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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

personalization

SKS Q&A: GenoPalate’s Sherry Zhang on How Your DNA Can and Should Dictate What You Eat

In Western cultures we tend to go to the doctor to get medicine, but there’s a growing movement advocating for food as the first step towards healthier bodies. (Which, when you think about it, is pretty obvious.) But determining what foods to eat to make you feel better can be tricky, especially in our age of fad diets and fast-food.

Dr. Sherry Zhang founded company GenoPalate to try and solve the whole what-do-I-eat-to-feel-better question for individuals by looking at genetics to create personalized nutrition programs. Sort of like Ancestry DNA for your diet.

Zhang will be speaking at our flagship Smart Kitchen Summit {SKS} conference in Seattle this October, exploring the burgeoning trend of food as medicine. (Psst — Early Bird ticket sales end tomorrow, so grab yours before the price goes up!) We asked her a few questions to get a better sense of how exactly GenoPalate works, and what sort of role it could play in mapping out our dining future.

Tell us more about GenoPalate. How exactly does it work?
GenoPalate revolutionizes how people eat healthy based on their unique genetics. Through a simple swab test, GenoPalate’s nutrigenetic home test analyzes 100+ genetic markers that determine a person’s specific needs for 24 vital nutrients such as carbohydrates, vitamin D, and sodium, and sensitivities to lactose, gluten, caffeine and alcohol. The company combines genetic results with millions of nutritional variables to recommend the foods a person should eat more of. Then each client receives a report that includes their genetic results, what they mean, and a personalized list of the 80+ foods that benefit that specific client the most. Using its genetics-based personalized nutrition technology, GenoPalate is changing how people choose, shop for and eat food for better health.

How do consumers get access to GenoPalate’s technology? Is it offered as a solo service? Do you work with partners? A combination?
It is easy to get access to GenoPalate’s technology. Consumers can order their GenoPalate nutrigenetic home tests by going to its e-commerce platform at genopalate.com. It is offered as one streamlined experience and each service comes with GenoPalate’s genetics-based nutrition analysis, a personal nutrition and food map report followed by Activate, a 12-week digital coaching program that provides individual consumers actionable knowledge to eat for their genes.

Personalization is a growing trend in the food space. Why do you think it’s having such a moment lately?
There are definitely radical changes in the expectations, needs and wants of food shoppers lately. I think the driver behind this trend in consumer behavior is the advancements in the technology world that enables 1) the dramatically increased amount of information on sources, ingredients and manufacturing processes to the food we have access to today; 2) the level of precision in health information that we now are able to access and analyze for better understanding the impact of food and nutrition on a person’s health and wellness by the high-paced advancement in the field of clinical genomics. Consumers have always had the appetite for personalized food options for their needs but it was not possible to meet those needs at greater scale. Now we have the technologies to offer that, it is reasonable that consumers and the industry they influence cannot wait for taking it on.

How do you address the issue of privacy around the personal data you gather to create nutrition profiles for GenoPalate?
Keeping our users’ genetic and other personal information private and safe is important to us at GenoPalate.

We implement de-identification procedures along with encryption of each individual’s data to ensure secure storage and complete anonymous separate of your genetic and personal information. Only automated GenoPalate product services have access to both of this information to deliver our product to each user.

As a business, we do not sell, lease or rent users’ personal information to third-party without user’s consent. User’s genetic information may be used by our product development team to enhance our services to our users. In this case, users’ data will be de-identified and aggregated before analysis to preserve anonymity.

To learn more about our data security and privacy measures please visit, https://www.genopalate.com/legal.

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Keep an eye out for more speaker Q&A’s as we ramp up to our fifth year of SKS on October 7-8 in Seattle! We hope to see you there.

The Food Tech Show: Personalized Menus

Over the past decade, we’ve seen how big data, mobile and social media has created a wave of personalized services for consumers in everything from music and entertainment to news to financial services.

So why is it that the restaurant menu still offers a one-sized fits all offering for guests?

