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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

personalization

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.


Customize Q&A: Mintel’s Global Food Analyst on the Potential and Pitfalls of Personalized Food

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some sort of all-knowing oracle that would give insight into current food trends and how they’ll play out? That’s sort of what Mintel‘s Global Food Analyst Melanie Bartelme does.

That’s why we’re so amped to have Bartelme joining us at Customize, our food personalization summit coming up next month in New York City. She’ll share a birds-eye view of the impact of personalization throughout the world of food — and predict how the trend will continue to shape the way we eat in the future.

In short, you’ll want to hear her in person at Customize (grab your tickets here before they run out!). Since February 27th can’t come soon enough, here’s a Q&A to give you sneak peek at what Bartelme will be giving insight on next month in the Big Apple:

Tell us a bit about what Mintel does in the food and bev space. 
Mintel provides insight into the food and beverage industry, helping our clients understand what consumers want, and why. We track trends and innovation in products, technology and consumer demands to ensure companies can deliver what will resonate with today’s shoppers.

Give us a snapshot into the growth of the food personalization trend. Why do you think it’s becoming so popular right now?
Mintel has been tracking personalization in food for some time now. We identified its potential in our 2016 trend [report] Diet by DNA, and it’s only been evolving since then.

Technological advances are enabling consumers to learn more about themselves than ever before, from wearables like Fitbits to DNA tests that give consumers an unprecedented look at their individual makeup. There’s a lot of confusion from consumers on what is healthy and how much of any one nutrient they need, and this specific information is appealing because it puts that control in consumers’ hands. 

What’s the biggest challenge facing companies trying to tap into consumer demand for personalization?
The flip side to the availability of this kind of individual information will be targeting those consumers. Right now, we can segment consumers by their “tribes,” such as vegan or paleo, but what will happen when each person understands they need slightly different things?

Plus, even if companies can target those consumers, consumers are grappling with privacy concerns in sharing data, so companies will be challenged to ensure that the benefits they can offer consumers in personalization outweigh the fears consumers have about sharing that data.

This is, though, also an opportunity for companies: while the prices of DNA kits are coming down, and further innovation will make these more accessible, not everyone is going to be able to truly eat this way. Nor will they want to: food is more than meeting your nutritional goals, and flavor and enjoyment are a huge advantage that food and beverage companies can offer consumers.

What do you think personalized food or drink will look like 5 years down the road?
In five years, I think we’ll see a blending of food tech with traditional eating that will create a more savvy consumer. We’ve already seen consumers demanding more transparency and traceability from their foods, and that will not go away. Personalization technology will enable consumers to know so much more about the foods they’re consuming and make smarter decisions about what they can and cannot eat. For some consumers, this may mean a return to foods they had written off, like gluten.

While there will be a group of consumers who live and breathe by the recommendations they receive from technology, a majority of consumers will be just beginning to experiment with these tools. Food and beverage companies will be challenged to provide as much information as possible about their products to help all consumers create healthy, balanced diets, whether or not they are using their DNA to do so.

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Come see Melanie speak to the future of personalization at Customize on February 27th in NYC! Spoon readers can use code SPOON15 to get 15% off tickets here.

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!

Food Tech News: Nestlé’s Plant-based Partnerships and a Kroger Podcast

Happy winter weekend, all. Hopefully wherever you are has some fresh Snow, clear skies, or a fire in the fireplace. One thing it definitely has: some food tech news.

In this week’s roundup we have stories on Nestlé’s new plant-based partnerships, a fresh podcast from Kroger, and a personalized nutrition report. Enjoy!

Nestlé partners with Canadian plant-based ingredient makers
It looks like Nestlé has taken another step into the alternative protein space. This week the New York Times reported that the Swiss CPG company has teamed up with two Canadian plant-based ingredient manufacturers: Burcon and Merit Functional Foods. The deal will give Nestlé new resources to expand and improve its alternative protein products, such as the soy- and wheat-based Incredible burgers which are currently available in Europe.

