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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Personalized Food

How Kroger’s Data Arm is Bringing Food as Medicine to the Masses

Ever wonder how a company as huge as Kroger can possibly tap into a trend as focused on the individual as personalization? The short answer: lots and lots of data.

That’s why we’re so glad to have Brian Kathmann, Director of Commercial Platforms, Healthcare for Kroger’s data arm 84.51°, on board to speak at our food personalization summit Customize later this month. He and Bridget Wojciak, a nutrition expert for Kroger Health, will do a deep-dive into how the grocery giant is analyzing data to help consumers eat to meet their specific health goals using nutrition scores, food recommendations and more.

It’ll be a fascinating discussion into how big corporations are starting take concrete steps to capitalize on personalization, specifically within the food-as-medicine realm. (Hot tip: Use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off your tickets.)

If you want a taste of what’s in store, check out our Q&A with Kathmann. Enjoy, and we’ll see you in New York!


Tell us a little bit about 84.51° (which is part of Kroger)
Our interesting name, 84.51°, represents the longitude of our headquarters in Cincinnati, but it’s also a nod to our longitudinal approach to understanding our customers and personalizing their experiences.

We excel at challenging convention and pushing beyond the limits of what’s comfortable with fearless hearts and limitless minds. Our goal is a relentless customer-first commitment; we put customers first in everything we do.

At 84.51° you guys are all about data. How do you collect and leverage consumer data to better optimize product offerings?
We look for ways to serve up unique and amazing customer experiences using cutting-edge science and technology. We gather and analyze data from more than 60 million U.S households across 35 states, resulting in meaningful insights and executions that drive business results.

Using a proprietary suite of tools and technology, we deliver unparalleled data science and predictive analytics to transform customer data into actionable knowledge. And we deliver personalized marketing strategies for our Kroger customers and more than 1,400 consumer-packaged-goods companies.

Food as medicine is a growing trend in the grocery space. How are you working to tap into that at 84.51° and, by extension, at Kroger?
A great example of how we’re (Kroger and 84.51) enabling customers to bring “Food as Medicine” to life is through the OptUp score and App. We know with nearly endless food options; it can be challenging for our customers to make healthy choices.

The science and personalization behind OptUp is to solve that customer problem and make it easier for our customers to shop. OptUp simplifies healthy shopping, by providing easy to use nutrition scoring and food recommendations based on what YOU buy.

OptUp enables users to also track their nutritional progress overtime, offer healthier coupons and incentives, and allow users to make wholesome choices for the entire family, right through the app, and soon – through our APIs to other partner platforms and Apps.

What do you think personalized food or drink will look like 5 years down the road?
A great question… if only I had a crystal ball! We know it will continuously evolve and must be unique to the individual, and personalized to their choices, their goals, on their time, and through their preferred channel. We will remain relentlessly customer first focused and utilize our science to meet them where they’re at AND make it easier for them to live healthier!

Kathmann will join Bridget Wojciak of Kroger Health on the Customize stage to do a case study on how the grocery giant is tapping into personalization. Get your ticket to join us (use code SPOON15 for 15 percent off).

Burger King, Tim Hortons Aim for Faster Drive Thrus and More Personalized Tech in 2020

Restaurant Brands International (RBI), parent company of Burger King, Tim Horton’s, and Popeye’s, is doubling down on its efforts to modernize its brands and in doing so keep pace with competitors in the world of quick-service restaurants. On its earnings call this week, RBI’s CEO José Cil highlighted several milestones as well as goals for the future around making the drive-thru line faster, stores more digital-friendly, and individual customer orders more personalized. 

Tim Horton’s, a chain largely based in Canada and with a scattering of U.S. locations, is currently testing new digital menu boards in drive-thrus, using technology to gather information like weather, time of day, location, and more, and use it to better tailor offerings to each individual customer. If that sounds like a familiar story, it is. McDonald’s more or less started this wave of AI-powered drive-thru efforts last year when it acquired Dynamic Yield in 2019. Others, including KFC and Dunkin’, are also testing their own iterations of the drive-thru of the future.

Beyond the fact that personalized menu boards are supposed to improve order accuracy and offer more relevant upsell items to each customer, they are also practically speaking, a little easier for the restaurant to manage. Speaking on this week’s call, Cil pointed out that the company’s current menu boards cost “millions of dollars each year” to print and update, and that they are time-consuming to change out, as the task has to be done manually by staff members multiple times per day. “Switching to digital menu boards in the drive-through will free up time for team members to focus on serving guests while ensuring that the proper information is always on display,” he said.