To discuss why the restaurant menu seems stuck in time, I am joined on this episode of The Food Tech Show by Scott Sanchez, CEO of The Fit. We talk about where the menu will go in the future, whether we’ll eventually ever see personalized food profiles and how Scott’s own personal struggles with weight led him to eventually create The Fit.

As always, you can listen to The Food Tech Show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, download direct to your device or just click play below.

Dunkin’ Hints at Its Future With Self-Service Kiosk Expansion

Dunkin’s westward expansion of its next-generation concept stores continues, with news that the Quincey, MA-based chain is testing out self-service kiosks at full-service locations in California.

The company highlighted this at the end of last week when it opened its 100th next-gen store in the state of California. Like the other Dunkin’ concept stores, this one features faster drive-thru service for mobile orders and a sizable roundup of cold-brew coffees on tap, and self-service kiosks, which are fast becoming less “concept” in QSRs and more the expected norm.

The new store, in Santa Ana, is the ninth such Dunkin’ location to test these touchscreen kiosks, which resemble those of McDonald’s in look and feel. Dunkin’s entire menu is available on these kiosks, which are placed inside the store and process ordering and payments, including payment via the Dunkin’ loyalty program. Also like McDonald’s system, a digital board by the pickup counter displays each order number and whether it’s in progress or ready to be collected by the customer.

While the kiosk itself is noteworthy, it’s what Dunkin’ will do with the device that matters more. Nation’s Restaurant News, who has some nice photos of the kiosks, noted that the kiosks allow guests to customize their drinks and food. NRN didn’t go into exhaustive detail about the level of customization, but Dunkin’s system will definitely have to go deeper than simply asking whether a guest wants a shot of vanilla flavoring in their latte (a common question if you order a latte at a QSR). As more restaurant chains adopt these kiosks and as more customers order and pay through rewards programs that store profile information and preferences, kiosks will have to get smarter about what they’re enabling in terms of making an order more personal and doing so faster.

McDonald’s set the bar high earlier this year when it acquired Dynamic Yield, whose “decision technology” uses AI to recommend items based on time of day, weather, a customer’s order history, and trending menu items, among other things.

Dunkin’ hasn’t yet made any acquisition announcements of its own, though around the time it launched its first next-gen store and dropped the “donuts” out of its name, Wired pointed out that the via the company’s Innovation Lab, “facial- and voice-recognition are on Dunkin’s radar,” and that the chain was also looking at AI. So it would be in no way surprising if we soon get news that Dunkin’ is making bigger moves towards AI-powered recommendations and personalization.

23AndMe Can Predict Your Favorite Ice Cream Flavor. How Do We Feel About That?

Genetic testing company, 23AndMe, can determine where your ancestors hail from, if you’re at risk for certain medical conditions, and, apparently, your favorite ice cream flavor.

Well, as long as it’s either chocolate or vanilla. A few days ago 23AndMe released a trait report that, among other things, can estimate whether you’re more likely to prefer vanilla or chocolate ice cream (h/t Food & Wine).

The company used data from 980,000 23AndMe research participants to determine a statistical model which showed whether each person was predestined to prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream (those are the only two flavors the report covers). The same report can also indicate users’ preference for salty or sweet snacks, as well as whether or not they have an aversion to cilantro. 23AndMe has done similar preference reports centered on beer in the past.

Having the power to determine whether someone likes chocolate or vanilla ice cream based on their DNA is obviously not a groundbreaking use of genetic science. Most people know their favorite ice cream flavors already (Team Mint Chocolate Chip!), and if they don’t, it’s pretty darn easy to find out.

Take a longer view, however, and it becomes clear how this sort of technology could have significant implications for the future of food personalization. As food becomes more and more digitized, companies can access your profile to determine dietary preferences, allergens, and general preferences.

It’s starting to happen already. McDonald’s has begun using Dynamic Yield to suggest new menu items to drive-thru customers based off of external factors like weather, trends, etc. But as The Spoon founder Mike Wolf pointed out recently, right now “personalized doesn’t really mean personalized, but instead it just means something slightly different based on a set of localized and current environmental factors.” Add DNA into the mix, and personalized could mean not only personalized based on your purchase history or pre-set preferences, but based on your actual genetics.