Kroger unveils new podcast “Noshtalgia“
For those who love their podcasts with a side of groceries, there’s a new option to add to the listening queue. Kroger has launched a podcast called Noshtalgia which features stories of people sharing their food memories (h/t GroceryDive). Hosted by cookbook author and TV personality Danielle Kartes, the podcast is intended as a medium for people to share their favorite family recipes — and, ya know, promote a place to buy the ingredients for said recipes (cough, Kroger, cough). The first episode, “Poppy’s Waldorf Salad,” is already live wherever you get your podcasts.

Report indicates huge potential for personalized nutrition
This week USB released a report stating that personalized nutrition could generate annual revenues of $64 billion by 2040 (via CNBC). The report calls out big-name companies, like Uber and Amazon, who should be investing more in the space.

There’s a ton of buzz around this topic, which is why we’re organizing a food personalization summit in NYC next month! Called Customize, the event will feature speakers in CPG, grocery, restaurants, and more talking about how they’re harnessing personalization to create the future of food. If you’d like to join use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off tickets!

Taco Bell Promotes More Menu Personalization With Certona Partnership

Taco Bell announced a partnership today with tech company Certona to use the latter’s platform to improve personalization for Taco Bell customers. Registered users of Taco Bell’s mobile app will be able to access more personalized recommendations and offers when ordering, according to the press announcement. 

Using Certona’s AI-powered “personalization suite,” Taco Bell will be able to pull data on things like a customer’s past orders, dietary preferences and favorite items as well as outside factors like weather and a user’s location. It can then use that information to make more relevant menu recommendations and upsell suggestions. 

The idea is to make it easier for customers to re-order favorites and also find new items that match their dietary preferences and restrictions. 

It’s also a way for Taco Bell to drive more orders through its mobile app and increase its overall digital business — a must for QSR chains in today’s increasingly tech-forward industry. For Taco Bell, the Certona partnership will likely improve the overall user experience for pick-up orders, where a customer orders via the app then collects the food themselves. 

Delivery is another story. Right now, Taco Bell customers can only order food for delivery via Grubhub, which means going into the third-party delivery service’s app and using their technology — not Taco Bell’s or Certona’s. That would seemingly limit the number of digital users Taco Bell can reach with the Certona integration. Though for all we know, the chain may have plans up its sleeve to eventually roll out a hybrid delivery strategy, as other fast food chains have done recently.

Taco Bell said nil about its delivery strategy in today’s press release. However, a hybrid strategy that makes it easier for registered Taco Bell users to access delivery — and therefore better personalization through Certona’s technology — from within Taco Bell’s own digital properties.

Regardless of whether Taco Bell pursues that strategy, today’s news certainly underscores the increasingly important role personalization plays when it comes to restaurant menus both off-premises and in the dining room. McDonald’s sent that trend mainstream last year when it acquired AI tech company Dynamic Yield to make its drive-thru menus more “Netflix-y.” Others have followed, from Starbucks to Chili’s, which announced earlier today a partnership with Presto to bring personalization right to customers’ tables.

Want more info on food personalization? Join us in NYC for The Spoon’s first-ever Customize event, taking place on February 27, 2020.

Chili’s Teams Up With Presto to Offer Pay-at-the-Table Devices

Fast-casual chain Chili’s announced today it has partnered with restaurant-tech company Presto to make PrestoPrime tabletop devices available to customers dining in the restaurant. According to a press release, the devices will be installed in most of Chili’s 1,250 locations in the U.S.

PrestoPrime devices let guests order meals and pay for them right from the table. The tablet-sized devices accept multiple forms of payment, from credit and debit cards to mobile payments. Restaurants can also use them to offer feedback surveys to guests, suggest upsell items on orders, and notify managers of unhappy guests in real time, so they can address problems before the customer leaves the restaurant. 

