Food Truck–Pub Tinder, Wine Trading, Self-Planters: Latest In Food Tech
Has the phrase "There's an app for that" gone to overkill heaven yet? If not, we're about to use it because there are now apps for things you probably haven't even thought about.
Millennials were the most talked-about wine drinkers last month, having consumed almost half of country's vino in 2015. This means that more of these young'uns are buying more wine and are more open to trying more wine. That's where Tradeagrape comes in. This app (available for Android and iPhone) show users people within a 100-mile radius who want to procure or trade a bottle of wine. Don't worry, you won't potentially meet up with a serial killer who also happens to be a wine nerd — you can send your unwanted bottles away or arrange for a meeting at a Tradeagrape pop-up event.
Out of love for the British pub, not all of which serve food, Richard Johnson created an app called the British Street Food Pub Takeover, which is reported to be a Tinder-style platform that lets food trucks and pubs find one another to form a business partnership where the food establishments cater outside the pub. A beautiful symbiosis if we've ever heard of one.
In other food-tech news, a Bay Area startup called Back to the Roots has created a self-watering cherry tomato plant that will help you achieve your indoor-gardening goals. The secret is in the plant pot, modeled after the ollas that have been used in North Africa for thousands of years, according to Co.Exist.
"The water only seeps out of the olla as the roots take up and dry out the soil," Nikhil Arora, co-founder of the company, told Co. Exist. "So it's automatically irrigating as the plants need water. You're not going to drown the roots or keep them too dry."
Arora also noted that the self-watering planter is a way to "connect people back to food" without using apps or microsensors.
In a tale as old as the Founders, a super-fast coffee chiller, the HyperChiller, was successfully funded after its Kickstarter campaign and is now available to the public. According to Mental Floss, the cooler can transform 12 ounces of hot coffee into the cold brew of your dreams in 90 seconds — perfect for those of us who only have a minute and a half to spare.