Nikita Makarov, CPO and Co-founder at FooDoo — an AI-based Grab & Go solution that helps to reduce food waste and make high-quality food affordable. He has been in IT digital product management for over 7 years and in food tech for 5 years.
What was your journey like to get where you are?
FooDoo tech company’s story begins from the moment when my business partner Kirill and I met together to work on a food tech product in Moscow. We shared one team and different experiences such as strategic planning, software product management, and hardware development. We’ve built a ready-to-eat delivery service from scratch to building operations right before the pandemic and decided to continue developing business together. We figured out that combining our expertise and experience would be beneficial for the project. Along with that, we do like to work together.
Before the pandemic, we’ve managed to install micro-stores in Moscow and analyzed their benefits. There was a great finding that our technology could reduce food waste by up to 50% among the results. We found out that food waste reduction is a concern for all big foodservice companies and a great starting point for improving and implementing technology we’ve invented earlier. Thus, we started to look at worldwide food markets, talk with experts in the EU and the USA, and test new hypotheses there. That’s how FooDoo was founded, and we found ourselves spread across the globe.
In a simpler phrase, what is your company exactly doing?
FooDoo is making Grab&Go sustainable, delicious, and close to people. FooDoo’s micro-stores can offer restaurant-quality food in just 2 minutes. Moreover, innovative software and hardware integrated into micro-stores help to track expiration dates, analyze users’ preferences and conduct sustainable production planning using this data. All this helps to reduce food waste in Grab & Go segment by up to 50%! It is very important considering that 35-45% of food is thrown away and it leads to enormous levels of CO2 emissions. We have also reduced the frequency of delivery to 1 time per day also reducing CO2 emissions.
What about Metaverse are you most excited for in the future?
Metaverse as a business platform has very few constraints. Compared to real-world business models, the metaverse is least affected by scarcity. Unlimited land, resources, and opportunity only capped by imagination. It could inspire innovation outside of metaverse and possibly become a foundation for new types of businesses built entirely in virtual space.
Why should we be paying attention to the Metaverse?
Being one step ahead of the competition, exploring new horizons, and taking up new challenges is an integral part of modern business, and metaverse is no exception. Just as Bitcoin was a fun experiment, primarily known in cryptography circles, before exploding into the massive market, it is today. Metaverse might be the new opportunity we have all been waiting for, expanding currently crowded and complex to enter markets into infinite creative and commercial spaces.
Great article! Looking forward to see foodtech services in metaverse!