Machine learning has led to breakthroughs such as speech recognition and smart digital assistants such as Alexa. Then there’s the downside. Scammers are now using machine learning tools to mine social media data and target the executive organization chart with fraudulent emails that look and sound like they came from someone inside the company. And ...

Who says vending machines don’t offer enough choice? Chowbotics Inc. has built a robot that offers salads in 1,000 different varieties around-the-clock. The Silicon Valley-based startup is hoping that the salad-making machine will ignite interest in the field of food service robotics and revolutionize consumer eating habits. “There are lots of surveys which show that Millennials ...

Investors enjoy having plenty of options, and the food tech landscape certainly offers choices at the moment with approximately 3,000 companies vying for funding and customers, according to two prominent food tech investors. The explosion of new companies is fueling innovation in the field, but there are growing pains as well. “The ecosystem has changed so ...

While Silicon Valley may be the center of much of the world’s technology today, universities around the country still play a vital role in facilitating innovative research and nurturing future companies. This is especially true when it comes to agriculture, a field in which business schools and food science departments are incubating the next generation ...

The same technology dynamics that drive other industries are impacting how we grow, distribute and consume food as well. That was one of the key messages to emerge from this year’s FOOD IT: From Fork to Farm event in Mountain View, California. “It’s really fun to see the consistent themes that we see over and over – ...

The Campbell Soup Co., one of the longest-operating food brands in the U.S., maintains data on every load of tomatoes that comes into its processing plants, and has been collecting this information over the past five years. But the application of data science to farming and produce processing is fairly new, and Campbell is working ...

After decades of promises of autonomous machines, robotics is finally poised to transform life and business as we know it, from manufacturing to elder care. That’s the consensus of scientific researchers, entrepreneurs and corporate executives who gathered this week at the TechCrunch Robotics conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. If there was an overriding message from the ...

When the first Internet-connected refrigerator was introduced, it cost $20,000 and consumers greeted the new product more as an oddity than a practical device for the home. But now that price points have come down and home technologies are becoming standard, consumers are warming up quickly to what the digitized kitchen can provide. “Our research ...

A recent restaurant association study forecasts a shortage of 200,000 line cooks over the next 10 years. The average age of the American farmer is 65, but a younger, tech-savvy generation is coming. These are just two of the trends facing the food and agriculture industry as a new wave of innovation, involving Internet of Things, ...

After a lengthy career working for Westin and Starwood Hotels, Michiel Bakker (pictured) suddenly got a call from Google Inc. six years ago asking whether he might be interested in a conversation about its food program. “That piqued my interest,” said Bakker. “I’d never heard of their food program and how they were running it.” The ...