After attempting to sell its tech to large food service companies, cooking automation startup Jasper has shifted to direct-to-consumer. In a recent conversation, CEO Gunnar Froh told TechCrunch about the pivot and gave a general update on the company, a member of this year's Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2022.

When Gunnar founded Jasper several years ago (as YPC Technologies) with human-robot interaction expert Camilo Perez Quintero, their motivation was primarily to save time on cooking. After developing robotics technologies to automate cooking processes, they opted for a business-to-business go-to-market approach, hoping to sell their platform to food suppliers and service vendors. But the company never gained the corporate traction Gunnar and Quintero hoped it would. 

The company pivoted a few months ago, rebranding to Jasper and adopting what Gunnar calls a "cooking as a service" model. Jasper now runs robotic kitchens in or next to residential high-rises, charging residents a subscription fee plus the cost of ingredients for meals.

"Having good meals at home is expensive or time consuming. Food delivery is highly inefficient -- restaurants or ghost kitchens prepare meals worth a few dollars and then pay someone to ship them across town. While most customers aren’t aware of this, about half of their dollars are spent on platform fees and delivery costs," Gunnar told TechCrunch. "By running robotic kitchens in or next to residential high-rises, Jasper eliminates labor and delivery inefficiencies to offer residents freshly prepared gourmet meals at the cost of home cooking. Jasper meals are plated on porcelain, which allows its clients to cut up to a third of their household waste."

Jasper's robotics tech platform, which assembles food according to a set menu. Image Credits: Jasper

Food automation startups are having a moment, as recently evidenced by Chipotle's investment in Miso Robotics' tortilla chip–making robot. It's no surprise -- labor shortages and increasingly costly ingredients make food-prepping robots an attractive proposition. In 2020, Karakuri landed $8.4 million for its automated canteen to make meals. Last May, Chef Robotics raised $7.7 million with the goal of helping automate certain aspects of food preparation. A few months later, salad chain Sweetgreen bought kitchen robotics startup Spyce, and this past summer Makeline secured $24 million for its robot that automatically assembles bowl lunches.