Dinesh Tadepalli has landed his shark.
Tadepalli, the CEO of Incredible Eats, appeared on Shark Tank last night to pitch his company and ended up getting four offers from various sharks before walking away with an offer from Lori Greiner for 15% of the company. Watch:
Regular Shark Tank watchers will know four offers is a lot, but it’s not all that surprising since Incredible Eats checks a lot of shark boxes: an easy-to-understand product, proven success, and mission-driven.
That easy to understand product is an edible cutlery that replaces disposable plastic spoons and forks. IncredibleEats’ edible spoons and sporks come in both sweet and savory versions — chocolate and vanilla for desserts, oregano chili and black pepper for soups and such — and in both large and small versions.
Here at The Spoon, we’re always excited to see food tech innovators on Shark Tank, but doubly so when they are alumni of our own startup pitch contest. Tadepalli pitched his idea for edible cutlerly at the Smart Kitchen Summit in 2019, winning the Future Food portion of the pitch session. It was still early days for the company, called Planeteer at the time, but the judges loved the idea of cutting down on plastic waste with an edible spoon or fork.
Tadepalli plans to use the money to hire more employees and ramp up production. He’ll need it. With what amounts to millions of dollars worth of free advertising in the form of a Shark Tank appearance and a consumer product expert like Greiner in his corner, there’s no doubt he’ll start selling lots of spoons and sporks through multiple channels very soon. And all that’s before they even get to food service — restaurants and cafeterias — which is likely be an even bigger opportunity than the consumer market.
If you’d like to watch Tadepalli’s award winning pitch at Smart Kitchen Summit 2019, click play below.
If you want to predict who could be the next Incredible Eats, see our post on this year’s finalists for the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase here.
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