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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Q&A

Recipe Database Yummly Will Personalize “The Entire Digital Kitchen” to Help You Cook The Perfect Steak

If you’ve ever searched for a recipe online, odds are you’ve perused at least a few offerings on Yummly. This massive database started out with a focus on personalizing recipe discovery. Then, almost three years ago, appliance giant Whirlpool bought the company and the stakes changed. In the words of Greg Druck, Chief Data Scientist at Yummly, the company has now expanded from “personalizing recipe discovery to personalizing the entire digital kitchen.”

Curious? So were we, which is why we invited Druck to speak at Customize, our food personalization event happening next week in NYC. (Hot tip: There are still a few tickets left, and you can get 15 percent off with code SPOON15.)

To ramp up to the main event we asked Druck a few questions on what exactly a personalized kitchen might look like and what tools it’ll feature (hint: digital assistants and something called a “virtual pantry.”). And yes, the kitchen of the future should be able to perfectly cook a steak to your personal definition of doneness, every single time.

Check out the Q&A below. We’ll see you in New York!

Tell us a little bit about what Yummly does. 
Yummly is the most advanced AI-powered digital kitchen platform with over 25 million users. Yummly started out as a personalized platform for discovering online recipes. We are now expanding our offering to support the future of the kitchen. We want to help our users achieve their cooking-related goals with smart appliance integrations, premium guided recipes, and tools for meal planning and shopping.

Yummly places strong emphasis on personalized recommendations for the consumer. How do you optimize those suggestions? 
The Yummly recipe ingestion pipeline (pun intended) builds comprehensive representations of over 2 million recipes by inferring latent structure. Machine learning models parse the recipe and map it onto our food knowledge graph, inferring nutrition information, cuisine, techniques, difficulty, and more. This provides a foundation for content-based recommendation algorithms. 

Yummly also learns taste profiles for 25 million users by combining explicit and implicit feedback based on behavior and usage. Machine learning systems synthesize this data along with other contextual and ambient signals including day of the week, season, and location to create dynamic personalized feeds for each of our users. 

Has Yummly’s acquisition by Whirlpool changed its approach to personalization (by gathering data from home appliance usage, etc)?
Whirlpool’s acquisition of Yummly has allowed us to expand from personalizing recipe discovery to personalizing the entire digital kitchen. We believe personalization is the key to helping people achieve their goals, such as eating healthy, saving money, and reducing stress. Combining Whirlpool appliances as the hardware with Yummly software and machine learning systems allows us to personalize the experience to each home cook.

For example, Yummly will recommend personalized meal plans and shopping lists — in addition to individual recipes — based on a user’s tastes, goals, and appliances. We’ll keep track of the ingredients they have on hand and incorporate information from their “virtual pantry” into recommendations that will help them save money by reducing food waste.

Integrations with the Yummly Smart Thermometer and Whirlpool ovens will allow Yummly to adapt cooking algorithms to each user’s needs: for example, cooking a steak to a user’s personal definition of doneness. Combining these ideas into one seamless experience will substantially reduce friction in the kitchen. 

How do you envision recipes (and the recipe recommendation process) getting even more personalized over the next 5 years?
Conversational digital kitchen assistant AIs will help people create plans and recommend custom recipes that are much more personalized to specific needs and more useful for achieving goals in the kitchen. AI will guide you through the week, providing ongoing personalized advice, as well as gamifying and tracking progress against goals over time.

Your AI services will personalize a weekly meal plan and schedule for your household and then have the ingredients delivered to your home. Your plan may include a custom stir-fry recipe that uses up the carrots and chicken that were going bad (recognized using in-kitchen cameras) to save money and reduce food waste. It may avoid pasta or adjust ingredients according to your personalized nutrition plan to help you maintain a low-carb diet (because your assistant knows you’re not tracking well against your weight-loss goal). It might include a cheesy broccoli recipe to help you achieve your goal of getting the kids to eat more vegetables. It may even suggest cooking the chicken dish on Sunday to have an easy meal ready for Monday, reducing the stress of meal planning. Lastly AI may automatically adjust the bake time and temperature to make the dish extra crispy for you, and monitor cooking using a smart thermometer, notifying you when it is done.

This is just the tip of the iceberg — get your tickets to Customize to hear Druck’s fireside chat, where we’ll discuss how personalization will reshape the consumer kitchen. Get 15 percent off tickets with code SPOON15.

The Secret to Food Hyper-Personalization? According to Meal Hero’s CTO, It’s AI

What should you eat tonight? That question can be tricky to answer, especially if you’re trying to use up leftovers while feeding folks with diverse eating preferences and dietary restrictions.

It’s also the exact question that Erik Andrejko is trying to solve. Andrejko is the CTO of Meal Hero (formerly wellio), a personalized meal planning app that’s part of Kraft-Heinz’s Evolv group. At The Spoon’s Customize event in NYC next week, he’ll be speaking about how AI is the secret sauce that will shape the food personalization revolution.

