23 New Food Technology Startups in 2016

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From restaurant logistics to domestic agriculture, these innovators in the food technology space are expanding and will be on the rise in 2016.

1. Freight Farms

Has there ever been a product quite like the brainchild of Freight Farms? A 40’ x 8’ x 9.5’ shipping container equipped with cutting-edge hydroponic technology, one container can grow up to 4500 crops including lettuce, kale, and basil.

Global traveler? You can monitor the progress of your shipping container farm from the cloud. Freight Farms offers analytic support and monitoring for clients hosted on the cloud. 

Containers are currently available for pre-sale. 

Freight farms containers can grow up to 4500 individual plants and can be monitored via the cloud.

2. Urban Vine Co

Urban farming and food production will play a ever increasing role in the future of food technology. The economics of the industry are also exploding: The global vertical farming niche of the urban farming market will be worth 3.88 billion dollars in 2020, according to projections.

Website Urban Vine Co, set to launch in late 2016, has two primary goals: First, to empower the average curious but inexperienced urban dweller to cultivate their own food. Second, to provide cutting-edge technologies that these new urban farmers will use. 

The result? A sustainable future via small scale urban agriculture and a more secure food system.

The vertical farming market will be worth nearly 4 billion USD in 2020. 

3. AgerPoint

A provider of "precision agricultural data", AgerPoint has developed several technologies including drones and other imaging devices that rove through agricultural plots and provide real time data such as leaf color analysis, size comparison, and blossom counts. 

To compliment the hardware innovation specializing in data recovery, AgerPoint has implemented agtech software based on GPS measurements for ultimate accuracy and insight for customers. 

AgerPoint has recently focused on drones for data capture. 

4. Consumer Physics 

The Israel-based company has developed technology that analyzes the molecular characteristics of the surrounding atmosphere and then uploads data to a smartphone. 

Applied to food products, the device, named SCiO, has the ability to quickly decipher nutritional content much more easily than traditional food nutritional content measurement methods. 

Consumer Physics has also seen impressive success on KickStarter, raising $ 2.7 million on the crowdfunding platform. Development kits for backers shipped on November 16. 

5. Chameleon Cold Brew

This Austin-based company specializes in cold pressed coffee, what some experts are calling one of the next big trends in the beverage industry. 

The difference between this type of coffee and traditional iced coffee is the brewing process: The coffee ground used to make cold brew is soaked for over 16 hours in freezing water before creating the coffee, as opposed the traditional minute long hot water brewing convention. 

The startup has raised nearly $5 million in venture capital and has secured lucrative partnership agreements with super stores such as Target. 

As opposed to traditional brewing, cold brewing involves a process taking at least 16 hours

6. Booster Ag-Tech

Buenos Aires ag-tech startup Booster believes that empowering small farms with big industry ag-tech analytics will be key to feeding the world in the ensuing decades.

They estimate that a 70% increase in agricultural productivity will be required by small farmers to feed the world population in 2050. 

Solution? Offer an extensive platform providing mobile updates with helpful weather forecasts, crop yield data, and other useful metrics to farmers who normally would never have access to such help. 

7. Wakati 

This Belgian based agtech startup has developed a solar-powered tent structure that produces a mini climate allowing for increased produce shelf life. 

The solar panel is extremely low power (3 w) in order to achieve maximum flexibility and  function perfectly in most climates. Wakati may be tapping a massive market: The United Nations has estimated as much as 45% of post-harvest produce spoils in some areas of the world without access to current large scale farming technology. 

Wakati utilizes power from a small solar panel to create a sterilized micro climate for preserving post harvest produce. 

8. Greenease 

A mobile app that connects consumers to restaurants, grocers, and cafes that buy from local and/or sustainable vendors, Greenease is promoting food sustainability one user at a time. 

Users can search for food service businesses based off of several qualities including free-range, grass-fed, gluten-free, and many more.

The Greenease app allows consumers to be more knowledgeable about where food businesses purchase their ingredients. 

9. Local Food Lab 

Local Food Lab is an academy that empowers entrepreneurs to launch food technology businesses. They offer workshops in major U.S. cities that cover broad topics such as food industry trends as well as more specific subjects such as business plan writing for food startups. 

Courses are affordable, starting at less than $500, and are supported with rave reviews and testimonials from successful food entrepreneurs. 

An academy that instructs entrepreneurs on how to launch food startups, Local Food hosts bootcamps in several major U.S. cities 

10. ChugaChaga

A pioneer in incorporating the superfood Chaga into tea products, ChugaChaga will be providing the "the world's first 100% WILD harvested chaga iced tea" to consumers in 2016. 

Chaga has been used medicinally in remote corners of the world for centuries, and has been used to treat cancers and tumors. It is referenced in Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's 1967 novel Cancer Ward.  Seriously, we did not make this up. 

Chaga is a mushroom extract with antioxidant and medicinal properties.

11. Givn Water

With offices in Chicago and Atlanta, GIVN Water aims to preserve the high quality brands developed by many mineral water companies while also giving back and promoting a sustainable future. 

A portion of the revenue of each bottle sold goes directly to providing adequate water for one person for one day in locations such as water depleted southern Sudan. Additionally, GIVN water has collaborated with massive sustainability and relief organizations such as UNICEF. 

Givn water is rich in nutritional content, bottled at the source, and beneficial to those in water depleted areas across the globe. 

12. Amp Your Good 

A online service that is aiming to "fix food drives", Amp your Good makes several improvements on the traditional food drive model. Current inefficiencies are that many food drives do not involve perishable foods and and are hyper-local, for example a school food drive. 

