Here's another company hoping to change our atavistic eating habit: this time it is SquareEat. The US startup has made a promotional video go viral that tries to convince viewers to eat 50 gram cubes of "modular food". Each cube is more like a protein bar than “real” food.
SquareEat is trying to enter the “ready to eat” sector, trying to convince us that you don't need to cook your own food: there are already billions of dollars invested in this space and SquarEat hopes to establish itself.
According to a Press release issued by the company last week, SquarEat raised $ 100.000 on the Wefunder crowdinvesting platform and hopes to raise $ 700.000. “Cube” meal plans are currently only available in the city of Miami, Florida.
A disruptive approach to food
SquarEat is similar to those startups (like Mana, or Soylent) that take a disruptive approach to food. However, the startup claims that it is a different approach, because a SquarEat food cube is not a meal replacement, like a protein "drink". It's actual food, but in the shape of a cube. The promotional video shows the cubes elegantly sliced with a knife and fork.
SquarEat is not a food alternative. Each of our cubes is made with 100% natural ingredients. Our chicken cube is simply chicken with added natural spices. Only difference? The preparation and appearance. We keep all the best characteristics of regular food and add new ones through our process: longer shelf life of nutrients and greater convenience.
Maria Laura Vacaflores, SquarEat marketing director.
How a SquarEat meal plan works
SquarEat offers “gourmet” food cubes that provide “all the nutrients without the additives.” To start, you choose a meal plan (5 to 20 meals a week). Then you choose a meal size: small (4 cubes per meal) or regular (6 cubes per meal). At that point, three categories are chosen to divide the courses in terms of flavours: meat, fish, desserts.
Does it convince me? No. Why should I eat a cube?
In the proposal submission for fundraising on the Wefunder platform, SquarEat says it is ready to "revolutionize" meal planning with "a new concept of food". The advantages, he summarizes, are: no shopping, no cooking, no cleaning, no stress, no junk food.
Other eating plans, the presentation says, have many problems. Often in cooking, nutrients or storage. With its cube, SquarEat thinks it can solve all these problems with "modern" cooking techniques. Why? Well, because they allow conservation and mass production, recipes with "perfect" combinations (that's what they say), lack of additives, "standardized square modular food" and delivery times of just one week.
Yes, but I have to eat a cube. Where's the fun part?
I see good possibilities for use in the context of gyms, for example. A food, sorry: a ready-made cube with natural ingredients can be a good choice for a balanced meal in an exercise regime, and a membership package could transform gyms into small "lounges" where you can train, take a shower and eat something before going out to enjoy your free time.
Even in the office, the cube could have a reason. I don't know if it will, however. It's hard to imagine a real reason to replace the joy of eating real food, not cubes, with this one. It will take another generation or two to get used to it. If we do.