Tim Horton’s already has these menu boards in “several hundred stores” and the company will install them “across most drive-thru locations over the next 12 to 18 months.” As well, the company is revamping its loyalty program for digital orders, moving it into its second phase where rewards and offers will be more tailored to the individual customer. Cil noted that this second phase will “drive digital registration and a lot of powerful tools like sales intelligence and one-to-one marketing that we’ll use to develop stronger relationships with our guests and drive incremental sales over time.”

Getting more intelligence behind its digital platforms to improve personalization is a goal for RBI across all its brands as the company strives to compete with the McDonald’s and Starbucks of the world. At Burger King, this will be in the form of the brand’s Burger King of Tomorrow Restaurants, the chain’s newly redesigned store format that emphasizes things like digital ordering via self-service kiosks and double drive-thru lanes. Cil said on the call that the company opened more than 800 of these stores in 2019.

Burger King of Tomorrow joins a long list of restaurants revamping their store formats to be more tech-centric and better able to fulfill delivery and takeout orders, which will account for the lion’s share of restaurant sales in the coming years. To that end, Burger King also offers delivery at 4,200 of its stores and works with multiple third-party services (DoorDash, Postmates, etc.) to fulfill orders.

As mentioned earlier, a large part of this technology push is to keep up with other QSRs running billion-dollar-plus digital businesses, namely Chipotle and McDonald’s, which are making AI and more customized menus a major part of their strategies. If 2019 was the year off-premises ordering became table stakes, 2020 will (probably) be the year personalization takes that title. RBI’s latest moves and future plans underscore how much the company wants its brands to be ahead, or at least with, the pack when that happens.

Speaking of personalization, you can hear my conversation about how it will change the restaurant business at Customize, the Spoon’s food personalization summit, in just two weeks.


Not Sure What to Eat? Just Breathe (Literally)

When deciding which diet to follow, most of us rely on friends’ recommendations, online questionnaires, or internet wisdom. Then again, why not shape your food choices off of your actual breath.

Israel-based startup Lumen gives dining recommendations based off of the amount of CO2 which you exhale into their proprietary device (which reveals whether you’re burning carbs or body fat).

We think that breath-based dietary guidance is pretty cool, so we invited Dana Varrone, Lumen’s VP of Strategic Partnerships, to speak at Customize, our food personalization summit, in NYC later this month. Join us there to hear her talk about how personalization can unlock the power of food as medicine (use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off those tickets).

But first — if you want to learn more about how your breath can indicate what you should be eating, check out our Q&A with Varrone below.

Tell us a little bit about what Lumen does.
Lumen is a device and app that helps you take control of your metabolism. Through your breath, the Lumen technology measures your fuel source in real time, telling you if you’re using fats or carbs for energy, and provides you with a personalized nutrition plan to help you reach your health and fitness goals.

A metabolic measurement (RQ) that was once costly and time-consuming in a clinical setting is now available through a single breath with Lumen.

Why do you think that there has been a rise in interest around personalized nutrition over the past few years?
I think there are three main reasons for the rise. Firstly, people are fed up with going on diets and not getting the results they want, and are starting to recognize that what may work for one person may not work for them. “Go Keto as carbs are the devil” is on the one extreme and “follow the myplate and eat a balanced plate of grains, protein, fruit, veggie and dairy” is on the other extreme of the advice spectrum. Couple this with advanced research being published on how various foods may impact your gut and the increase in allergies nationwide, and question marks start going off in people’s minds of perhaps one size does not fit all.

Secondly, with the rise in technologies such as the AppleWatch, fitbit and the like, consumers are seeing the value in getting personalized feedback. Consumers can now see how many steps they’ve walked, calories they’ve burned and can even get feedback on their heart rate. This immediate feedback empowers consumers to feel like they can now be in control of their own lives, whereas before it was left to your doctor and your yearly physical visits.

Lastly, with the rise in social media and newsfeeds being curated for you, people are demanding speed and instant gratification. This is specifically the case with the millennial generation that have grown up with this being their norm. This results in people wanting answers fast, based on them and their needs, now.

