Localizing Distribution to Bring Good Food to The Masses, Amazon Launches a Meal Kit + More

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From a look inside at how robots are revolutionizing small-scale farming to David Chang launching delivery-only restaurant Ando, these are last week’s top food tech and innovation stories. Like what you read? Feast your eyes on the full newsletter here. Or better yet, sign up for Food+Tech Bytes and get the latest and greatest in food tech delivered to your inbox every week.

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1. How Mini Farm Robots Can Revolutionize Small-Scale Farming

Brian Halweil of Edible Manhattan explores how the miniaturization of farm machinery is helping small, diverse farms run more efficiently.

2. This Startup Modified Sugar to Make the Brain Happy With Less Calories – Epoch Times 

DouxMatok has engineered a new form of the sugar that offers the same sugar experience in up to half the calories.

3. Momofuku’s David Chang Launches Ando, A Delivery-only Restaurant – TechCrunch

Users can order food, which includes a Chicken Philly Cheesesteak and three exclusive Christina Tossi cookies, on the app.

5. OpenTable Challenger Reserve Realizes It’s Hard To Charge Diners, Shifts Focus To Restaurants – Forbes

Instead of charging users a $5 booking fee, Reserve for Restaurants charges restaurants a $99 monthly rate.

6. Amazon Sets the Table for Its Own Meal Kit Service – Fortune

It’s hoping to elbow out upstarts like Blue Apron by partnering with Tyson Foods to create a meal kit service through Amazon Fresh.

7. Amazon Will Sell Its Own Food Brands to Prime Members – Engadget

Its Happy Belly label would offer everything from cooking oil to tea, while its Wickedly Prime badge would focus on snacks.

8. How to Close the Agtech Adoption Gap – AgFunderNews

A new white paper, ‘Beyond the Hype: How Agricultural Technology Wins Customers and Creates Value’, offers six suggestions to agtech startups.

9. Bayer Said to Explore Bid for $40 Billion Seed Company Monsanto – Bloomberg Business

The deal that would create the world’s largest supplier of seeds and farm chemicals.

10. The Meaninglessness of ‘Healthy’ Food: Six Ways Labels Need to Change – Bloomberg

Many of the claims made on supermarket labels are under heightened scrutiny.

11. Localizing Distribution to Make Better Food Accessible to All

Farmigo founder Benzi Ronen on how re-engineering the grocery distribution model will benefit eaters and producers and propel the good food revolution.