🍔 Crazy new foods trends

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that food is a darn good thing.

So it comes as welcome news that recent weeks have seen a smorgasbord of food developments…

… Including some delicious new tech:

• Bear Robotics announced a partnership with the NBA’s Houston Rockets to serve drinks and snacks to fans with the Servi bot (how creative)
• Amazon plans to introduce pay-with-your-palm service at a Whole Foods in Seattle
• Domino’s recently announced driverless pizza deliveries in Houston through a partnership with Nuro
• Hazel Technologies raised $70m to keep harvested produce fresh for 3x longer with tiny, antifungal vapor-releasing packets for commercial food boxes

Startups around the world are kneading dough, too

The pandemic has offered the perfect recipe for scaling food platforms to raise money and expand operations:

• Belgium’s Deliverect raised $65m for its ordering platform that serviced 30m orders in 2020, up ~750% YoY
• India’s Swiggy raised $800m at a $5B valuation for its delivery platform
• Spain’s Glovo grabbed $528m to help offer its 10m customers deliveries in 10-15 minutes
• Norway’s Kolonial bagged $265m and now controls ~70% of the country’s online grocery delivery market

But sometimes ‘food’ doesn’t really mean food

• Reese’s just announced a partnership with HipDot Cosmetics for a peanut butter cup-inspired makeup line.
• Busch Beer is offering $20k to fetch a new “chief tasting officer” for its Dog Brew bone broth “beer” (for dogs, to be clear) that quickly sold out last year.
• Pepsi is bringing Pepsi Blue back to shelves this summer.

Like it or not, we’re into weird drinks at The Hustle, so we’ll be giving this last one a try.

• Big bucks: In the aftermath of the failed European Super League experiment, Spotify founder Daniel Ek is making a bid to own the Arsenal football club.
• Streaming beef: Roku users may lose access to YouTube TV after it rejected the Google-owned property’s request to manipulate search results.
• Lyft off: Rideshare firm Lyft sells its self-driving unit to Toyota for $550m.
• Secure the deal: Private equity firm Thoma Bravo will buy cyber firm Proofpoint (email security) for $12.3B and take it private. It’s the largest software PE deal ever.

Let us introduce you to Blue Yonder, one of the world’s largest supply-chain software companies.

Last week, Japanese electronics maker Panasonic acquired the software firm for $7.1B, per Supply Chain Dive.

At this point, you’re probably wondering:

WTF is ‘supply-chain software’?

Here’s an example:

• Panasonic manufactures a widget
• Blue Yonder installs sensors and tracking technology in the warehouse floor that manufacturer the widget and logistics department that ships it
• Real-time widget data on inventory, delivery, and sorting status all flow through a central Blue Yonder “control tower” to help improve operational efficiency

As highlighted in the deal’s presentation, Blue Yonder’s technology is used by 3k customers in 76 countries and includes 65 of the world’s largest retailers like Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, and Coca-Cola.

The pandemic has strained supply chains…

… and Blue Yonder’s software provides a way to manage more frequent planning cycles and a massive shift to ecommerce.

In business jargon, the ~$30B Panasonic Corp. — which manufactures everything from EV car batteries to consumer TVs — says the deal “will connect the digital and physical layers.”

This is actually the 2nd deal in as many months by a giant Japanese manufacturer acquiring a software firm: Hitachi recently plunked down $9.6B for Silicon Valley-based GlobalLogic.

Today, Apple employs 95k people in America.

But by 2026, the iPhone maker has promised to add 20k more jobs on US soil, per The Wall Street Journal.

At least 3k of those jobs will be in Raleigh, North Carolina — and to accommodate its new employees, Apple is dropping $1B+ to build its first East Coast campus.

The new office will focus on software and AI talent

North Carolina is home to the Research Triangle Park, a region that includes 3 top-tier (you guessed it) research universities:

• North Carolina State University (Raleigh)
• Duke University (Durham)
• University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)

The $2T tech giant joins other notables names in the area, including IBM, Red Hat Software, Cisco Systems, and Epic Games (the maker of Fortnite who is suing Apple for its App Store policies), according to the WSJ.

While Apple’s HQ remains in California…

… anchored by its $5B spaceship-shaped Apple Park, the company has been planting its flag around the country.

Apple’s satellite offices place it in a prime position to poach talent in many industries, per Above Avalon:

• Seattle (Amazon)
• San Diego (chipmaker Qualcomm)
• Culver City (Hollywood talent)
• Pittsburgh (autonomous systems)
• New York (media and publishing)
• Boston (robotics)

A new Apple office looks great for the local economy, but competition should be quaking.