What are the biggest hurdles towards creating personalized dietary guidance towards consumers?
I think the biggest hurdles are in asking the right questions to the consumer at the onset and being able to adjust the personalization over time based on both qualitative and quantitative data that takes into account lifestyle changes, life events, food tolerances, goals, and physiology.

What do you think personalized food or drink will look like 5 years down the road?
I think data from a variety of touch points will be the primary driver in personalizing a consumer’s nutrition and will be housed with an engagement app that makes sense of all the data, with Lumen being at the helm of this.

If you want to see Dana speak about how personalization can unlock the power of food as medicine, join us at Customize this month in NYC! Use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off tix.

In 5 Years We’ll Each Have a GPS to Guide All Our Food Choices, says Suggestic CEO

Ten years ago if you were driving somewhere you’d have to either memorize directions or print out a paper map. Cut to now, and it’s almost unheard of to drive anywhere new without a GPS guiding you, turn by turn.

That’s exactly what Victor Chapela, CEO of personalized nutrition company Suggestic, thinks will happen to our diets. He believes that in five years, AI-driven technology will “drive” our food decisions just like a GPS drives our directions now. The result? Very high personalization, and comprehensive food discoverability.

If you want to know more about how we actually get to this future, you’ll want to come see Chapela speak at Customize, our food personalization event, on February 27th in NYC. (Use code SPOON15 to snag 15% off your tickets!)

But first, check out this Q&A below to learn a bit more about Suggestic and why Chapela envisions a future where you can get personalized recommendations in your kitchen, grocery stores, and even on restaurants menus.

Tell us a little bit about Suggestic and how it capitalizes on personalization.
Suggestic is a personalized nutrition platform, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that uses advanced technology to create and deliver customized eating plans that are individually tailored to each person. Suggestic helps users plus healthcare professionals and businesses to not only select a dietary plan that is right for their health goals but it then proactively suggests what to eat, even at restaurants, through Suggestic’s patented Augmented Reality (AR) technology.

Suggestic’s programs make it easy for its users, clients, and members to stick to their tailored dietary program and see results. Suggestic’s science-based approach to nutrition is designed to help all users find success in their programs. 

What are some of the biggest challenges in bringing personalized diets and nutrition to consumers?
The biggest challenge is that people have diverse body chemistries that react differently to foods so something that would usually be deemed as “healthy” may not always be from one person to the next. Also, people have trouble staying with an eating plan so we need to accurately determine how best to customize plans that consumers will follow. With AI, we can create personalized nutrition plans that best fit a person so that they can stick with their plan and ultimately be successful in their quest for a healthier and happier life. We have so much knowledge of food and we can take it to another level with the use of AI — it takes something very complex and makes it very simple and actionable.

We can work with each individual person to filter out foods specific to their diet, whether because of allergies, health concerns or personal preferences, so that people can easily see the options right for them. This type of tailored plan not only makes it easier for people to follow, but it also allows people to actually eat the foods they like as AI learns with a person, leading to greater success in sticking with a plan.

Why do you think that there has been a rise in interest around personalized nutrition over the past few years?
There is no one-size-fits-all diet that works equally well for everyone. Even though browsing social media you would think otherwise, based on all the “magic bullet” dieting programs now promoted. People are frustrated. They are only now discovering that they need to find out the nutrition needs of their unique biologies.

What do you think personalized food or drink will look like 5 years down the road?
Today we are seeing signs of several huge industries colliding. Technology is connecting the healthcare and wellness industries to food and nutrition options. 

In the next five years, we will see an ecosystem emerge that will allow for two different things to happen simultaneously: very high personalization and comprehensive food discoverability. 

First, we will be able to seamlessly stack all types of personalization, goals, preferences, and requirements. This will allow my food options to consider everything I care about and everything my body needs. It will connect all the information about myself, from my blood chemistry, genes and microbiome to my activity, sleep and food intake.

Second, we will be able to filter and sort out all the food options around us with this personalized profile. We will have all the restaurants, grocery products, recipes, and food delivery automatically being selected to match what we like best out of what is best for us.

In five years we will use technology to find food in the same way we use our GPS today to drive back home. It is not that we do not know the way home. It is that we will outsource the decision making process to an AI we trust and get step by step suggestions of which foods we can select. We will be living in a “one-click” send food world. 