In addition to all those things, Chili’s has another goal in mind when it comes to using these devices in the front of house: personalization. According to the press release, a new featured being tested in PrestoPrime with the Chili’s deal is a guest sign-in feature. Customers can log into their My Chili’s Rewards (the chain’s loyalty program), view past orders, re-order favorites, set and adjust dietary preferences. 

While the feature is convenient for guests, it more importantly gives Chili’s access to the kind of customer data restaurants can use to tailor more pieces of the restaurant experience to fit the individual customer, whether that’s offering seating appropriate for someone in a wheelchair or avoiding onions because the customer in question hates them. Restaurants can also use the data to offer more relevant upsell items and boost ticket sizes.

Personalization features are all over the restaurant nowadays. McDonald’s deploying AI tech in its drive-thrus to speed up the personalization process. A company called 5thru is working with major QSRs to do much the same, only using technology that scans a customer’s license plate number to get to their restaurant profile. In the dining room, chains like Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, and Denny’s are all exploring tabletop devices as a way to personalize and speed up service.

Just a little over one year ago, Presto raised $30 million to further develop its front-of-house technology, which includes Presto Wearables and Presto A.I. in addition to PrestoPrime. Chili’s hasn’t yet said if either of these features will make their way into its dining rooms, though it would be an appropriate pairing given the chain’s goals around personalization.

Want more info on food personalization? Join us in NYC for The Spoon’s first-ever Customize event, taking place on February 27, 2020.

   

CES 2020: DNANudge Guides Your Grocery Shopping Based Off of Your DNA

Unless you’re a nutritionist or really adept at reading nutrition labels, it can be tricky to tell which brands of peanuts/chocolate/crackers are healthiest for you. Especially when grocery stores offer dozens and dozens of SKUs for every possible food item.

With DNANudge, a London-based personalized nutrition startup, the key to optimizing your grocery shopping is on your wrist. The company’s app links up with wearable bands which scan CPG products and give you real-time feedback on whether they’re a good fit for you to eat — or not.

We stopped by DNANudge’s booth at CES 2020 to get a tour of how it works. First you send off a saliva sample to the company’s HQ in Covent Garden, London. DNANudge analyzes your DNA to give you a breakdown of your nutritional profile — sensitive to salt, low risk of diabetes, etc. — which is available via the company’s app. (Your sample is then destroyed.) The app also connects to DNANudge’s wearable armbands, available online or in its London retail store. 

Then the fun begins. You can scan the barcodes of edible CPG products with the armband, which will either flash green (a good match for your biology) or red (not so much). After the band flashes, you can check on the app to get a more detailed breakdown of why the food is/isn’t a fit for you, and also get recommendations for products that might be a better match. Which kind of makes me wonder why the armband is even necessary — couldn’t you just scan all the products with your phone? Though I guess it looks #fashion and saves you the step of pulling out your phone, if you just want a quick yes/no in the grocery aisle.

Speaking on the CES show floor, DNANudge’s co-founder and CEO Chris Toumazou told me that he started the company in 2015 to empower people to eat healthier. “If you want to eat a biscuit, you’re going to eat a biscuit,” he explained to me. “But you can eat the best biscuit for your biology.”

DNANudge’s scanning currently works with all CPG SKU’s in major U.K. supermarkets, except for Marks & Spencer. The entire system — DNA test, wearable, and app — is currently available in the U.K. for 120 pounds ($158). Toumazou told me that they were planning to launch in the U.S. soon, possibly in L.A. He estimates that the system will retail for $120 stateside.

Personalized nutrition — either based off of DNA or gut microbiomes — has become quite a trend lately. Viome and Sun Genomics make dietary and supplement recommendations based off of your microbiome. The most similar offering to DNANudge is GenoPalate, which also uses a saliva swab to map DNA and make suggestions about which foods people should eat. However, GenoPalate doesn’t have the wearable aspect, so it can’t make recommendations on a case-by-case basis like DNANudge does.

