How To Introduce The World To AI-Assisted Cooking

The wonders of AI  and learning algorithms are often touted at length in the payments and commerce industry. With the transformative power of smart machines, the pitch goes, commerce can be faster, safer, smoother, more individualized and easier for everyone involved.

Still, there are some limits on what we think smart technology can do. The increasing population of people who own smart speakers, for example, have learned to make a wider variety of meals with an assist from Alexa or Google’s Assistant pulling up recipes in their kitchens. But there are very few people who expect that, past serving up the instructions, smart AI can help make anyone a better cook.

Well, at least there are very few people with that expectation today — the Danish team behind Ztove are hoping very much to change that perception in the future with a smart cook system designed to free the culinary genius hiding within each of us.

Ztove is the brainchild of Danish inventor and technologist Peter Favrholdt, who happened to also have a passion for cooking. The early days of designing the smart cooking system, he says, weren’t an attempt to make a commercial product. He was just looking for a way to prepare better food with less overall effort for his family. It is a story that comes up a lot in kitchen innovation — InstantPot has a similar origin story.

The system is essentially a three-part offering designed to allow better cooking by making it much, much easier to precisely control and maintain heating on a stovetop.  To make that happen, the Ztove system connects a Bluetooth pan, an induction cooktop, and an app to orchestrate the cooking process. There are a few options for the pan, according to Favrholdt, including two intelligent pans and a large saucepan — as well as three different cooktops. On the cooktop side, consumers can choose between two models that are meant to be built into the countertop and one that can stand apart.

“For home use, most people want built-in smart induction cooktops,” he wrote. “Ztove currently has two models — a “normal” 24 inches and a “wide” 31 inches model, both with four cooking zones but having different width and arrangement of the burners.”

Ztove, to date, is a relatively small operation — though it has come quite far since its early days of showing off its prototype at industry shows a mere three years ago. After winning an industry competition, according to Favrholdt, the firm was able to pick up a few grants in its home country and enroll in the the Odense Robotics Startup Hub — an accelerator program for early startups in the field of robotics. After an infusion of funds in a 2018 seed round, the firm was able to both find a manufacturer for its parts and open a small factory in Denmark to do final assembly on the units.

Its retail footprint is still relatively small and largely confined to its home nation, as it only started shipping goods directly to consumers earlier this year — and mostly to early backers.  More recently, Ztove started shipping its product through retail with Danish retailer Skousen and also through Denmark’s largest online retailer WhiteAway.

But the vision is bigger, and the goal is to bring the Ztove smart stove suite of good to the broader European market in the very near future.  The firm recently got some support in that regard, care of an unspecified investment from Odense, a Denmark-based company that specializes in robotics.

“Odense has a long tradition in robotics, especially the kind that collaborate closely with humans,” Favrholdt told The Spoon. “I see Ztove in this sense.”

New funds in hand, Ztove has relocated itself into a larger office space, upped its inventory and manufacturing plans and started bulking up its employee roster in anticipation of its upcoming planned European expansion.

“We’ve been able to hire new employees: marketing, engineering and software developers,” said Favrholdt.

The goal, he noted, is simple — bring the product and what it can do into more consumers’ homes, and let the improvements it can make to the cooking experience speak for themselves.  There are few consumers, he noted, that like fussing over a pan or to constantly be stirring to manually even out temperature. A pan that does its own thinking — and learns over time how to make a better crepe?  It is something Favrholdt thinks will ultimately sell itself when the option is presented.

 

Albertsons Doubles Down on Digital, Eyes Growth Despite Merger Setback

Albertsons

Under CEO Vivek Sankaran, Albertsons has invested heavily in digital transformation, customer engagement, and operational efficiency. Even after the halt of the proposed merger with Kroger, the company remained committed to expanding its digital capabilities, improving customer experiences and positioning itself for long-term growth.

“While we are disappointed the merger was terminated, we never stopped investing in our business and our customers,” Sankaran said Wednesday (Jan. 8) during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. “The last two years, we’ve driven customer growth through digital connections, enhancing the customer value proposition, modernizing technical capabilities, and our fully integrated mobile app.”

Sankaran said the mobile app personalizes customer experiences and streamline services, both in-store and online. By leveraging this technology, Albertsons has been able to maintain strong ties with its most loyal customers, elevating engagement and driving sales growth.

While third-quarter net sales increased 1.2%, to $18.77 billion, identical sales grew 2%, and digital sales rose 23%.

“We expect our digital business to grow substantially,” Chief Financial Officer Sharon McCollam told analysts.

Leveraging Data

Albertsons’ digital transformation centers on its ability to leverage customer data through four primary platforms, Sankaran said: eCommerce, loyalty programs, pharmacy, and mobile app integration. These platforms improve inventory management, create personalized shopping experiences and capture customer preferences to refine eCommerce and loyalty offerings. In April, Albertsons revamped its loyalty program, simplifying the process of earning and redeeming points for discounts. This change has driven higher engagement and increased spending, underscoring the effectiveness of targeted digital initiatives, he said.

“These investments will help us more deeply engage our most loyal customers and generate data,” Sankaran said. “Our fully integrated app will help us capture these opportunities. Pharmacy and health penetration is driven by the integration of our pharmacy offerings into our mobile app. Sincerely Health is a key catalyst in loyalty growth. And when customers enter our stores, we want them to connect with us digitally through real-time coupons and assist customers with their shopping lists. We have invested strategically to make technology the key enabler in all major future growth initiatives. We are engaging customers in our digital platforms and driving traffic to our stores.”

Albertsons’ investments in technology infrastructure, including modernizing its supply chain systems, introducing self-checkout options and streamlining operations to improve efficiency are part of a larger plan to save $1.5 billion over the next few years, a goal Sankaran is confident the company will achieve through continued innovation and cost-effective practices.

“We’ve always delivered productivity,” Sankaran said, “and that productivity engine continues. The nature of that is to find pennies everywhere and we’ve been doing that for two years.”

Data Gathering

In addition to its digital initiatives, Albertsons has expanded its retail media network, Sankaran said, an emerging revenue stream that allows the company to capitalize on the wealth of data it gathers from its digital platforms. This offers another layer of growth, as Albertsons can create more personalized and effective marketing solutions for its suppliers and partners.

Looking ahead, Sankaran is confident that Albertsons can accelerate its growth rates despite the challenges presented by competitors like Walmart. Even in a cautious consumer environment, the company is optimistic about capturing new customers and increasing wallet share with existing ones. By continuing to invest in digital platforms, loyalty programs and technology, Albertsons seeks to enhance its competitive edge.

“We must elevate our performance,” Sankaran said. “We have to accelerate our growth rates to compete with the very best. Customers are cautious and tend to shop more retailers. But 50 million households shopped with us in the past 12 months. Consumers are seeing value in what we offer at the prices we charge. We don’t have a macro problem, but there are some categories where we have to get sharper. Our philosophy has always been finding ways to add value … customers may not be able to get elsewhere.”