Kaigo Raises $3M for Personalized Food as Medicine Delivery Service

This week KAIGO, a personalized meal delivery service, announced it had raised $3 million in seed funding (hat/tip FoodBusinessNews). Micromanagement Ventures and Mike Lee, the founder of MyFitnessPal, both participated.

Founded in 2014, KAIGO delivers personalized, health-optimized meals from local restaurants directly to individuals. First users complete a short online assessment to indicate their health priorities (better sleep, more energy during the day, weight loss, etc). A KAIGO medical partner calls you within 24 hours to get more insight into your goals and help the company construct a personalized health plan, which they form with a partner dietician. The company also works with over 1,000 medical providers to check out your medical records, to see your bloodwork and medical history (I’m assuming with your permission first).

After KAIGO draws up your nutrition plan they work with local chefs and restaurant partners to have them cook up meals for you, which are then delivered to your door (by KAIGO or by the restaurant, it isn’t clear). You also get periodic check-ins by the KAIGO team to make sure that your goals are being met.

So far, KAIGO only operates in New York and San Francisco. They’ll use their seed funding to expand into new cities, including Washington, DC and Los Angeles.

Honestly, this sounds like a very expensive — and inefficient — process. There’s a lot of hands-on work and the bit about working with local restaurants to cook and delivery the food has got to be costly. It’s especially hard to justify since there are plenty of other services out there offering personalized meal plans and recipes (Nutrient, Suggestic) or personalized prepared food/meal kit delivery (Daily Harvest, Snap Kitchen, Innit). You can also (duh) just cut out the middleman and order food from restaurants directly.

Then again, KAIGO could be a boutique offering. It certainly has boutique pricing: the service comes with a one-time $299 fee to cover personal assessments, plus a monthly fee of $249 to have the meals planned, prepared, and delivered. Plus the costs of the meals themselves. In short, it’s not for those on a budget.

The startup is also targeting individuals struggling with chronic illnesses, who might be willing to pay more to try something new if other specialized diets haven’t given them relief in the past.

Skepticism aside, KAIGO is certainly tapping into two bigs trends we’ve been seeing a lot of at The Spoon: personalization and food-as-medicine. Those are both topics we’ll be exploring in depth at Customize, our food personalization summit in New York on February 27th! Use code SPOON15 to snag 15% off tickets.

Chipotlanes, New Store Formats, and Personalization Are Driving Chipotle’s $1B Digital Business

Chipotle outlined big plans for its digital business, which surpassed $1 billion in sales in 2019, according to the company’s Q4 earnings call this week. 

The fast-casual chain saw digital sales in Q4 alone jump 78 percent to $282 million, and Company CEO Brian Niccol said on the call that digital orders made up one-fifth of Chipotle’s sales during the same quarter. He also recapped the company’s efforts around delivery, off-premises ordering, and other digital-focused initiatives, including the one everyone seems to be really excited about — the Chipotlane.

These are drive-thru lanes dedicated to customers ordering ahead via the Chipotle mobile app. Like digital drive-thru efforts from other chains, Chipotlanes are meant to speed up service for this particular order channel, which has seen wait times get progressively longer over the last several years. The tactic is clearly working: Niccol said on the call that Chipotle will more than double the number of Chipotlanes in 2020 “because our guests love the convenience and it strengthens our economic model by making our highest margin channel more accessible.”

The other big area of focus Niccol and Chipotle outlined on the call was the new store design, which the company unveiled in December and is trialing in a few different U.S. cities. This new design is Chipotle’s take on the express store format, which many QSRs and fast-casual chains are pursuing these days to cater more to the ongoing demand for delivery and takeout orders. These restaurants have fewer seats, and, in the case of Chipotle, digital pickup shelves where customers can simply grab their order and go. The company is currently monitoring the performance of the new store design’s initial locations.

Niccol hinted at personalization on the call when talking about the company’s loyalty program, which it has grown to 8.5 million members over the last few years. While he didn’t dive into much detail, saying only that “personalization and engagement are cornerstones of our evolving loyalty strategy.” But we’ve already seen what more personalization can look like in the restaurant world, from McDonald’s installing Dynamic Yield’s AI tech in drive-thru lanes last year to Taco Bell’s recent push to make recommendations via its app more personalized to each customer. 

Niccol said he expects it “to become a bigger driver in the future as we gain more experience gathering customer insight, while continuing to expand our digital ecosystem.”

