A Chicago startup's new smart kitchen scale uses Alexa to guide you through each step of the cooking process, and its weighing technology might just let you throw your measuring cups away for good.
Pepper, founded in 2016 under its previous name Clove Technologies, has developed a counter-top kitchen scale that works with Amazon Alexa to provide step-by-step cooking instructions, while also offering an HD video display to show precisely how to prepare your meal. It also features a weight sensor that measures ingredients as they're poured into a bowl, eliminating the need for other measuring devices.
But beyond acting as a smart cooking assistant, Pepper also works as a nutrition management tool as it syncs with an app to provide nutritional information on all the ingredients you're cooking with.
"Pepper is a personalized nutritionist and sous chef that you can have right on your counter," said Andrei Hogea, the startup's CEO and co-founder. Hogea founded Pepper with his brother Mihai, a former product designer for Williams-Sonoma.
Pepper, which is showcasing this week at CES in Las Vegas, believes its real value is in the nutrition information it can provide, allowing users to know exactly what they're putting in their body when they're cooking a meal. By measuring each ingredient and storing that information on Pepper's mobile app, it can help people dealing with chronic diseases, and others who have very specific dietary restrictions, know what they're putting in their body.
The startup plans to launch a Kickstarter for Pepper in February, where customers can pre-order the device. Pepper expects to retail for around $250 to $300, Andrei Hogea said. Pepper has been bootstrapped to date, but the company expects to raise outside capital soon to fund its manufacturing efforts.
Pepper plans to open its app up to food bloggers and nutritionists, who can upload recipes for people to try on their own. Down the road, the startup says it could potentially offer a subscription service that would connect Pepper users with nutritionists to create custom meal plans.
