Kitchology
The Tech Council of Maryland visited Kitchology and talked to co-founders Dr. Alain Briançon and Iris Sherman about the company and life as a startup.
Tell us about Kitchology
Millions of people suffer from food allergies and sensitivities and because of that, they may feel like their meal options are limited and that their freedom to choose has been greatly reduced. We set out to change that. We started Kitchology in 2013 building an integrated cooking platform that utilizes machine learning and leverages a deep knowledge base to help users plan their meals with ingredients that they probably have on hand. We now provide targeted and personalized ingredient substitutions during recipe selection and help with purchasing through personalized shopping lists. We even take users step-by-step through the entire preparation and cooking process. We wanted to design something that would go beyond the pain point of food allergies and get valuable feedback from people preparing those meals.
How did the idea of Kitchology come to be?
The idea, naturally, was born in a kitchen. Like most parents [Iris explains], I struggled to find meals that everyone liked, but I also had to take into consideration that one of my sons has a serious food allergy. I not only had to find meals that everyone liked, but I also needed meals that everyone could safely eat. I started to wonder if there was a system that could help people make their own substitutions in their own recipes and if there was a way to modify nearly any recipe to make it safe to eat for almost anyone. Alain was on a mission to help solve the food waste problem, and we knew that we could combine our interests and implement a system that addressed both issues. We’re self-proclaimed serial entrepreneurs and we’ve worked for startups before, so the whole process wasn’t completely new to us.
How does the technology work?
We’ve built a patent pending cooking platform for people dealing with food allergies and special diets. At its core, Kitchology is a profiling engine that analyzes consumer activities and a substitution engine that makes product substitutions and recommendations when consumers plan meals and shop. We put the cooks in the center of our design. If they decide better, they eat better (along with the people they cook for). This requires a lot of work including developing a database with over 480,000 substitution rules and 80,000 culinary rules. Profiling is performed using explicit inputs, inference analysis, and collaborative filtering. Together, this allows for advanced matching of ingredients pertaining to the users’ preferences, enabling planning, cooking, and sharing. We have filed six patent applications on key elements, and we are rolling out this functionality in phases to ensure we are doing it right. We look at this platform as a cook-centric model platform that captures analytics that no one else captures. That could be quite disruptive to many.
Kitchology has garnered quite a few accolades over the past few years. Tell us about some of those.
Just this year we were named a finalist in the Tech.co and Consumer Technology Association Startup of the Year competition, Iris was named as one of the Upstart 100 Inventors, we were two of the Tech.co top Startup Founders over 40, we won the 2016 USA Creative Business Cup, and also a $100,000 deal at the Baltimore Piranha Tank Event. We were also a winner of the 16th Annual Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards, and we were voted as a Startup Maryland Fan Favorite two years in a row in 2014 and 2015.
What’s ahead for Kitchology?
We want to bring the technology forward so we can acquire more users and get more retail partners. The trick for us is to manage business and figure out what delivers the most value and then go for that. Our approach is to put in place a system to show partners what the world needs. Technology is not about the good ideas. It’s about coming up with good questions to get to that good idea.
How long have you been a member of the Tech Council and what have you gotten involved in?
We joined the Tech Council almost a year ago. Pam Lubel got us involved in the Venture Mentoring Program and it has been very impactful for us. We just can’t say enough about our mentors. They are incredible.
Where can people sign up to use Kitchology or learn more about the company?They can go to www.kitchology.com where they can use the service for free. They can also contact Alain at alain.briancon@kitchology.com or at 301.728.5512 or Iris at iris.sherman@kitchology.com or at 301.366.1901.