There are a ton of ways that companies could use your genetic predispositions to sell you more food tweaked towards your exact tastes. Perhaps your phone would ping you to try a new seasonal flavor at a brewery, or your local taco spot could know to automatically omit cilantro from your online orders. At best, these sort of nudges would make you try something new or save you from picking off cilantro. At worst, they’re super annoying.

However, providing this sort of data could have a lot bigger implications than just marketing nudges. What happens if the food you should or shouldn’t eat based on you genes gets shared not just with a restaurant, but also with your insurance company? Do you want it (and their rate hikes) keeping tabs on what you order? That’s a pretty extreme example, but your genetic makeup is the ultimate in private data. Revealing and sharing it could have far-reaching consequences which are not always obvious, or pleasant.

Gattaca stuff aside, this sort of granular data could present a big opportunity to personalized food companies like Spoonshot, Tastewise, or Analytical Flavor System. Right now they rely on external factors like consumer trends and the molecular makeup of food, but add DNA into the mix and they have an entirely new —and extremely personal— dataset with which to design your ideal flavor combination. CPG brands could, in turn, use these hyper-personalized flavor preferences to then sell to you through hyper-targeted marketing. Futuristic, sure — but not honestly, it’s probably not that far out.

There’s also the fact that living in a world where all your taste choices are predetermined sounds kind of, well, boring. Because even if I know that I love mint chocolate chip, I still like the excitement and the (admittedly tiny) risk of trying a new flavor, and waiting to see if I’ll like it or not.

23AndMe users can check out their ice cream flavor preference report here.

CES 2019 Video: Lumen Gives You Personalized Diet Plans with One Breath

There are a bunch of companies offering personalized gadgets at CES this week, from smart mirrors to color-changing jewelry to toilets (for real). But Israeli startup Lumen is applying personalization to what’s going on inside your body. The company’s handheld breath detector measures your metabolism, then builds specialized meal plans based on that information and your dietary preferences.

We spoke with Lumen cofounder Dror Ceder on the CES show floor to learn more about the breathalizer-like device, and why he thinks it can help people diet more effectively and eat healthier.

The Spoon look at Lumen, a handheld breath detector for measuring metabolism

Amazon Patents Personalized Restaurant Suggestions. Could a Reservation Platform be Next?

Every year in the run-up to Mother’s Day, I usually remember – often too late – to make a reservation at a nice restaurant to take my children’s mom (who is also, not so coincidentally, my wife) out to brunch.

Now I know what you’re thinking: I should probably offload this activity to my kids (she is their mother, after all, not mine). But the reality is figuring out a good restaurant to make reservations at is a challenge that pops up for me throughout the year, which is why I was intrigued to stumble upon this patent issued today to Amazon for personalized restaurant suggestions.

The patent, entitled “Implicit occasion personalization for restaurants,” describes a system that makes highly-customized suggestions based on a contextual understanding of a person’s past behavior, friend and family network, and specific time-based events such as birthdays, anniversaries and, yes, spouse-specific holidays that demand attention as to avoid marital doghouses.

In one example described in the patent, the system would recognize that a person has an important event coming up in their life, either based on their own calendar or that of their family or friends, and suggest a reservation at a high-end restaurant:

“Perhaps the date (e.g., March 5th) is the birthday, anniversary, or other occasion that is personal to the user, the user’s family and/or the user’s friends. The service provider may leverage the user pattern to make recommendations to the user. In at least one example, the service provider may recommend a reservation at the high-end restaurant to the user on or before the date.”

And while the system described in the patent can certainly help suggest restaurants for important dining occasions, it also describes helping with the more mundane ones. One proposed example has the system recommending new pho restaurants based on similarities to other restaurants the user patronizes.

This isn’t the first time Amazon’s dabbled in preemptive restaurants suggestions. Earlier this year, The Spoon uncovered a patent from Amazon that described a system that would use contextual information to trigger a preemptive restaurant delivery order. With this new patent, it looks like Amazon is trying to corner the market on predictive recommendations around a person’s entire restaurant purchasing behavior, whether that be for dine-out or delivery.

