Silicon Valley startup companies enter the food industry one after another, how do you win?

Silicon ValleyA high-tech enterprise is famous as a place where innovative technology is born, but now, in Silicon Valley, startup companies entering the food industry are born one after another. Is the Silicon Valley-style management method also applicable in the food industry?

Disruptions: Silicon Valley's Next Stop: The Kitchen - NYTimes.com
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/disruptions-silicon-valleys-next-stop-the-kitchen/

Silicon Valley Food Startup Company "Chirp Farms"Currently,"Chirp bars"We are developing a main product that can supply high-quality protein called so. This protein source of Chirp bars is "insect".


Mr. Megan · Miller, co - founder and executive officer of Chirp Farms, has a background of digital product developers, said that the management method of Chirp Farms is the same as the startup company that develops digital products. "Chirp bars are feasts made from crickets, the taste is preeminent, there may be people say that it is unbelievable to eat insects, but I like crickets if it is powered and feet and wings can not be seen Mr. Miller who talks about it is that it is interested in cockroaches as a raw material of high protein.

Many of the enemies of the food industry that Silicon Valley food startup companies have to fight for is a huge long-established company that should be called "heavyweight" who has been selling food for many years. However, in the presence of long-established companies, many start-up companies believe that the food industry is not as sophisticated. Josh Tetrick, CEO of Hampton Creek, said, "The food industry system is strange and incompetent and completely innovated." In the eyes of residents of Silicon Valley who continue to make new technologies, the food industry is reflected as a field operated by old technology, and many of them think that there is sufficient victory even if they newly enter the competition I will.

Silicon Valley Food Startup Companies are trying to compete by techniques like high-tech companies. If there is a company that conducts market tests on snacks by letting programmers write code, there are also companies that use programmers to determine ingredients. These companies operate on a few teams and use the software to speed up product development. Mr. Miller said, "Food as well as softwarescalingWe must think from the point of view. It is a technique of making small quantities of products first, then repeating this quickly, eventually expanding the scale. " "It is our idea to be able to update the food as well, just as Apple updates the version of iOS, it is cheaper to update our food from version 1.0 to 2.0, as well It should be a product that will last longer, "said Tetric. They talk about food as an application to sell on the App Store.

ByCristiano Betta

However, Thomas Manuel, CEO of Nu-Tek food who works in the food industry for over 43 years and is aware of the difficulty in entering the food business, when Silicon Valley startups tried to change existing food or copy it, In the end, I think that it is only beaten up by a long-established giant company. "The food industry is different from other technology industries that can protect ideas by means of patents, even if we develop products with great ideas, if that begins to succeed, then other companies will copy it We can enter the competition. "

However, this year, it was issued by the United Nations (PDF file)reportAccording to 2050, the world population reaches 9 billion people, and the food is not on the earth enough to supply all of them, so the risk of food crisis is warned. "If the population increases at this pace, a protein shortage will occur, it can not be covered with meat, what we are doing is an attempt to disseminate new protein sources unfamiliar with Western culture" Mr. Miller.

ByDietmar Temps

Responding to the food crisis problem due to the population explosion is a situation without waiting, and here there may be a possibility that existing huge heavyweight enterprises in the food industry and start-up high-tech enterprises in Silicon Valley can coexist Hmm.