There’s no doubt that more people want more personalized dietary guides, but how exactly to do that — and protect consumer data — is still unclear. If you’re curious this emerging space you should come to Customize, our food personalization summit on February 27th in New York City. See you there!

Will 2020 Be the Year Truly Personalized Food Becomes a Reality? (Sort of.)

You’re almost certainly already used to customizing your food to some degree. Maybe you get extra guac at Chipotle, or leave off the mayo on your drive-thru burgers. You might even use platforms like Innit to easily substitute ingredients when cooking at home.

But the era of truly personalized food — exactly what you want (or need), and nothing you don’t — has yet to come. And advancements in AI, data, and food science are helping us get there.

2020 is the time for personalization to mature and become more than just a gimmick. I see a few high-potential spaces in which personalization has the opportunity to really grow over the next year (or two): drive-thrus, sit-down restaurants, and dietary guidance.

When it comes to personalization in fast-food, McDonald’s is the clear leader. Earlier this year the QSR giant acquired Dynamic Yield, a personalization platform which it’s using to tailor menu recommendations based off of things like weather, time of day, etc.

But what Dynamic Yield brings to Mickey D’s isn’t real personalization, per se. The software can customize menus based on external factors— if it’s cold out, maybe you’d like a piping hot cup of coffee? — but it doesn’t pull from customer data to create menus actually drawn from individual preferences, dietary restraints, or allergies. And as the Spoon founder Mike Wolf pointed out earlier this year, true menu personalization is the holy grail for dining establishments.

That holy grail might be closer than we think, however. Startup 5Thru‘s tech will scan people’s license plates to access their past orders, which it uses to suggest your favorite foods. KFC is testing out similar tech. The fast-food space in general is investing heavily in personalization, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see lots of individual players accelerating their efforts in 2020 to try and smoke the competition.

Non-fast-food restaurants are also trying to leverage personalization to improve the consumer dining experience (and, you know, sell you more stuff). Suggestic and THE.FIT are developing tools to generate personalized versions of restaurant menus based on consumers’ dietary goals and restrictions. That sort of customization also extends to in-restaurant experiences; this year OpenTable and Upserve partnered to share guest data so restaurant employees can have pre-warning about their preferences, allergies, etc.

As these sorts of tech become more commonplace and affordable, restaurants will only get more personalized in 2020. I’m betting over the next twelve months that in-restaurant menu customization apps like Suggestic and THE.FIT will become, while not commonplace, at least more widely available. On the digital search side I could also envision Google Maps, which already surfaces restaurants’ most popular dishes during searches, displaying customized sample menus based off of your customized dietary profile.

2020 could also be the year that personalized nutrition becomes more mainstream. Viome and GenoPalate already create customized food and recipe recommendations based on your microbiome and DNA, respectively, to help fight preventable diseases. As these technologies become more widespread and affordable, we might even see these services integrating with restaurants to help you see which menu items best suit your diet and/or avoid triggering foods.

True, that might not happen in the next twelve months. But we will no doubt see more vaguely customized products like Nourished, which creates individualized 3D printed vitamins. That sort of generalized personalization also extends to things like baby food and wine delivery. While these offerings are based off of broader markets like age and preferences, not data as granular as your microbiome makeup, they indicate a real effort by companies to take a step in that direction and offer customized CPG products, typically delivered right to your doorstep.

It’s also worth acknowledging the potential pushback against personalization. Creating things like highly customized menus and restaurant recommendations necessitates massive amounts of personal data, which could have frightening consequences if that data gets hacked. Despite those risks, I have no doubt that companies will keep pursuing the personalization trend into 2020 and beyond.