Halla’s CEO is Trying to Netflix-ify the Grocery Aisle

Anyone who’s visited the cereal aisle of a grocery store knows that every time we shop for food, we’re bombarded with choice. Which product will be the best on for our tastes, our diets, and our family’s preferences?

That’s why I typically end up reaching for the same box of cereal (and jar of peanut butter, loaf of bread, etc.) every time. But some companies — like startup Halla — are trying to make grocery shopping a more individualized experience.

That’s why we can’t wait to hear Halla’s CEO Spencer Price speak at Customize on February 27th. To learn more about how Price is leveraging data to make grocery shopping a super personalized experience, check out his Q&A below. Then use code SPOON15 to get 15% off your tickets to Customize here!

Tell us a little bit about what Halla does.
Halla is a taste intelligence company that enables retailers to predict the preferences of their shoppers in real-time. Our enterprise APIs power highly-personalized shopping experiences across all retail environments, driving double-digit increases in basket size and customer retention for retailers across the globe.

There are lots of companies out there that facilitate online grocery shopping — how is Halla unique? 
We know that great recommendations lead to more purchases and better experiences, but existing options for retailers are costly, complicated, and ineffective.

Halla is different. We’re obsessed with understanding food. Because when we know food, we know people. And when we know people, we get to help retailers deliver delightful shopping experiences through deeper customer insight. 

Unlike anything else on the market, Halla is delivering food recommendations with more precision due to our proprietary data that’s able to break food items down to the molecule. With a deep understanding of each item we’re then able to make smarter recommendations based on the human experience, such as delicious food pairings or individual dietary restrictions.  

What are the benefits of a personalized grocery shopping experience, both for the retailer and the consumer?
Think about the Spotify ecosystem, versus Apple Music or YouTube. Think about the Netflix interface, versus any other streaming platform. When personalization is deeply integrated into the user experience, it leads to significant increases in conversion rates, customer retention, and all-around engagement.

So, shoppers will see only the items that are relevant to them, and will be inspired to discover new products — all while helping complete their cart as efficiently as possible. The retailer sees bigger baskets, happier customers, and has finally created a shopping environment that drives true shopper loyalty.

What do you think personalized food or drink will look like 5 years down the road?
While there are many efforts and initiatives in “standardization” — as opposed to personalization — like we see in protein bar brands, all-in-one shakes, and the likes of Soylent, there are still over 30,000 unique products in the average supermarket, and counting. The need for “product navigation”, “product discovery”, and personalization solutions will only continue to grow. How precisely this will manifest remains to be seen.

One choice that is easy to make is whether or not you should join us at Customize (hint: you should). Use code SPOON15 to get 15% off your tickets here.

Egyptian Food Delivery Startup elmenus Raises $8M to Battle Uber Eats

Egypt-based online food ordering platform elmenus announced today it has raised an $8 million Series B round (via wamda). The round was led by UAE-based VC fund Global Ventures and Egyptian fund Algebra Ventures, with participation from angel investors.

The startup raised a $1.5 million Series A from Algebra Ventures in 2017, as well as undisclosed pre-Series B investment mid-2019 from Julian Dames, the VP of DeliveryHero.

Founded in 2011, elmenus‘ online ordering platform lets users browse from local restaurants for delivery or just to discover where to dine out. The startup also states on its website that it provides personalized food recommendations, but how exactly it does that is unclear. I poked around their platform for a bit and it looked pretty similar to other food delivery sites I’ve used — listing restaurant options based on location with dish photos and diner reviews.

Even if it doesn’t have a unique personalization aspect, elmenus still stands out in the world of food delivery simply because of its location. Egypt actually hosts quite a few delivery players, including international giants like Uber Eats, Glovo and Delivery Hero-owned Otlob. Elemenus is one of the few companies that started locally and focuses exclusively on the Egyptian market (for now).

So far the startup operates exclusively in Egypt and has its own delivery fleet. According to wamda, elmenus will use its new funds to scale across the country.

Eight million dollars ain’t nothing, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what its competitors are working with. Glovo alone raised $167 million last year. Even in an area with so much untapped market potential (only 4 percent of Egyptians order to-go food online), it might be hard for elemenus to survive.

That is, unless it can find a way to stand out. Beefing up its personalization offering could be one way to do so. If elmenus is smart, that’s how it’ll use that fresh $8 million.

