Stretch goals = more pods with EVERY Yomee + bring a friend to Yomee
over 8 years ago – Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 10:39:43 PM

Today we launch our stretch goal: we reach 150k, EVERY YOMEE will be shipped with 5 extra pods! We reach 200k, 10 extra pods and if we reach 300k, and 20 more pods with every Yomee! That means if you pledged for one Yomee Kit  and we hit 200k- you get 20+10=30 pods; if you pledged Yomee Kit + 80 pods - you get 20+80+10=110 pods. That's 20-30 more servings of yogurt to get you started right away. This bundle of starter pods is an exclusive Kickstarter deal that you will never see again!

We're grateful to everyone of you, you pledges has incredible impact on the development of Yomee. Heading into our final week, we need your help push Yomee out into the world. You can help Yomee reach these stretch goals and enjoy healthier lifestyle with more home made food.

Please help us spread the word about this campaign ❤️  and share with anyone in your life that:

• loves yogurt but never imagined it could be so convenient to make at home 
• vegan and lactose intolerant friends that long for fresh homemade vegan yogurt 
• busy yet health-conscious eaters who love smarter solutions for healthier breakfasts
• yogurt fans that demand less single-use plastic cups and lids in the world 
• avid home fermentation tinkerers

Beyond above stretch goal, we are also working on improving the app to support schedule start, remote alarm, calories counter.

-Ashok and the Yomee team

Yomee Yogurt Pods Make Real Fermented Food, Part 1
over 8 years ago – Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 10:34:19 PM

 Welcome to part one of a two-part deep dive into Yomee pods. Yomee pods stand apart from other pod-based devices as they are a catalyst for making real fermented foods similar to bread or beer. Any genuine fermented food with live active cultures take time, but Yomee eliminates the guesswork and outside variables for consistently great, real yogurt every time.

We've heard from a few of you wondering why Yomee cannot produce yogurt instantly after adding the pod to the milk. Simply put, Yomee makes real yogurt, just like it's always been made for hundreds of years. The Yomee pod is simply a cute, compact, shelf-stable and carefully designed way to spike milk with tons of helpful bacteria that once introduced to their new home, get to work transforming milk into yogurt. And like anything worthwhile in life, good things require a little bit of work and often, time.

Our yogurt culture partners in New Zealand have been working tirelessly to perfect the pod design: a pod that safely harbors the dormant yogurt cultures, is the best functioning shape, and that just the right consistency to dissolve easily into milk but sturdy enough to survive shipping. It's been an interesting journey!

And foremost, our NZ ministers of yogurt culture love to make yogurt. There's a lot of testing, tasting, measuring, mixing, and tasting. But sometimes there's fun too, like chocolate yogurt!

It's important for us to remind everyone that fermented foods, yogurt, in particular, take time. Imagine you have been tasked by a friend to prepare dinner tonight. The good news is that it's something you love making, and you are also really good at making. So good that some may say you were born to cook this meal. It's a meal that wholesome, satisfying, and always prepared with the freshest, highest quality ingredients.

Also, your friend offers to do all the grocery shopping for you and will show up at your door with the groceries. Even better, your friend has measured out each and every ingredient, chopped everything that needs chopping, and will even pre-heat the oven for you and lay out the dinner table with perfectly sized plates.

But, your friend demands dinner finished, hot, and on the table, ready to eat in 2 minutes.

Sounds a little unrealistic? In 2 minutes it's realistic to order takeout, or perhaps in 5 minutes you could microwave something and use a jar of sauce or a packet of seasoning mix to liven it up into a reasonable, but a fairly artificial meal. It wouldn't be the thoughtful, fresh ingredient made meal you've spent your life perfecting.

If you've ever brewed beer, or made bread (even with a bread machine, that counts too!), or prepared a well-planned meal with fresh quality ingredients, you know it takes time. But the end results of a meal made with care are worth it. Yomee yogurt bacteria feel pretty much the same way about making yogurt; we speak fluent Lactobacillus and listen to our tiny culturing friends, so we know what they care about.

Yomee helps you make real food, like your friend in the previous dinner example, but with a very real idea of the time needed to get it right. We are here to measure everything out and take out all the other guesswork out of homemade cultured foods. We even provide the ideal preparation vessel that also doubles as a really cool way to serve, eat, and store your yogurt (the Yomee cup!).

And of course, our smart design keeps track of the process and knows exactly when your yogurt is not only done fermenting but is chilled to perfection and ready to eat.

Yomee does all the hard work of making real yogurt. Yomee wants to do that work when you're sleeping, or at work, or spending the day having fun doing anything except thinking about yogurt. All you have to do is pour some milk, drop a pod, and six hours later honest, real, cool, fresh yogurt is all yours.

Don't forget, it's easier than ever to get more pods at a great price! Our campaign is ending soon so don't forget to upgrade your pledge!

Yomee is Dragon Certified; bringing Yomee to you the best way possible
over 8 years ago – Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 10:19:09 PM

As you can imagine, developing and manufacturing brand new hardware can be a complex and daunting effort (even for experienced hardware designers too). 

To help guide us through our journey to bring you the best Yomee we can make (and bring it to you in a timely manner to get you started enjoying yogurt asap), we've completed our certification with Dragon Innovation in Boston. This is especially exciting as we'll be in good company with the many innovative Kickstarter campaigns that Dragon has helped bring to life, including Pebble and so many more.

What does this mean for you? Dragon operates as a partner to help ensure a seamless workflow, cost effecting sourcing of materials and packaging, and to make sure thins don't slips through the cracks when it comes to getting the internal working components of Yomee down right.

If you want to get a little geeky with us about the Dragon process, here is a more detailed review of the Dragon 6 factor certification Yomee engineering has completed; take a look, it's pretty cool!