That said, we’ve got a ways to go until we reach a truly personalized dining future. I don’t think that by December 31st, 2020 we’ll be able to go to a drive-thru and see menus sporting all of our favorite dishes thanks to info it gleaned from your dietary profile. But it might remember you love the Buffalo sauce with your chicken nuggets — and that’s a start.

We’re so interested in the potential (and challenges) of food personalization that we created a whole summit around it! Join us at Customize in NYC on February 27th — Early Bird tickets are on sale for a few more days.

It’s Personal: Nourished 3D Prints Vitamins Tailored Exactly to Your Needs

If you’re like me, when shopping for vitamins you might pick up whatever’s on sale. After all, vitamins are mostly one-size-fits-all, right?

British startup Nourished would very much disagree. The Birmingham, U.K.-based company is trying to shake up the supplement space by using 3D printing technology to create personalized vitamins made specifically for you.

First you answer a short questionnaire on the Nourished website describing your lifestyle, health issues and nutrition goals. Nourished’s algorithm then builds you a unique “stack” out of their 28 “nourishments.” (You can also build your own stack if you already know what ingredients you want.) The company then 3D prints bespoke, layered vitamins just for you out of vegan gel — which end up looking like rainbow gummy candy — and deliver to your door every month.

Why 3D print the vitamins? According to Nourished’s Head of Brand, Caitlin Stanley, manufacturing supplements via 3D printing opens up a whole new world of personalization possibilities. Typically, active ingredients that show up in vitamins — like ashwagandha and Vitamin A — interfere with each other when combined into the same capsule. However, by printing these ingredients on top of each other, Nourished can fuse them into the same bite-sized supplement.

Each Nourished box comes with 28 stacks meant to be taken once a day. The vitamins are individually packaged “to maintain efficacy,” according to Stanley, who added that the packaging is compostable.

Photo: Nourished

If there’s one thing that might put people off of Nourished, it’s the price. The service costs £39.99 (~ $51.00) a month, which is significantly more than your average vitamin bottle off the pharmacy shelf. However, the cost is on par with other personalized D2C vitamin services, like Care/Of.

When I asked about competitors, Stanley was adamant that Nourished is the only company out there right now creating a truly personalized supplement. Care/Of basically just aggregates a variety of pills into a single pouch, while Nourished actually combines all of the ingredients into a bespoke bite-size supplement made specifically for the individual.

Nourished just launched a little over six weeks ago, so it’s in the very early stages. Right now it’s only shipping in the U.K. However, Stanley told me that the company plans to head to the U.S. in 2020. The company has raised a seed round for an undisclosed amount and currently has a team of twenty-five.

Personalization is a hot trend in the food space right now. Consumers want all aspects of their diet tailored to their exact preferences, from recipes to drive-thru orders to the foam topping your craft cocktail. But when it comes to health and nutrition, customization should be “first and foremost,” said Stanley. We’ll see if Nourished’s 3D printing strategy can help them be first and foremost in the personalized vitamin space, too.

If you’re interested in what’s coming next in personalized nutrition, you’ve got to be at Customize. The one-day event in New York City will explore the world of food personalization throughout the meal journey. Grab your Early Bird ticket before they’re all sold out!

Introducing Customize, the Food Personalization Summit

If you live in the U.S., odds are you have Thanksgiving on the mind this week. Though many T-Day menus feature the same classic rolodex of dishes — turkey, cranberries, stuffing, etc. — each spread is slightly personalized to reflect the preferences of the chef and guests.

But personalization goes well beyond what’s on the holiday dinner table. In fact, we here at The Spoon believe breakthrough discoveries in food science, artificial intelligence, micro-manufacturing and other critical areas will lay the foundation for a food system that will be radically reshaped by personalization over the next decade.

However, even as the era of one-sized-fits-all food comes to an end, the conversation in the space is pretty fragmented. While everyone knows that personalization is the goal, they’re not exactly sure how to make it happen.