Not only would it make sense to integrate these services with the online giant’s food delivery marketplace as well as with Alexa (“Alexa, can you tell me what I should do for dinner tonight?”), but I can also envision Amazon building out their own reservation platform and marketplace to take on fast-growing startups like Tock and Resy and well as industry goliath OpenTable.

“The Hookup” Matches You with Your Ideal Coffee Bean Mate

Finding a soulmate can be hard — but what about finding your coffee soulmate? A new app from Trade Coffee Co. wants to help java lovers of all stripes discover the coffee of their dreams.

Dubbed “The Hookup” (cringe), the service starts by asking users answer 6 basic questions about their coffee experience level, preferred brew method, desired roast level, and coffee order (black, cream, sugar, etc.). As a snobby ex-barista, I was surprised to see the option for ground coffee (grind it yourself, guys!), but hey — I guess can’t blame Trade for trying to capture a wider audience.

After submitting their answers, users get a custom coffee recommendation from one of 50 different roasters. They can either purchase the coffee through Trade, or sign up for a subscription service which will deliver tailored coffee options ever 7, 14, or 21 days. All coffees cost between $12 and $20 — pretty average for specialty brews — and shipping is free. After tasting the coffee, users can submit feedback to the Hookup, which will then adjust their profile and inform future coffee shipments.

Photo: Trade Coffee Co.

Based on my answers, I was recommended an Ethiopian coffee from San Francisco-based roaster Sightglass as “The One.” The beans are $19, which is on the high side but not unusual for specialty coffee. After entering in my payment information Trade Coffee Co. offered me the option to let something called “Probot” manage my next order and give me recommendations and shipping updates over text.

In addition to coffee beans, Trade Coffee Co. also sells coffee brewing equipment and offers how-to tutorials for a variety of brew methods, from French Press to Pourover. Interestingly, in researching this article I discovered that the site is owned by JAB Holding, the coffee-hungry corporation which also lays claim to Peet’s, Intelligensia (which is prominently featured on the Trade site, hm…), Keurig and Panera, among others. Trade offers a new channel for JAB to reach haute coffee consumers, and also draws in more customers with its promise of curation and personalization.

In that way, The Hookup puts me in mind of wine discovery and recommendation apps, such as Wine-Searcher and Vivino. Like wine, specialty coffee can be intimidating — not everyone knows exactly which roast they like, or what country produces their favorite single origin. The Hookup is an easy, fun way to discover some new coffee beans in a super low-touch way.

While its services might be a bit scattershot and “mainstream” for true coffee connoisseurs — and a bit pricey for those who just drink it for the caffeine — I’d say The Hookup is actually a pretty helpful service for the majority of java drinkers (silly name aside). It would be a great service for people who want to up their coffee game but aren’t sure how to start, or those who already like specialty coffee but don’t want to spend the time or energy seeking it out.

If you’re curious about how technology is changing the way we grow, source, discover, and drink coffee, don’t miss Nate Gilliland of Bellwether Coffee’s solo talk at the Smart Kitchen Summit this October, entitled “From Soil to Sip: Disruptions in the Coffee Value Chain.” Get your tickets here!

Podcast: Is The Recipe Dead?

At last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit, celebrity chef Tyler Florence declared “the recipe is dead!”

There’s no doubt the recipe is changing with the arrival of new technologies, cooking methods and content formats, so we decided to have a conversation about this at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe. This episode of the Smart Kitchen Show features a panel conversation featuring the BBC’s LuLu Grimes, Hestan Cue’s Jon Jenkins and Dishq’s Kishan Vasani. The panel, which was moderated by YouTube star Katie Quinn, includes discussion about personalization, guided cooking, shoppable recipes and much more. It’s a great podcast so make sure to listen.

You can see hear more about the future of the recipe, food personalization, recipe commerce and much more at Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle. Use discount code PODCAST for 25% off tickets.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking play above, download it using this link or subscribe to the Smart Kitchen Show on Apple podcasts. For those who prefer to watch the panel, you can watch the video of the session from Smart Kitchen Summit Europe below.