Mechanical Tear Down - We disassembled, inspected, and analyzed the structure and assembly for function, cost, quality, and reliability.

DFM Analysis - We performed a Design For Manufacture and Assembly analysis in which we inspected and analyzed the product design to ensure that the product can be manufactured reliably and at low cost.

BOM Review - We examined the Bill Of Materials, an itemized list of all the product components, for completeness and cost efficiency.

Packaging Considerations - We determined suitability and cost of chosen packaging design and made recommendations to optimize it.

Estimated Domestic and Far East Manufacturing Costs - We developed cost estimates for domestic and Far East factory options.

Pro-forma Manufacturing Schedule - We produced a preliminary manufacturing schedule based on our review to help provide a realistic estimated ship date.

We hope this helps clarify our commitment to bringing you Yomee!

You can also stay updated with Yomee development on our Facebook, Twitter and find new recipes and development videos on our YouTube channel. 

-Ashok and The Yomee Team

We've reached $100,000 + a visit to the future Yomee factory
over 8 years ago – Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 10:42:38 PM

Hello dearest backers! We're over half way through our campaign and our numbers keep on growing: today we hit 100k, we're over 350% funded and 686 of you have made this possible. Please keep sharing the Yomee campaign and help us spread the word.

A quick reminder that if you want lots of pods at a deeply discounted (45% off), only-on-Kickstarter price, don't forget to upgrade your pledge. We've made it simple: you can choose from two new rewards: 1 Yomee + 80 pods or 2 Yomees with 160 pods.

And as promised, check out the video above and see our visit to the future home of Yomee production in Shunde, China; featuring epic ferry boat commutes through international waters, paying cabs with WeChat, and a seafood lunch near the factory!

And if you already use and enjoy Facebook pages, please consider liking our Yomee page, join our growing community, and share our page with anyone you know who values fresh, healthy food.

As a special bonus video, we've made a little movie going deeper into the design and development process of Yomee. Make yourself a cup of tea (or perhaps a bowl of yogurt and granola) enjoy the journey of Yomee!

-Ashok and The Yomee Team

Find us on BackerClub.co this week + over 300% funded + Yomee myths debunked!
over 8 years ago – Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 05:20:13 AM

Hello Yomee friends; we are excited to be featured on BackerClub.co this week! They are the top community for people who are very serious about Kickstarter and we are really looking forward to the feedback and support from their community of super-backers. Please head over to BackClub.co and check it out!

As we fly into our second week of the campaign, we see there are still a few misconceptions about what Yomee can do. As promised, we are here to clear up any mysteries about Yomee and "debunk" some of the more common myths and questions.

Myth: Yomee makes only one serving

It may be tempting to eat the entire cup of freshly made Yomee yogurt (if you do that's fine, we won't judge), but the serving size of the Yomee cup is a full 10 ounces equal to two servings of yogurt; keep in mind the average supermarket single serving yogurt is 5 ounces. So unless you usually eat two single-serving yogurts back to back, save half of your fresh Yomee yogurt for later in the day.

Myth: Making Yomee yogurt still takes lot of preparation & work

Yomee takes the traditional 12+ step process of yogurt making and compresses it into a breezy three-step process: pour the milk, drop a pod in the lid, press a button. You're done! It's even easier than making a smoothie (no chopping up fruit or scooping in protein powders!).

The hardest part may be waiting the 6 hours for the natural yogurt cultures to do their work. That's why we recommend setting Yomee up right before bed or before you head out the door in the morning to go to work or hit the gym.

Myth: Making Greek yogurt takes double the time

Making extra thick, creamy Greek-style Yomee yogurt takes the same amount of time (6 hours) as does the Plain and Stirred styles. Yomee removes the water content from the milk by heating it at higher temperature before adding the culture to thicken the yogurt.

Myth: Large batches of yogurt lose their high culture count after a few days

Any freshly made yogurt, regardless of the size of the batch, slowly will decrease in overall live culture count as it ages. Yomee was designed to craft small batches of yogurt to ensure you're eating yogurt with the highest live culture count possible. Small batches of yogurt are easier to consume, and fresher yogurt taste best too! For best results, we recommend consuming freshly made yogurt within 12 hours; the two 5 ounce servings Yomee makes it easy to enjoy the fresh yogurt through your day or share with a friend. Or use that extra serving after breakfast in a great recipe from our YouTube channel.

Myth: Store bought yogurt costs less than Yomee yogurt

Serving per serving, overall Yomee is three times cheaper than the average store shelf single serving (based on an average of 20 popular store brands). Prices vary from brand to brand and geographical location or store of course, but the average 5-6 ounce serving costs $1.45, while a serving of Yomee (consisting of half a pod + 5 ounces of milk) comes to $.53

Myth: Yomee creates too much plastic waste

While Yomee could be seen as a "Keurig" for yogurt, unlike classic Keurig coffee and other food devices, the entire Yomee pod dissolves with use, leaving no plastic or metal cup behind. The Yomee pods themselves will be packed in multiples inside small tubes that will be completely recyclable.

Compared to the amount of waste created by a single serving of store-bought yogurt (the cup, the lid, and the plastic film or aluminum wrapper usually covering the cup under the lid) a single serving of Yomee yogurt is made in a durable, reusable cup with a handy reusable lid that can store two different toppings.

We hope this helps clarify any questions about Yomee, but if you still have more questions, please see our project FAQ or just reach out and ask us!

Projects We Love 

 

Misen Cookware: Premium Cookware, at an Honest Price

Misen Cookware features 3.0mm thick, 5-ply stainless steel for super heat distribution and retention, ergonomic stay cool-handles, rounded edges for drip-free pouring and durability to last a lifetime. Translation? Better, more even cooked food.

-Ashok and The Yomee Team