I was recently moderating a talk in Cape Town by Thabang Sebata, Uber Eats head of strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa. As the session Q&A was winding down, I asked, mostly with a straight face, if the notion of dining in the metaverse had ever made its way onto an Uber Eats whiteboard. Her answer, once she stopped laughing, was, “Not on our radar.”

OK, the question does seem ridiculous on its face. So when Thabang laughed in mine, I didn’t take it personally. After all, we eat food in one place. And that place is in real life. Three dimensions. Organic life forms. The whole nine yards.

But there is something going on.

So while it’s true that no one is eating a ribeye made of zeroes and ones like Cypher does in the Matrix, metaverse dining applications are emerging that do make logical sense. It’s going to be a while before we know whether they also make business sense.

QSR restaurants seem to be the tip of the spear for food in the metaverse (which is now loosely defined as a fully immersive online experience). For example, in February we wrote about Mcdonald’s filing patents for food in the metaverse. We’ve also learned that Chipotle, Burger King, and Wendy’s are active in the metaverse.

What McDonald’s envisions is an environment where someone playing a game can order McD’s food for delivery. And do so without having to put down their headset. The McDonald’s application involves creating avatars that mimic the identity of those interacting in the metaverse McDonald’s. Right down to their clothing, speech, and movements. Here is what I wrote about it in February.

It’s not hard to see this as a natural early use case for food in the metaverse. It’s really not hard to see gamers sliding into McD’s to order some spicy McNuggets, fries, and a shake. And have it delivered while they keep playing Halo with some dudes in Finland, Australia, and South Korea. The only thing missing in this scenario is Dax Shepard’s toilet chair from “Idiocracy”.

In the same post, we wrote about a Dubai-based foodtech company called Grubtech that safe to say had downed a pitcher of food-in-the-metaverse Kool-Aid.

The company, which primarily offers a tech platform for cloud kitchens, announced it was developing a platform for metaverse food halls where dining brands can host virtual food operations, not unlike what McDonald’s envisions. But maybe more for foodies than gamers. The concept also features avatars that mimic the looks and personality of their IRL humans.

And yes, in the end, real food is delivered to real people who will eat it in their real homes.

Does Velveeta Melt in the Metaverse?

Fast forward to this week, and we learn that Kraft Foods is getting in on the web3 food action.

According to a report in Cointelegraph, Kraft has filed for trademark applications for some of its iconic highly processed food brands. These include Kraft, Jell-O, Kool-Aid, Velveeta, Lunchables, Oscar Meyer, and Philadelphia. For the latter, we assume we’re talking about the cream cheese and not the city.

The trademark application specifically covers the following uses. NFTs and NFT-backed media; NFT marketplaces; and virtual restaurants, food, and drink.

We don’t have much more information at this point. It’s likely at this stage this is merely a pre-emptive application to prevent trademark violations in the metaverse.

Or perhaps Kraft has some active use cases in mind. Either way, the number of brands that are at least securing the protection of their brands in the metaverse is growing. Kraft joins Gatorade, Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola, and others in this respect.

In May, QSR Magazine published an interesting article that explains why food brands might want to play in the metaverse. It seems loyalty programs might be the true early use case in the metaverse. And gamification is the key.

Here is a bit of what QSR said.

“The metaverse offers a natural landscape to expand this concept into the digital world. Chipotle, which now has a location inside the Roblox game platform modeled on its original 1993 flagship restaurant in Denver, recently launched a game in which participants roll their own burritos and win currency they can spend on real-world food items. 

“Burger King’s Keep it Real campaign awarded NFTs when diners scanned the QR codes of certain food items. And Wendy’s has launched a full-fledged world on Meta’s Horizon Worlds app, opening up the potential for linking activities there to real-world purchases. Brands can take advantage of blockchain and NFTs to not only entertain and engage customers, but to deal with some of the challenges that come with analog real-life games, such as fraud or lost tokens.”

So regardless of what happens with all these experiments, the next time I ask a foodtech leader what they’ve got cooking in the metaverse, I’m guessing the question will be taken a little more seriously.