If you’re curious about how personalization is changing the meal journey, from food delivery to grocery shopping, you need to be at Customize this month in NYC! Use code SPOON15 for 15% off your ticket.

Kroger Is Testing ‘Food as Medicine’ With Food Prescriptions for Customers

Kroger is testing a new concept where doctors can write food prescriptions their patients then fulfill at one of the grocery chain’s stores with the help of a Kroger Health professional, according to an article from Supermarket News.

The pilot launched last spring in Kroger’s hometown of Cincinnati, OH. In its current form, diabetes patients work with a local physician who makes dietary recommendations they can then take to a nutrition expert at a Kroger in Forest Park, OH. The prescription itself is actually just a shopping list of food items that have been tailored to the patient’s specific medical condition.

But as Bridget Wojciak, RDN/LD, a nutrition expert at Kroger, told Supermarket News, the program is much more comprehensive than a shopping list of food items. An in-store dietitian can make recommendations based not only on the food items on the prescription but also around the individual patient’s lifestyle, budget, and skill level when it comes to cooking. 

“We find that a lot of physicians give difficult-to-follow nutrition advice — along the lines of ‘You should improve your diet’ or ‘You should eat better.’ And that becomes very difficult for a patient to understand and implement,” she said, adding that a food prescription is a way to “fill the gap” between a doctor’s recommendations and the actual food customers will take home.

The program also involves using Kroger’s OptUP mobile app, which scores food items in the store based on their nutritional value and lets users track their progress when it comes to improving their diets over time. 

Kroger joins a growing number of companies across the food industry making products and services that address everything from lifestyle choices to dietary habits to chronic illness. Meal kit-like services, such as those from Epicured, are another tactic to getting healthier to consumers’ homes, as is prepared meal delivery from virtual restaurants that focus on food as medicine.

Food prescriptions filled at grocery stores provide a unique and arguably more enticing introduction to the food-as-medicine concept because they can be tailored to an individual’s needs and preferences when it comes to food, cooking, and dietary preferences.

For now, Kroger Health is focused on diabetes patients but could eventually expand to include other conditions, such as cancer and heart disease. And one can easily envision a future where Kroger is able to use its muscle in the grocery delivery area to fulfill food prescriptions and deliver the items to patients who may not be able to leave the house due to illness. 

Nor does the concept and Kroger Health have to be restricted to treating illness. Though rather a broad term, food as medicine can also be as much about preventative care as it is about treating existing illness and chronic disease. Kroger doesn’t yet offer prescriptions for those looking for more preventative food solutions. However, given the chain’s focus of late, which has included launching its own line of plant-based products and putting vertical farms in stores, that day is probably not too far off in the future.

Wojciak will be speaking at Customize, The Spoon’s upcoming daylong summit on food personalization, in just a few weeks in NYC. Grab your tickets to the event here.

The Key to Your Perfect Diet Could Be Hiding in Your DNA

Our DNA contains the code that dictates how our body works — including, apparently, information about which foods we should (and shouldn’t) be eating.

Dr. Sherry Zhang is on a mission to help individuals eat healthier based on their unique genetic code. That’s why she created GenoPalate, the DNA-driven personalized nutrition company, and also why we can’t wait to welcome her onstage at Customize, our food personalization summit in NYC next month.

Before she hits the stage, we had the chance to ask Dr. Zhang a few questions about DNA vs. microbiome-based nutrition, data privacy and the biggest challenges towards harnessing the power of personal biology.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Tell us a little bit about what GenoPalate does.
GenoPalate is a personalized nutrition platform. We believe that food and nutrition play a powerful role in our health and wellbeing. Our mission is to empower people to optimize their health through personalized nutrition insights.

The GenoPalate platform uses the latest research in metabolic health, genetics and nutrition to provide personalized insights to encourage healthier eating behaviors. From a simple saliva sample, our proprietary technology uses DNA to make personalized recommendations on the ideal intake of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals. We make this actionable for our customers by providing a comprehensive list of foods that best suit their genetic nutritional requirements. 

What’s the difference between DNA-driven and microbiome-driven diet recommendations?
This is a hard question as we are NOT comparing apples to apples. When we test DNA (like ancestry or 23andMe and Genopalate) we are testing the blueprint of a human’s genome. The human genome is a 3.2 billion-letter genetic code that we all were born with. Within our genetic code or DNA we have many variants that define not only our food preferences but how our bodies will respond to or metabolise specific nutrients. For example there are variants that predict tolerance to lactose or caffeine metabolism. 

