even go out for the day when you have to worry about feeding your dog or cat.
The Product. PetPal is a pet feeding system that holds up to 15 pounds of food. Using Wi-Fi and an app, pet owners can dispense food into the bowl without actually being in the house. A button on the top dispenses food too so the bowl can also be used when you’re home. The PetPal has a camera and motion detectors so that you can see and take photos or videos of when your pet eats. A microphone and speaker lets you hear your pet and talk to it as well.
The Pitch. Ken Powers, the creator, talks about his love of animals and pets in the video. He wanted to make a product that would not only feed his pets, but that would also allow him to see and talk to them when he’s away. In the rest of the campaign he discusses how he wanted to build his product like his durable toaster that has lasted him for 40 years. PetPal hopes to raise $150,000 in its 45-day Kickstarter campaign.
The Perks. PetPal’s reward tiers offer three early bird specials at $350, $360 and $360. The system goes for regular price of $395. All tiers have estimated delivery dates of August 2014.
The Potential. There have been a lot of pet care products looking for crowdfunding recently. PETLY is an automatic pet feeder that works off of a schedule to deliver food at regular times. Pintofeed also has Wi-Fi capabilities so that you can feed your animal from a smartphone, computer or tablet. Most similar to the PetPal, the iCPooch lets dog owners video chat/bark with their pets and even deliver them a treat it they’d like. PetPal is by far the most sophisticated of these. It delivers food either manually or automatically and the microphone and camera are a great way to keep an eye on things at home. The price, however, is quite steep compared to similar products being developed. Other than the expense, PetPal looks like a perfect way to feed and keep an eye on pets when out of town.
As easy as people say it is to count calories and eat less junk food, combining those two goals can prove to be a bigger challenge. Boxed, frozen, canned, and fast food options have readily available nutritional data. But cooking at home, preparing meals out of fresher, healthier ingredients, how exactly does one figure out a serving size?
Extending the idea of a smart scale for humans, SITU is a smart food scale that can provide nutritional data for any bit of food. SITU weighs food and then transmits that information to an iPad. From there, users can track calorie intake, sugar, sodium, or any other ingredient. That information can be used and applied to analytics that will guide users through whatever their goal is: shedding pounds, adding weight, managing diabetes, and more. It’s an idea that others have tried already, including the eerily similar Smart Food Scale by Chef Sleeve, but SITU hopes that its complete nutritional data and ease of use will help it stand out.
While there’s plenty of cause to be skeptical about the scale’s accuracy, he campaign video shares the personal weight loss story of the inventor who used to count calories by hand and managed to lose 100 pounds, lending credence to the effectiveness of a smart scale like SITU. Backers who pledge £50 plus £12 for shipping outside the UK can get a SITU in November and start losing pounds in time for an easier New Year’s resolution.
The Premise. Who doesn’t get excited at the revolutions being made possible every day by advancements in the field of 3D printing? And who doesn’t want a personal robo-chef to crank out elegantly designed plates with no effort whatsoever? Here’s what happens when these two exciting ideas are combined.
The Product. Designed to make healthy eating easier and revolutionize the home cooking process once more, the pun-tastic Foodini is a consumer-grade 3D printer that is meant to bring out the best in fresh ingredients. Using a series of reusable capsules that food can be mashed or pureed into, and then after selecting a recipe and design, the Foodini goes to work. For those worried about how to operate a 3D printer, the Foodini has a touch screen panel on the front that connects to its own site where templates can be downloaded and used, recipes can be bookmarked, and even uploaded and shared. From there, Foodini says what to put in when and handles the rest.
The Pitch. Co-founder of Natural Machines Lynette Kucsma introduces us to the Foodini and initially shows that it can make something that looks like farmer’s market baby food, but as the video goes on, and through the campaign photos, it’s quickly mouthwatering just what can be made with this printer. Anxieties about learning a new kitchen tool are also laid to rest with simple diagrams outlining how easy it is to operate a Foodini. Natural Machines needs to raise $100,000 to put together the community site and begin mass production.
The Perks. Unsurprisingly, a Foodini will set backers back $999, $300 off the retail price, and can start impressing everybody else by January of 2015. Those who don’t want to wait can pay extra for an earlier production run, the earliest being available October 2014 for backers who pledge $2,000.
The Potential. It’s impossible not to be excited about the idea of having a 3D food printer in the home. While it’s still a ways off from replicating an Irish breakfast or even downloading pizza rolls, Foodini takes all the convenience of eating out of cans and boxes and brings it to fresh, healthy ingredients. The price point is enticingly low, especially considering that a microwave cost over $10,000 in today’s dollars when they hit the market. It may seem extravagant now, but this is a clear sign of a new era for stomachs everywhere.