Take the hassle out of finding the right food!

​​​We have heard that necessity is the mother of invention. This cannot be more true in the case of Spoon Guru. In a world where 64% of the world’s population now follows some form of exclusion diet having a dietary preference is the new normal. Whether you have an allergy or have a certain lifestyle choice, or if you follow a religious guide like halal or Kosher, whatever the reason, as soon as you decide to do that, you run into immediate problems.

Spoon Guru is company that uses a unique combination of AI, machine learning and nutritional expertise to generate the most advanced and accurate ingredient data. Using this data, supermarkets like Tesco can now let shoppers filter food products by their individual dietary requirements to take the hassle out of trying to find the right food.

Here’s the story of a startup that is revolutionising the food technology industry, which started with a genuine concern and passion to make people’s lives better. I had the pleasure to hear this story from the horse’s mouth! The co founder and co CEO Markus Stripf is just the man this brand needs to spread the great work happening at Spoon Guru.

1) How did it all begin? How did 3 people working in technology for 20 years come up with this idea to make finding food easy for the millions of people with specific food needs?

It started with the frustration that it is still difficult to find the right products. We got together and looked at the problem. We investigated how many people would need something like Spoon Guru, wrote the business plan, managed to raise awareness and that’s how we set up the company. We first launched an app 4 years ago which is still live in the States and in the UK as a free app. An app where people can scan barcodes on products to tells you if something is suitable for you or not, and to discover hundreds of recipes.

The app received a lot of attention when it came out. Within a year it got on the news, got recognised by BBC and Sky and then we got approached by one of the largest supermarket chain - Tesco. They wanted to see if they could licence our technology to help their customers find suitable foods. Which has now become our business model. We licence our technology to retailers around the world who want to provide a better shopping experience to their customers.

2) How many people are in your team? Do you have a PR/ marketing department to proactively advertise the Spoon Guru platform?

We’re 30 people now and we’ve grown quickly. We are a mix of technology and nutritional expertise. We have data scientists, developers, a number of inhouse nutritionists and also we have a medical advisory board. Very few marketing and very few commercial guys. We’re very much a Ai based technology company. A lot of people are struggling to find suitable foods. Everybody understands the problem because even if they are not directly affected, everyone knows somebody who falls under the exclusion diet category. We’re saying it’s not OK and we’re offering a solution. That’s why people are happy to hear our story and tell everyone about us.

3) Can you tell me a little bit more about your business model and why you choose to work that way?

We started as an app but it costs a lot of money to market an app and get a couple million people using it. When we got approached by Tesco, we realised this is a fantastic opportunity to reach millions and millions of customers and help them because basically that’s our mission. We’re building a consumer brand people are recognising - like ‘Intel inside’ - the business to business to customer (BBtoC) model. So when you go to the Tesco website and search for gluten free pasta or vegan sausages, all the search results that come back say powered by Spoon Guru. This allows us to build a really powerful brand that people trust and cherish and hopefully recognise.

It is very easy to get excited and creative as there are so many applications of this technology. We decided to choose retail to reach the most number of people in the quickest time but we would love to fix the problem across the entire food space. Including restaurants, tourism, hospitality and medicine. And the idea is to be not just able to intervene to prevent certain diseases like heart disease or obesity or diabetes - but finding out how do we manage better diets? Eating in general and making better choices - is a really exciting area and we’d love to get involved but sometimes you just have to prioritise and focus as a relatively smaller businesses.

4) Let’s talk about your mission to transform the world of food shopping & discovery - globally! What are the considerations you face as you are expanding globally?

There are the operational considerations such as where do you set up your office, and different legislations across the territories around allergen. Then there are different preferences in food and taste for examples - Asia is very different compared to the States. Things like dealing with international languages and the asian characters on the platform. Even after all this, we are still branching out, announcing partnerships with retailers across three continents and growing into every corner of the planet.

5) What are some of the challenges you've faced as you developed the platform?

When we started initially, we realised we wanted to do a big thing and we wanted to do it well. When you support people with allergies there is zero margin for error. People get hospitalised or worst. So that was one of the challenges - do we actually have faith in being able to build a technology we can recommend? And we managed to do that as we are being recognised by large corporations like Tesco - so we are doing something that they cannot do themselves and it’s something consumers can rely on and trust.

6) Finally, Who better to ask than you who has immersed themself in such an exciting space. What are the big food trends that are coming up? And do you have any favourite food brands?

• The biggest consumer expectation trend is personalisation. Everyone wants a highly tailored experience when they go shopping. My household wants to be healthy vegetarian, organic and low sugar - Why can’t we make the whole shopping experience easier?

• Ai and its applications in food technology is a massive trend happening right now.

• Diet selection - The vegan movement is going through the roof. One in 7 people in the UK is vegan. Now 42% of british households have reduced their meat intake. That’s a global trend and that’s not going to change - if anything, it’s going to get more pronounced.

• Impossible burger - They’re really popular in the States. They’re vegan and people can’t tell the difference - full of protein have zero cholesterol - really healthy and they taste fantastic.

• Retailers are making it easier for customers to make better choices. 70% of UK’s population wants to lead a healthier life. Manufacturers are now responding by reducing sugar, fat and salt proportions. It’s not a fad it’s huge - mainly driven by the younger generation - millennials and gen z - who want to know what they put in their bodies.

• Product innovation, food innovation, ‘free from’ all allergies, meat free, it’s just fantastic what you can get. Brands like Wicked from Tesco, the vegan dairy range from Sainsbury and the Impossible burger are some cool ones I’ve come across that I really enjoy.