Another factor that may contribute to how our bodies respond to nutrients, are the bacterial, viral and fungal floras that live in our gut. These are known as our microbiomes. Microbiome companies are testing the RNA and DNA of the gut bacteria NOT of our human genetic code. This is an important distinction. Microbiome research, while promising, is still in its infancy.  Many studies are still being conducted to understand how nutritional interventions impact the microbiome and how they impact on human health. 

How do you navigate concerns around data privacy?
We at GenoPalate take extra care to keep customers’ genetic and personal information private and safe as we understand how important it is for us to deliver the best possible practices for customers’ data privacy. We implement de-identification along with encryption of each individual’s data to ensure secure storage and complete anonymous separation from genetic and personal information. Only automated GenoPalate product services have access to all of the information to fulfill each order and deliver each product to customers. As a business, we do not sell, lease or rent users’ personal information to third-parties without the user’s consent. Customers’ genetic information may be used by GenoPalate’s product development team to enhance services to customers. 

In this case, customers’ data will be de-identified and aggregated before analysis to preserve anonymity. We will continue investing measures that ensure responsible management of user data including transparency, consumer education, proper consenting and data security and privacy design and more by following the principles recommended by organizations such as Forum of Future Privacy. 

What’s one of the biggest challenges facing personalized nutrition?
I think one of the biggest challenges facing personalized nutrition is the question of how to create a contextual user experience in order to continuously drive a person’s success in healthy eating.

Human genetics is known to explain approximately 30 percent of the variations we have observed in our phenotypic traits such as weight and body mass distribution, glucose and lipids profiles, blood pressure and inflammatory biometrics. We also know that approximately 40 percent of the health phenotype outcomes are also driven by an individual’s daily lifestyle behaviors. 

What we yet need to tackle as a scientific community is to establish an effective way of harnessing the power of personal biology in the context of that person’s living environment. GenoPalate is up for the challenge and is seeking forward-thinking organizations to partner in our quest for helping people to reach and maintain their optimal health and prevent chronic diseases.

Watch Dr. Zhang dive deeper into the world of DNA-driven food recommendations at Customize on February 27th! Use discount code SPOON15 and Grab your tickets here before they’re gone.

The Age of The Personalized Food Passport is Coming, Says Spoonshot CEO

It seems impossible for giant CPG companies working with thousands of retailers to make individualized products. But according to Kishan Vasani, CEO of Spoonshot, a startup that predicts emerging food trends, there’s still a way for these giant companies to mimic the effects of personalization in their wares.

How, exactly? To get the whole story you’ll have to come to Customize, our Feb 27th in NYC all about breaking down the impact of personalization on the food system. We did, however, ask Vasani a few questions recently about how he defines personalization, its wide-reaching effect, and how big CPG companies can capitalize off of individualization. He also explains his vision for the future in which we’ll all have a “food passport” which restaurants can use to tailor our meals.

Check out the Q&A below then grab your tickets to Customize here (pstt — use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off).

Tell us a little bit about what Spoonshot does. 
Spoonshot is on a mission to power genuine agile innovation to the food and beverage industry. Our intelligence details emerging market and consumer needs by transforming long-tail, open information from diverse, authentic data sources. We connect these disparate data sets via our proprietary food science-infused algorithms to deliver personalized insights, predict trends, and identify innovation opportunities. 

How can large CPG companies, which have to work on a massive scale, create products that are personalized to consumers?
Firstly, it’s important to clarify what personalization really means (to me). To some it could mean customization (e.g., add blue cheese to a burger). To others, it might be about packaging that has your name on it. I firmly believe that personalization is about implicitly understanding an individual’s needs and desires. 

Today it’s not economically possible to create unique products for individual preferences, but CPG companies can create the same effect by having a deep understanding of evolving and emerging trends and innovating exactly against those growth opportunities. Of course, greater agility and efficiency is required at every stage of the product development cycle by employing the relevant technologies. 

Ask most CPG executives what the next big food trend is going to be and they will probably name a trend that is well established like plant-based [protein] or CBD. But ask them what’s [after that] and they won’t be so sure. There needs to be significantly more efforts to anticipate consumer needs, and perhaps the largest brands have the economic power to even shape consumer tastes. Too often they fail to exercise this — in contrast to the tech industry, which has been much more successful in pushing innovation upon consumers. iPhone, anyone? 

