Sevvy Case Study: Revolutionizing Cooking with Pulsed Electric Field Technology

What’s cooking? An overview of the food preparation technologies

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Sevvy's technology is revolutionary, but the food technology market is crowded and mature. To keep an overview and gain insight into the future competitiveness of their technology category, Sevvy needed a comprehensive understanding of competing technologies and their future trajectories. The challenge was to scout all potential alternatives, evaluate their performance, and forecast their improvement rates.

Sevvy faced several challenges:

• Market Competition: There are all sorts of cooking technologies available to consumers, but each has its own up and downsides. Getting all data in a comprehensive overview is normally very time-consuming.
• Future prospects: Understanding the future competitiveness of their technology category is hard for anyone, but crucial for decision-making.

How we worked with Sevvy:

The collaboration was structured into four key phases: scouting, evaluation, forecasting, and deep dives.

1. Identifying incumbent and emerging technologies:

We scouted and identified all competing cooking technologies, identifying a total of 27 distinct approaches.

2. Assessing the pros and cons of each solution:

Each identified technology was evaluated on 18 performance characteristics, including energy efficiency, cooking time, and cooking uniformity. These scores provided a quantifiable measure of each technology's effectiveness and served as a starting point for forecasting their technological improvement rates.

How do we score them:

We use a multi-agent LLM approach that uses patent data to enrich its knowledge with advanced prompting techniques to score each technology in comparison to the other on quantitative and qualitative criteria:

• Example: Energy Efficiency - A high score in energy efficiency indicates that the technology uses less energy to cook, making it cost-effective and environmentally friendly. For example, PEF scores 9 for energy efficiency, the LLM explains this score by “The direct application of energy to the food without heating a large space makes it highly energy-efficient.”, in comparison Gas Ovens score a 4 and the reason is “Slightly better than electric due to quicker heating but still limited by space heating requirements.”
  
  
• The other factors we evaluated the technologies on are: some text
  • Cooking time
  • Cooking uniformity
  • Versatility
  • Nutrient preservation
  • Safety
  • Size and portability
  • Environmental impact
  • Food quality and taste

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We narrowed down the original 27 technologies to the top 14 based on their highest average score. The top 3 in order were: Induction Cooktops, Pulsed Electric Field and Steam Ovens. 

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3. Forecasting:

From our collaboration with MIT, we uncovered that all technologies improve exponentially, but at drastically different rates. With our method, we can measure technology improvement rates based on patent data. By measuring improvement rates, we can predict technological disruption well in advance. The GetFocus thesis states that among competing technologies, the technology with the highest improvement rate will go on to dominate the market, no matter how nascent or “fresh” it is.

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In this step, we measured the technology improvement rates of the 14 technologies, including PEF. With the improvement rates measured for each technology, we were able to confirm that Sevvy is invested in one of the most promising winning technologies, that has a promising future. 

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Key evaluation results included:

• Sous vide cooking: Has the highest current improvement rate, although sous vide cooking is time-consuming and can arguably not be seen as a direct competitor to PEF.
• Among the direct competitors, PEF has the highest improvement rate with 16,5% YoY.
• Induction cooktops come in at a close second with an improvement rate of 16,2%.

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4. Deep Dives:

GetFocus examined the patent families related to the top technologies (Over 24,000 patent families were analyzed). By analyzing the breadth and depth of patents, we assessed the innovation landscape and identified key players and their strategic positions. This analysis provided Sevvy with a clearer picture of potential competitors and partners, as well as the robustness of each technology’s intellectual property landscape.

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Findings from Patent Research:

• Solid State RF Cooking: Our research identified several patent families owned by key competitors focused on the precise and controllable heating capabilities of solid-state RF technology. These patents highlighted significant advancements in energy efficiency and cooking speed, positioning this technology as a strong contender in the market.
• PEF Cooking: The patent landscape for PEF cooking revealed innovations in food cell heating techniques, which enhance cooking uniformity and energy efficiency. The patents also indicated ongoing research and development, showing that this technology will continue to improve and adapt to market needs.
• Sous Vide: Despite its traditional roots, sous vide technology showed an impressive improvement rate, backed by a healthy portfolio of inventions focused on user interface enhancements and precise temperature control. Also, integrations of sous-vide technology into electrical ovens were frequently mentioned. These patents reflect the technology's adaptability and ongoing innovation, making it a robust choice for both home and professional kitchens.

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