Is Mast Brothers Full of “Bean-to-Bar” Bogus? Meetup Explores Convenience Food 2.0 + More

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From Tastemade raising $40M to an inside a look at the waste meal-kit startup Blue Apron produces, these are last week’s top food tech news and innovation stories.

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1. German Food Startups Meetup Explores Convenience Food 2.0

The event showcased three startups that are focused on healthier, tastier, more sustainable convenience food: Eating with the Chefs, KUKIMI and Pack2cook.

2. Millennial Food Innovators: KinSol Brings Dehydrators to Farmers in Developing Countries

KinSol’s solar-powered dehydrator helps farmers in Uganda, Ghana, Nepal, Brazil and more produce more food and increase household income.

3. 10 Steps to Getting Into Whole Foods: #8 Start Selling!

Bandar Foods shares strategy ideas for getting your product on store shelves, from pitch tips to tricks for breaking into the Whole Foods behemoth.

4. How Mast Brothers Fooled The World Into Paying $10 A Bar for Crappy Hipster Chocolate – Quartz

Is the Brooklyn-based company full of bean-to-bar bogus? Chocolate experts think so.

5. These Are The Trashy Consequences Of Blue Apron Delivery – BuzzFeed News

Blue Apron and its fellow meal-in-a-box services promise to disrupt dinnertime. But what are they doing to the environment?

6. Watch Out, Chipotle — A New Kind of Restaurant Is Coming For Your Business – Business Insider

Fast Casual 2.0 is coming.

7. Blue River Tech Raises $17m Series B to Build 4th Generation Robot for Production Ag – AgFunderNews

Pontifax Global Food and Agriculture Technology Fund led the round. It will use the funding to hire more engineers and build a new generation of robot for multiple crops.

8. With $40 Million in Fresh Funding, Tastemade Is Building a Digital Food Dynasty – Entrepreneur

Goldman Sachs led the round with participation from Scripps Network Interactive.