What’s the biggest challenge facing food personalization, specifically within the CPG space?
The biggest challenge to personalization within the CPG space is the way in which data has historically been used and continues to be or not be employed:

  • Over-reliance on (yesterday’s) sales data for decisions related to tomorrow’s innovation. 
  • The lack of use of large, external and diverse data sets. Instagram and Pinterest are not the answer; at best they are just a small part of it.
  • The internal data silos, especially in larger businesses who are potentially sitting on data gold and don’t even know it.
  • The slow adoption of new data and technology frameworks, particularly by R&D professionals.

How do you think that personalization will play into consumer dining and shopping habits over the next five years?
Personalization will play a central role across the consumer food landscape over the coming decade. 

Take personalized recommendations as one use case. Consumers have been used to personalized digital experiences for many years now thanks to leading tech companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Pandora. Yet somehow online food ordering lagged behind. We launched a personalized recommendation engine for online food platforms back in early 2017, but the market wasn’t quite ready. Fast forward two years and McDonald’s acquires Dynamic Yield to do exactly this, and today, the demand for personalized recommendations has never been higher. But this is just one way in which personalization will dominate the industry. 

We believe that there will be a “food passport” for every consumer so no matter where you eat, the business producing your food will know everything about your taste preferences and will have the ability to tailor your meal accordingly. There would be some interesting applications in terms of having a digital record of an individual’s consumption, and how health insurance providers might price their plans based upon this data. 

Since healthy eating is an established trend, consumers will increasingly demand personalized nutrition in restaurants as well, where science and technology can dictate what food is right for us — not only for weight management but, more importantly, to manage our overall health and wellness. 

Another innovation in personalization could be the emergence of (mobile) handheld scanners that help consumers identify allergens, nutrients, and ingredients in their food and provide them with a breakdown of the amounts of sugar, acidity levels and vitamins present in dishes,  as well as highlight potential allergens warnings.

Join us in NYC on February 27th to hear Vasani speak more about how CPG companies are leveraging personalization (and lots more). Use code SPOON15 to get 15% off your tickets now.


A Sneak Peek at Customize, The Spoon’s Personalized Food Summit

This week UBS published a report that personalized nutrition could generate annual revenues of $64 billion, and that companies large and small should take note. But how are companies capitalizing on the personalization trend across the food system, from CPG to restaurants to the home kitchen?

That’s exactly the question we’ll explore at Customize, The Spoon’s NYC summit on food personalization coming up on February 27. We’ve recruited an amazing list of speakers to discuss some of the most cutting-edge topics in the future of personalization.

We’d love to see you there! Here’s a sneak peek at what to expect at the event:

  • Personalized Nutrition & Wellness. How will biomarkers — like the microbes in your gut or your DNA — shape your diet? What’s the deal with food as medicine and how do grocery stores tap into it? We’ll have experts from Kroger, Viome, Genopalate and more weigh in.
  • Making Mass Food Markets Personal. CPGs and retail giants want to personalize their products, but how do they reshape the value chain to make hyper-personalization on a large scale? That’s what we’ll talk about with Walmart, Spoonshot, and Halla.
  • AI & Big Data in the Kitchen. A big piece of the personalization puzzle is data. How are companies collecting that data, keeping it safe, and applying AI to better understand us and shape our food? Folks from Whirlpool, evolv, and more will weigh in.
  • How Personalization Shapes Foodservice. Restaurants and catering operations alike are trying to figure out how to better customize consumer dining options. That’s what we’ll discuss with Compass Digital Labs (part of the massive Compass group) and Sevenrooms.
  • What’s Next for Food Personalization? Finally, we’ll have experts from Mintel, Food-X, and Alpha Labs weigh in on the future of food personalization.
  • … and lots more.

If you’re curious about how customized dining will affect your business — or want to tap into this cutting-edge trend — you’ll want to be at the show. We’ll have plenty of time to network, make connections in the space, and even try cool personalized food samples like 3D printed vitamins.

Spoon readers can get a 15 percent discount if they use code SPOON15. If you’re media and would like to attend drop us a line.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be publishing a series of Q&A’s to introduce you to the Customize speakers. Keep an eye out for those.

Grab your tickets here. We’ll see you in New York!