Which is why we created Customize, a one-day executive summit that will explore the impact of personalization across the food system. Customize will take place in New York City on February 27th at WeWork’s awesome 85 Broad St. space in NYC’s Financial District. (WeWork Food Labs is our awesome event partner for Customize.) 

Throughout the day we will examine topics from the food personalization space, including microbiome-based nutrition, AI-powered grocery recommendations, CPG development and more. 

To help create an amazing day of conversation, we’ve already recruited a star-studded lineup of speakers, including:

And that’s just the beginning. We’re adding more speakers every week, so be sure to check back regularly for updates. If you are building something world-changing in the area of food personalization, drop us a line or fill out our information form on the Customize website and let us know!

Tickets absolutely will sell out — get your Early Bird pass now before prices go up on December 31.

Finally, if your company has something interesting cooking in the world of personalization and you would like to be a sponsor for Customize, let us know!

We’re super excited to bring you this new event and look forward to exploring the world of food personalization with you in February.

See you in New York!

Naveen Jain Says for Perfectly Personalized Food, Trust Your Gut. Literally

What if the food you ate could not only help you feel better and lose (or gain) weight, but also cure chronic health conditions, make you more alert, or even clear up your skin?

That’s exactly what personalized nutrition company Viome is trying to do. Viome’s CEO Naveen Jain will be onstage at the Smart Kitchen Summit {SKS} next week to talk about biomapping your menu and the power of personalized diets.

We spoke with Jain recently to learn more about how he’s trying to reinvent individual nutrition, starting with the gut. Read a little teaser about our conversation on Viome’s capabilities below, and be sure to get your tickets to SKS (there’s only a few left!) to hear him talk about the future of nutrition and personalization onstage.

You might not know it, but there are over 40 trillion microbes currently living in our gut. These microbes help us break down food and absorb nutrition, but, as living organisms, they differ person to person. So why isn’t the food we eat attuned to our specific gut microbe breakdown?

Jain thinks it should be. “We understand the human body at a biochemical level,” Jain told me. “Everything in your body is so personalized. That’s why we should change healthcare from the ‘one size fits all’ model.”

That’s why he created Viome, which uses an individual’s stool sample to check out what the microbes in their gut are doing. Based off of that data, the company can tell them which foods are good for them (and why)‚ which ones are not so good, and can also recommend dietary enzymes to help stabilize your gut or facilitate weight loss.

Viome used to be limited to analysis and supplements, but a few months ago the company acquired personalized nutrition company Habit. Jain said that they’re using Habit to add integrated recipes and meal planning into the Viome platform. Though it’s added new services, Viome has also gotten a lot more affordable. When it first launched in 2016 its test cost $400 — now it’s under half that.

All of this goes to show that personalized nutrition is getting more accessible, relevant, and better about pinpointing exactly how individuals should eat to meet their health goals. Is it the future of eating? It very well could be. The best way to find out is to join us at SKS as Jain and others do a deep dive into the potential power of personalized eating. We’ll see you there!

Anrich3D Wants to 3D Print Food Personalized Just For You

The concept of 3D printing food is already pretty futuristic. Add in nutrition personalization, and you get something that sounds even more like it’s straight out of Star Trek.

That’s exactly the device that Anrich3D, one of the finalists in our SKS 2019 Startup Showcase, is trying to make. The soon-to-be-incorporated company is developing a system of 3D printers which can precisely dispense food based off of an individual’s particular nutritional and aesthetic preferences. Pretty radical, huh?

We spoke with Anrich3D founder and CEO Anirudh Agarwal about why he thinks 3D printing could make food more nutritious, affordable, and accessible. Check out the Q&A then get your tickets to SKS to see Anirudh pitch live in Seattle this October!

Give us your 15-second elevator pitch.
We produce personalized meal plans for health enthusiasts based on information from health trackers, apps, wearables and medical check-ups. Each meal is personalized to the individual using multi-material food 3D printing at scale.

