How Virtual Reality May Revolutionize The Food & Beverage Industry

Google Cardboard branded VR headsets

As the expression goes, virtual reality, or VR, has been around the block a couple of times in the last twenty years or so, making a comeback early this decade thanks largely to the gaming industry.

While VR has been defined by gaming in the past, that may change in the future. According to Prateek Jose writing in SnapMunk late last year, “Despite being perceived mostly as an accessory to gaming consoles, virtual reality is an extremely versatile piece of technology. Some early adopters in different industries have shown that it can be used for more than just a novel gaming experience. These implementations may just be what it takes to carry VR into the next stage of its development.”

Early adopters in the food and beverage space are indicative of the kinds of consumer driven VR applications one may see in the future.

Brooke Linville, CEO of IonVR

Accoding to Brooke Linville, CEO of VR headset startup IonVR interviewed at her company's exhibit at CES 2016, “A lot of people talk about games, entertainment, you know the mass part of most cases, but virtual reality is far beyond those experiences. What we are talking about is in the enterprise space and even in the consumer space. How this can apply to retail, how it’s going to apply to food manufacturers, beverage makers, all kinds of interesting applications…We had one guy talk to us about a jerky company who used a virtual reality experience to help sell most of his jerky…he went to a trade show and because virtual reality is such a cool exciting space, he landed a huge food contract because of the experience he offered at the trade show booth.”

Gail Barnes, Brooke Linville, Ben Mann at CES

Read the rest of this article in SnapMunk.

‘Virtual reality gets real for food and beverage'

The 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which ended last week in Las Vegas, could be described as the show at which virtual reality (VR) got real.

While motion sickness remains a non-trivial issue for some VR technology suppliers to address, technology like Intel and IonVR’s MotionSync provides a high-quality mobile VR experience using hardware that will work with any VR-compatible mobile device – important from a consumer experience perspective as well as by providing a price point that more businesses and consumers can afford.

Below are some predictions regarding the application of virtual reality (VR) in the food and beverage space, and some examples of pioneering VR work already being done:

1. In what could be described as the most basic application of VR, beyond the conference or video call, food and beverage manufacturers can use VR for enhanced communication between facilities in geographically diverse locations, from day-to-day interaction to special projects and of course, training.

2. When building new facilities or commissioning new equipment, VR could be used for a smoother design-build process, for example when integrating new packaging and processing equipment into a facility or when building and commissioning a new facility.

3. Through VR, the learning opportunities offered by reference plant and site visits become a possibility for many more suppliers’ customers as the constraints of time to travel and cost of travel are removed.

4. VR could assist in food safety and environmental monitoring and quality control, through enhanced training of staff and also in helping personnel in preparing for audits.

Find out my other predictions by clicking here and reading on.

Personalized Healthy Eating - Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day

March is National Nutrition Month, a nutrition and education campaign that is annually sponsored by the Academy of Nutrition and Diatetics. The campaign focuses attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits.

The 2013 theme, "Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day," encourages personalized healthy eating styles and recognizes that food preferences, lifestyle, cultural and ethnic traditions and health concerns all impact individual food choices.

Here are some favorite food and food-life philosophy quotes from the Twittersphere to inspire during National Nutrition Month.

"Eat food, not to much, mostly plants." Michael Pollan via @David Grotto

 "Just toss it in." @hooraypuree

"Try not to eat food with a label on it and you'll feel good!" @TheHealthyApple

"We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie." David Mamet via @Pillsbury

"A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety." Aesop via @MomsOfAmerica

 "Love is food for your soul." @LoriMoreno

"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found." Calvin Trillin via @Moonalice