5 Food Tech Innovations to Look For at the ‘Bite’ Conference in Silicon Valley

Sugar creations by 3D Systems, which will demo its technology at Bite. Photo: 3D Systems.

Bite, a new conference about the intersection of food and technology, will be held in Silicon Valley June 5-7. We’re expecting quite a show, considering that speakers from both sides of the GMO debate will be in attendance. Yahoo Food will be on hand to document the highlights.

Tickets are still available to the event; they range from $149 to $499 depending on your presences. An impressive slate of chefs are expected to attend, including José Andrés, Michael Chiarello, Roy Choi, Dominique Crenn, Michael Mina, and Michael Voltaggio. Yahoo Food’s Editor in Chief, Kerry Diamond, will also make an appearance.

We’re especially pumped for all the cool gadgets that will be demo’d over the course of the festival’s three days. Here are the ones we’re most excited to see.

Photo: Nomiku

WiFi Nomiku

The makers of the first immersion circulator designed for the home cook, Nomiku, will be in attendance to demo their creation. It can be attached to a normal pot and used to circulate water heated to a precise, consistent temperature. It’s great for perfect sous vide cooking, although it’s a fraction of the cost of a traditional sous vide machine at $199. And it gets tech-ier: You can control Nomiku from an app on your phone, which also features tons of recipes with recommended cooking times and temperatures.

“We’re so honored and thrilled to be part of Bite Silicon Valley; it’s the perfect fit for us as a tech company, enabling home cooks and pro chefs alike to make amazing food,” said Patrick Wong, Nomiku’s marketing manager.

Photo: Lynx

Lynx SmartGrill

Imagine a grill that you can talk to. That’s the Lynx SmartGrills, which feature a voice-activated smart cooking platform that cooks food automatically based on your preferences. This grill asks what you’re making and how you’re making it, turns up the heat itself, and lets you know when to flip your burger. Accuracy doesn’t come cheap — Lynx’s line of smart grills ranges from $6,000 to $9,500 — but for some that’s a small price to pay for grilling your steak a perfect medium-rare every time. “Our team cannot wait to demo SmartGrill at the show,” Lynx CEO Jim Buch told us.

Like beer? Photo: PicoBrew

PicoBrew Zymatic

If you’re interested in craft beer but are a bit queasy about brewing it yourself, PicoBrew Zymatic hopes to ease your worries. The contraption is an automatic, all-grain brewing appliance that takes care of the technical side of things — from fermenting with yeast to making sure everything is at the right temperature — so you’re free to focus on flavor. The $1,999 machine also connects to the Internet, so it can be controlled from your PicoBrew app or computer. PicoBrew CEO Dr. Bill Mitchell will be on hand at Bite to demo the appliance, and we hope a few beers will be on the house.

3D printing is headed to your kitchen. Photo: 3D Systems

3D Systems ChefJet Pro
ChefJet Pro has the distinction of being the first ever professional-grade culinary 3D printer, and its maker, 3D Systems, will be on hand to demonstrate its abilities. The machine can whip up an astounding array of desserts, which according to its website include “sculptural, ornate cake and cupcake toppers, bespoke candies and mints, delicate latticework over which a cocktail is poured, logo sugar cubes to sweeten coffee at a corporate event, just to name a few. The capabilities are limitless.” Lucky for you, 3D Systems will be handing out intricate geometric candies during the conferences Grand Tasting.

José Andrés poses with a solar-powered stove in Haiti. Photo courtesy of José Andrés 

Solar Stoves

Celebrity chef José Andrés serves as culinary ambassador to the United Nations’ Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, so it makes sense that he’s turned his attention to solar energy. He’ll be building an interactive outdoor pop-up of clean cookstove called Sunny Day Café at the entrance of the conference. “The mission of the BITE Conference is very simple: to use food and technology to figure out how we are going to feed 9 billion people by 2050. And to do that, we’re bringing talented individuals from both of these industries together, with varying opinions that believe in different solutions,” Andrés told Yahoo Food. “For me, I am so excited to share with the people of Silicon Valley the power of clean cookstoves through Sunny Day Café, where we will be cooking tacos by harnessing the power of the sun and other smart clean fuel solutions.”

More food tech stories:

How a solar grill could change the world

The ‘SmartPlate’ will take guesswork out of calorie counting

The market may be souring on Keurig’s coffee and environmental impact

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