What inspired you to start your company?
Most people don’t know what to eat. There are many apps and services out there to give you very personalized advice. But there are no services to convert those apps into meals. Moreover, humans are good at and enjoy creativity, while number crunching is a machine’s forte. I may want to decide what physical form of food I am in the mood for or even what cuisine, but I don’t want to measure every ingredient according to my nutritional requirements.

A food 3D printer can provide personalized nutrition integrating data from all the apps, wearables and even medical records that exist to create the mathematically optimized meal for me — inarguably, the best possible thing I could be eating. It is said, “It’s 80% nutrition and 20% exercise.” With this, I never have to worry about my 80%!

What’s more, it can produce little bite-sized pieces I call “foodlets” so as to make every bite perfect and an absolutely effortless experience. The peak of convenience beyond what any fast food restaurant can provide. And when machines make it, with scale, it can be available and affordable for all.

With “fast-food” made healthy, we can liberate people to always have a healthy option no matter how busy or broke. There is a saying in Hindi, “Jaan hai to Jahan hai”: if you have your health, you have the world! Health is the foundation of our productivity. With optimal nutrition and therefore good health within grasp, people can reach their full potential and propel humanity forward. And of course lower instances of diabetes, obesity and other lifestyle diseases. A lower strain on the healthcare system. Preventive healthcare!

It doesn’t end there. With enough scale, we can transform the supply chain for food by applying manufacturing inventory management techniques. We can work with grocery stores to minimize inventory and even utilize the fresh produce left at the end of each day to minimize food waste. With more efficient distribution, we may be able to reduce world hunger if not eliminate it completely!

I could go on about specific ground-level applications, but this is the overarching vision. This drives me and gives me a reason to wake up in the morning!

What’s the most challenging part of getting a food tech startup off the ground?
Where do I begin! Food is a touchy subject. Literally — we need to be careful about what is literally touching the food! We need regulatory approval (FDA for the U.S.) for the parts, the machine and the process of preparing the food. We also need food handling certification for all personnel that handle the food.

Food is also “touchy” figuratively. People have deep emotional connections to their food. A new form of food may have a psychological barrier to cross for acceptance. We need to focus on demonstrations and education and make this “new” thing mundane and “normal” with exposure for the majority to adopt it. The good thing is, instead of giving supplements powders, we want to focus on real food ingredients and just give the precise proportions of those!

How will your company change the day-to-day life of consumers and the food space as a whole?
Food 3D printing at scale has the potential to make “fast” food healthy. In other words, make healthy food convenient and affordable!

No two people are the same. Everyone has different needs and goals. Food 3D printing at scale has the potential to make individual-level personalization available and affordable for all. Beyond personalized nutrition, people crave a personal touch. For some people, a sandwich is most convenient, while it may be a wrap or hot pocket for others. Some want a dish displayed traditionally, while others may like their toast carved as a dinosaur. With 3D printing, this personal touch can also be added.

Armed with personalized nutrition and this personal touch, Anrich3D can change the perception of food and what form it can take! Star Trek anyone?

For kids, healthier food can be delivered in the shapes of their favorite characters to improve their motivation to finish the meal. This can be made into a gamified nutritional educational program for kids where they unlock more characters by finishing each meal. As the levels progress, they need to identify ingredients and make estimates for the amounts of each ingredient in a balanced meal. The program gradually helps them acquire the taste for healthier foods and teaches them about healthy ingredients and nutrition along the way!

This can be a government-mandated nutrition course in every school all over the world to raise a generation of healthier kids with an acquired taste for healthier food and a deep understanding of nutrition to create a healthier and more productive tomorrow!

Even beyond all that, Anrich3D can streamline the food supply chain from farm to grocery store to your plate so as to minimize waste and redistribute existing produce to minimize hunger. Mobilizing forces across countries, we can end world hunger!

Come watch Anirudh pitch live and at the SKS Startup Showcase next month! Get 25% off your tickets here.