Amp Your Good solves food drive issues such as these. They focus on accepting both perishable and non perishable foods, attempt to cast a wider net for donations, and pay extra attention to the quality of donated goods, curating everything that is donated. 

13. Ipiit

A "food-ambassador" Ipiit is an app that allows users to access information about foods they are considering for purchase. This information includes categories such as Corn-Free, Wheat-Free, and Galactose-Free. 

What sets Ipiit apart from other similar apps is its additional suite of features. Users can scan bar codes, compare the qualitiesof different food sources that they have found, and provide feedback and ratings to improve the user experience for fellow Ipiit users. 

As a food ambassador, Ipiit helps users know more about the food they consider for purchase. 

14. Servy

This app's objective is to be the anti-Yelp. Why? Yelp has led to several secondary industries such as paid reviews and other unscrupulous activities that mislead consumers and Yelp users. 

The solution? Offer deals and rewards to private diners to offer private feedback to restaurants. The result is a more accurate and trusted platform that also allows restaurants to make strides toward improving their deficiencies. 

Servy is aiming to provide a superior experience to Yelp users. 

15. Forkyoo

This startup based out of NYC is putting a new spin on mealkit delivery. Instead of offering simply recipes and food ingredients for customers to cook with at home, Forkyoo sources the ingredients from local restaurants, and customers can recreate their favorite's restaurants dishes at home. 

The service has gained popularity so far with restaurants offering a wide array of ethnic cuisines. Because the ingredients are coordinated by the chefs of the participating restaurants themselves, the ingredients are identical to those being used to create restaurant dishes and are extremely high quality. 

Forkyoo is currently available only in limited locations. Check availability for Forkyoo food service in your area. 

Forkyoo is based out of NYC. 

16. Sourcery

Sourcery is a service that helps business cut down on accounts payable busy work, onboarding bills and relevant documents onto a digital portal for customers, many of them small, food-based businesses who often make high amounts of transactions. 

Customers can pay their invoices on their Sourcery account, so that they can "focus on their bottom line". On a day to day basis, Sourcery prevents small business killers such as double payments and missed invoices. 

Sourcery streamlines accounts payable for small food businesses. 

17. Tastemade *Staff Pick* 

A self-described "food and travel video network for a mobile generation", Tastemade  "has hand selected over 1,000 of the best Tastemakers from around the world in the food and travel categories. Our Tastemakers cover some of the most unique and diverse topics from vegan cooking to mouthwatering Southern BBQ dishes". 

Not quite the small humble startup like many on this list, Tastemade has raised 40.3 Million in venture capital, been featured in most major tech startup publications, and has 88 Million social media followers. You should know about them. 

18. Fooze

Fooze is looking to tackle late night food delivery in NYC with an interesting solution. Instead of offering tons of options and integrating countless menus, Fooze offers 3 dishes available each night. 

App users who have input their payment info and address can literally have a dish delivered to them with one button tap. Even better, Fooze narrow set of choices allow them to coordinate their delivery logistics: They guarantee less than 20 minute delivery time on all orders. 

Fooze offers a appealing yet simplistic app design for late night food delivery. 

19. Re-Nuble

With food waste being the second largest component in landfills and the largest global emitter of methane, startup Re-Nuble believes that hydroponics are the solution. A scalable type of soil-less farming, hydroponics offers year round viability and much needed efficiency.

Re-Nuble specializes in premium fertilizers for hydroponic products. With the expected growth of hydroponic systems, especially with trends such as small-scale urban farming, Re-Nuble may find themselves in the middle of an enviably exploding market. 

Re-Nuble provides premium fertilizer products for hydroponic, soil-less systems. 

20. Epic Bar

Epic Bar produces protein-based snack bars utilizing only 100% grass fed, gluten free, paleo friendly, and low sugar ingredients. Although the healthy protein snack bar market is packed with formidable competition, Epic Bar has an advantage that many competitors do not:

Its bars maintain a wholesome and filling flavor while incorporating healthy protein sources. Competing bars often lose heartiness or taste in the process of using exclusively high quality and extremely healthy ingredients. 12-Packs of bars retail for approximately $30 USD and can be found on the Epic Bar site as well as Amazon. 

EPIC bar is a 100% grass fed animal based protein bar.

21. Cartfresh

A Boston-based Instacart competitor, Cartfresh offers grocery delivery services. In contrast to competition, it does not apply as heavy of a markup for delivered groceries and does not guarantee 60-90 minute delivery such as services like Instacart. 

For shoppers looking to simply avoid the convenience of grocery shopping who are indifferent to delivery promptness, this is a less flashy and more reasonable food delivery service. 

Cartfresh is a cheaper alternative to on-demand services like Instacart. 

22. Beanitos

Like startups above focusing on healthier snacks, Beanitos is working on a similar product: chips. Their bean based chips and puffs are products examples of products causing concern for mega-food companies like Frito-Lay which own products like Cheetos, Doritos, and Ruffles. 

The hype is real too. Beanitos was featured on NBC's today show earlier this year. 

Healthy bean-based snacks by Beanitos could be trouble for large companies like Doritos.

23. Cabbige

According to their AngelList profile, Cabbige "delivers business intelligence solutions, including price optimization, digital record-keeping, product profitability analysis, and sales & channel analysis to small farms to help them strengthen their business with intuitive digital tools."

Cabbige is not only hoping to equalize the playing field between large and small agriculture by providing affordable agricultural technology solutions. On the grand scale, empowering local farmers with tools to maximize their productivity could be key to feeding the worlds future population. 

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