SKS Europe: Personalized, Shoppable and Guided: Recipes Are Not Dead

Lumen Analyzes Your Breath to Help You Lose Weight

When it comes to losing weight, a lot of us just want to be told what to do. That’s why we go to a spin class, or follow specific diets. Lumen is a startup that wants to make that type of advice more personalized for you with a handheld breathalizer that measures your metabolism.

The eponymous Lumen device looks (sadly) like a vape pen. Blow into it and the device measures the CO2 of your exhale to see if you are burning carbs or body fat. According to the promotional video, you can breathe into Lumen in the morning to get a personalized meal plan for the day, adjust that meal plan with breath check-ins throughout the day, and check your breath before a workout to see if you need to carb up for additional energy.

The results, according to the site, are sustainable weight loss and optimized workouts.

Lumen launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund its eponymous device. It has already blown past its $50,000 goal, raising $213,816 with a full month left to go. Early birds can pick up a Lumen for $199, after that the price jumps to $219. Devices are estimated to ship in February 2019.

The Lumen site has an entire section on the science behind its device. We can’t validate the company’s claims here, but the idea behind Lumen fits in with two trends we’ve been following here at The Spoon: handheld analyzing devices and personalization.

With technology getting more powerful and smaller, there is a crop of new devices coming to market to help us better understand what and how we are eating. The Nima sensor helps consumers detect the presence of peanuts or gluten in foods to help avoid allergens. And the SCiO uses spectrometry to scan food for nutritional information.

All these personal devices aim to help people make better choices when eating. Personalization has become a hot topic at our Smart Kitchen Summits: companies like FoodPairing are creating tools for hyper-personalized recipes, and further out, Intellectual Ventures has a patent for a personalized food manufacturing system. They’re also eyeing a future where 3D printed foods deliver the exact food we want to fit dietary and nutritional needs.

If Lumen works as promised, getting personalized meal recommendations and losing weight is not something you’ll need to hold your breath for.

FoodPairing Unveils FlavorID, A New Tool for Taste Personalization

Of the overarching trends that emerged at the first ever Smart Kitchen Summit Europe last week in Dublin, a big one was personalization. At the reception the evening before the event, FoodPairing wow-ed the crowd with a robot that made cocktails based on people’s individual taste preferences (spicy, sweet, floral, herbal, etc.). We at the Spoon were pretty impressed with the boozy results — definitely something we’d order again.

The next day, at a panel on the new era of personalization in food, FoodPairing founder Johan Langenbick unveiled a new solution for individualized food recommendation. Dubbed FlavorID, their service draws from over 8,000 different aromas and taste molecules, as well as 600 dietary descriptors, to develop a sort of flavor fingerprint for each individual.

Since they launched in 2009, FoodPairing has been developing a digital flavor database (the world’s largest, according to their press release) based on the aromatic profiles of over 2,500 ingredients. By synching this tech with individual consumer’s behavior — such as food experiences, preferences, and genetic predispositions — they can create a specific flavor identity (or “passport,” as their website calls it) for each user. “FlavorID was the missing link in our technology stack and portfolio of solutions,” said Langenbick.

This new tool will be used to create hyper-personalized recipe suggestions, menu recommendations, and meal plans linked to health goals and dietary restrictions.

Langenbick explained that they planned to partner with 3rd party apps, such as smart kitchen appliances, e-grocery services, mHealth apps and more, to bring FlavorID’s recommendations to the consumer. This will make it free for consumers to use. While FlavorID will be embedded in these other services, Langenbick said that they will also have their own mobile app so that consumers can access and control their personal data.

So where will this data come from? “The first input is, of course the 3rd party application in which FlavorID is embedded,” said Langenbick. But he and his team are also exploring other sources which do not require actual data input or questionnaires, such as purchased goods history, as tools to build out individual taste profiles.

