Some people worried the digital age would usher in a race to the bottom in food, rewarding those who can offer economies of scale and marketing budgets to push cheap, poor quality products through digital channels to mass markets. In fact, the opposite has been the case. The internet, and the smartphone in particular, has led to a sophisticated class of consumers more educated than ever.
Review websites such as Yelp and TopTable have made consumers more discerning, which in turn has created a boom of food tech startups in London. These enterprises are enabling the capital’s health-conscious food revolution and catering to the twin challenges of food in the digital era - convenience and quality. Successful delivery companies like Hello Fresh and Pact aim to do both. They offer organic and ethical produce delivered directly to your door, with instructions on how to prepare it. Both advertise the supply chain efficiencies they bring to bear, and champion their role in improving the lot of artisanal farmers and producers.
Focusing more on convenience, Just Eat and Deliveroo have quickly achieved impressive valuations by offering time-poor consumers a simple means to have food delivered. Both display the characteristics of recent tech unicorns with lean operations, clever use of GPS and a rating system that makes the consumer interface as simple as possible.
So far food tech has reduced friction in the existing system by offering easier ways to order and prepare food, or a simplified rating system that applies the wisdom of crowds to a sprawling urban restaurant ecosystem. The next step will be to apply technology to the creation of food itself.
Yet more educated consumers, encouraged by the digital era, now have to deal with sometimes conflicting desires. An ethical and carbon neutral supply chain on the one hand, along with a balanced diet that may include meat - hard to produce with a low carbon footprint. One solution is the creation of synthesized food, optimised for taste and nutrition and produced with a fraction of the carbon footprint associated with the existing agricultural supply chain.
While some developments may sound extreme, tech is not upending how we deal with food. What the best food startups do is empower customers, whether by providing them with the ability to purchase high quality and ethical produce, or simply giving them time back by making the takeaway process more streamlined. Loaf offers an interactive recipe book that has been expanded into a community where users offer tips and share photos. Whisk uses customers’ data to suggest meals to their tastes. Grubclub connects chefs to venues, allowing them to concentrate on offering a great experience.
With a critical mass of food entrepreneurs establishing themselves in London, we are now launching our own food technology working group. Our capital has the most diverse tech ecosystem in the world, so we are well-placed to help solve global challenges in food.
Russ Shaw is the founder of Tech London Advocates
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