The smart search tool that helps with unique dietary needs

Spoon Guru co-founder, Markus, is passionate about understanding and bringing to market digital technologies that can empower consumers and provide a meaningful service to people around the globe.

Launched in 2015 in London, UK, the Spoon Guru technology originated when CEO and Co-founder Markus Stripf’s wife Jeany developed multiple food allergies and struggled to shop for foods she could eat, due to lack of transparent information about products that catered to people with allergies and specific dietary preferences.Spoon Guru’s overarching ambition is to build the world’s leading dietary management solution. Based on a pioneering food classification platform, Spoon Guru is capable of supporting endless combinations of unique consumer dietary preference and needs.

Before co-founding Spoon Guru, Markus held a variety of executive positions in the music business. As a Warner Music Group MD, he was responsible for setting up and running Warner’s international direct to consumer business. Markus has more than 15 years digital experience and and was at the forefront of the music business’ transition into digital. Markus holds an MA in Composition and a BA in Commercial Music

What is the mission that Spoon Guru rests upon?

64% of the world’s population now actively exclude foodstuffs from their diet, yet finding suitable foods on supermarkets’ websites or in stores is a serious challenge. Our mission is to transform the world of Food Search – whether shoppers have a nut allergy, follow a vegan diet or simply prefer healthier options, Spoon Guru makes it easy for consumers to find the right foods for their individual food preferences, needs and tastes.

How is AI used by Spoon Guru?

At Spoon Guru, our main innovation is the fact that we combine machine learning algorithms with nutritional domain expertise to produce game changing consumer solutions for the food industry.  We use AI to produce proprietary food attributes by augmenting and enhancing data from a complex array of sources.

This allows us to provide highly scalable and accurate tech solutions to end consumers via our app and as business solutions to grocery retailers like Tesco, who then use our proprietary dietary tags – classifying a product or dish as nut free, lactose free, vegan, halal, low sugar, etc. – to make their products and recipes more searchable, discoverable and ‘shoppable’. The technology increases choice for their customers with specific dietary preferences and removes friction across the entire shopping process.

What does Spoon Guru do to find new users?

Our business model is B2B2C, in other words we license our technology to retailers and to food businesses who want to be able to respond to an unmet consumer need for more transparency and personalisation. This allows us to reach millions of people with our capabilities without having to spend marketing dollars on trying to acquire new users.

There’s an enormous amount of content on the internet produced by people with dietary restrictions – how does Spoon Guru tap into this?

We are part of this exciting community because we champion consumer empowerment. For example, our Spoon Guru app is a tool that is widely promoted within those communities and we cherish the ability to have a direct interface with the various groups that represent people with dietary restrictions, whether that’s vegans, the gluten-free community or people who are trying to make healthier choices.

What’s the long-term goal for Spoon Guru?

The frustration, confusion and lack of choice consumers have had to endure for so long is no longer necessary. Struggling is no longer acceptable, and food search and discovery must be simplified. Our role is to create technology solutions that overcome these barriers, and this will manifest in multiple forms, and across all channels.