FoodPairing is currently piloting a few use cases for FlavorID and told The Spoon that they expect to announce their first partnerships soon. Whether or not the service lives up to its lofty goals of granular recommendations right from the get-go, however, it’s a strong indicator that food personalization will become more and more present in our daily lives. And more and more companies, from Flavorwiki to dishq to PlantJammer, are leveraging this trend as a tool to better predict what we want to eat.

I could see a future where everyone has a flavor “fingerprint,” which restaurants, grocery e-commerce sites, and food delivery services can access to give uber-personalized recommendations, something like the personal food profiles Mike wrote about last year. Maybe someday Amazon will be able to look at this fingerprint to predict exactly what you want for dinner — and then have corresponding groceries, meal kits, or straight-up food delivery waiting for you on the kitchen counter when you get home from work. Services like FlavorID could play a large role in these futuristic meal journeys.

Mucho Makes Shoppable Meal Planning More Dynamic & Efficient

“You do the cooking. We do the rest.” That’s the tagline of Mucho, a London-based startup which aims to create personalized, convenient meal plans that can be customized a whole slew of ways. And they really do take you pretty much ALLLLL the way through the meal journey.

Customers can use the Mucho app to select recipes based on dietary preferences (low sugar, vegetarian, etc.), budget, and how people they want to feed. The app then builds a customized shopping basket around the recipe(s), which users can either transfer into a printable shopping list or, if they’re in the U.K., they can also have their shopping list delivered through grocery delivery service Ocado. Users can also add on bits and pieces like cleaning products or snacks to their delivery list.

As of now, Mucho has over 1000 recipes in their database, culled from 40 online influencers and 20 brands — most of whom focus on healthy recipes. 

When I first heard of Mucho, I thought “Isn’t this just emeals, but British?” Both services offer personalized recipe selections, both create shopping lists, and both are linked up with grocery delivery companies so users can have their meals’ ingredients delivered straight to their door.

According to their cofounder Shanshan Xu, however, Mucho differs from emeals — and existing shoppable recipe services in general — quite a bit.

First of all, it’s more flexible. “We’ve found that people’s mood changes all the time,” said Xu. While emeals requires a subscription that locks users into a set number of dishes from the get-go, home cooks can use Mucho as much — or as little — as they’d like. They update their dietary profile and the number of people they’ll be cooking for every time they open up the app.

Emeals does allow their users switch between plans, but you can’t customize day-by-by. Which can be a hassle if you’re someone that, say, wants to eat vegan one week and flexitarian the next, or isn’t consistently dining with a partner or family. 

Mucho can also be cheaper — depending on how much you use it. Jenn Marsten reported for The Spoon that prices for emeals vary based on how long you choose to commit, but it costs $29.99 for three months or $59.99 for a full year, not including the cost of ingredients and grocery delivery. Mucho’s app is free to use, and if customers choose to have groceries delivered through the app they add a 5% fee to the final bill.

Do a little high school math, and we can determine that if you’re buying less than $1,200 in groceries per year, Mucho costs less than emeals. While $1,200 isn’t much at all to spend on groceries, especially for families, emeals also requires users to sign up for grocery delivery services (such as Amazon Prime or Instacart) separately, whereas Mucho builds Ocado delivery into the service. Xu told me that they’re hoping to soon shift the price burden away from the consumer and onto the grocery retailer.

To me, Mucho is a good option for people who want a more dynamic meal-planning service than emeals, but who need more hand-holding than is offered by shoppable recipes.

I’m betting the app will be popular with young, single folk (read: millennials) who want to cook more (and more adventurously), but also value the convenience of grocery delivery — and are willing to pay for it. Plus, Mucho’s bright, poppy graphics seem like they were made with this audience in mind.

Speaking of millennials, I tried the app myself; it was fun and easy to use, and while I couldn’t use the delivery capabilities (because I’m in the U.S.), I could definitely see myself incorporating Mucho into my grocery routine, especially when, as Xu reassured me, the delivery option comes over the pond.

The app has over 10,000 downloads so far. The Mucho cofounders put together money themselves to create the beta version of their app, and their roughly 10-person team is working to perfect their product before raising their seed round.