So how exactly will AI reinvent data, discovery, public policy and more within the food ecosystem? You can learn some of the answers by reading Andrejko’s Q&A below, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you want the full story you’ll have to see Andrejko speak at Customize next week! Use code SPOON15 to save 15 percent on your tickets.

Tell us a little bit about what Meal Hero does, and how it fits within Kraft Heinz.
At Meal Hero, we are empowering people to improve their lives by eating well. The consumer relationship with food is evolving, and we see supporting personalized food experiences, in particular supporting home cooked meals, as an essential part of a broader strategy of nourishing a growing world.

To that end, we have developed a personalized meal planning application that connects seamlessly to digital grocery fulfillment. It solves the problem of “what’s for dinner tonight?” for the 89 million US households that cook dinner 5+ times a week, making those occasions tasty, nourishing, convenient, and personalized to each household’s needs.

What are some opportunities to bring customized dining into the consumer kitchen? 
Dining at home is a complex challenge with multiple participants. One household we studied led by Susan, a working mom of three, exemplifies this complexity. Susan’s decision-making process starts in the morning as she glances at her fridge while cooking breakfast to determine what to use up for dinner. She then revisits the decision at the end of her workday, going through a complex decision tree that takes into consideration the ingredients she has available, one kid’s tree nut allergy, two kids’ distaste for spicy food, and her own desire to make something pescatarian at a reasonable cost before deciding that she can make fish tacos. As shopping for the missing ingredients and cooking take longer than expected, she’s forced to give the kids some snacks, and by the time the meal is ready, the kids are no longer hungry. We can reduce or eliminate the obstacles that people like Susan face in realizing their aspirations to nourish their households through software technology that embodies the expertise of a personal chef, a personal nutritionist, and a personal shopper.

What’s the biggest challenge facing companies trying to tap into consumer demand for personalization?
The biggest challenge centers around data: gathering it, organizing it, and sharing it. The cold-start problem is well noted in the field of data science and continues to be a hurdle for food personalization as companies struggle to initially gather or generate useful data. Once sufficient data is gathered, a system must be devised that is comfortable working with natural inputs and outputs to derive domain intelligence, which we have done with our Food Intelligence Platform. For the system to improve, it must continuously ingest data from users, whose app fatigue can impede the learning process if the system cannot yet generate sufficient value to combat abandonment. Finally, no firm operates in a vacuum with only its consumers, so the whole value chain must mobilize to adopt standardization, transparency, and accessibility of data. 

What do you think personalized food or drink will look like 5 years down the road?
Personalization will evolve to hyper-personalization as consumers’ expectations in the food domain increase over time to match those in other, more digitally mature domains (e.g. entertainment). We see that evolution occurring in the following sequence:

1. Convenience – How do we bridge the gap from the 80 percent of consumers who use digital tools for grocery planning and discovery to the 3 percent of grocery transactions that occur online? As consumer adoption of digital grocery grows, the connectivity from planning & discovery to commerce must become seamless. 

2. Lifestyle – Diet and lifestyle-based digital shopping journeys are increasingly becoming available, but none close the loop on going from what to eat to getting access to them conveniently and at a reasonable cost. 

3. Health – Food as medicine is just beginning to kick into gear. In about 5 years, we see food tech and health tech converging to create new and powerful consumer experiences. While we see this beginning to happen in pockets, it is not at scale.

In order for the food ecosystem to deliver on those personalized consumer values, a complete evolution is necessary across the value chain (ie: in data, discovery, public policy, standards, etc.). AI will be critical in accelerating the solutions to these challenges.

The Biggest Hurdle for Personalized Food? Consistency.

When it comes to food, I suffer from a devastating condition called choice paralysis. What do I want for dinner? Kale or spinach salad for lunch today? This ice cream shop has how many flavors?

First world problems, I know. But choice paralysis is one thing that personalization could help: by looking at data from past purchases and nutritional predispositions, we can more easily get high-quality recommendations for what to cook and eat, both in and out of our home.

In search of this type of future-focused perspective, we asked Peter Bodenheimer, partner at food business accelerator Food-X, to share his thoughts onstage at Customize. He’ll join us on February 27th to give a birds-eye view of the personalization trend, share how startups are trying to tap into the trend, and give a vision for the future of individualized dining. He’ll also give some insight into what challenges are ahead for companies trying to make personalized food (cough, consistency, cough).

Check out the Q&A below to get an idea of what Bodenheimer will be talking about at Customize — then get your tickets to hear him live in NYC! (Use code SPOON15 for that sweet 15 percent off).

Food-X is an accelerator for cutting-edge food tech startups. Have you seen an increase in interest in food personalization recently?
Absolutely. The number of companies that we see who are making personalization a core part of their business differentiation is through the roof. Of course, that makes it harder to lean on it as a key point of differentiation, but at the same time, there are so many different ways to approach it that every time I look at a new company there seem to be unique wrinkles to their specific product. 

What are some interesting approaches you’ve observed companies taking to capitalize off this trend?
We’ve seen people using big data, personal preference, genetic data, the latest medical literature combined with personal data, and so many other ways to provide product offerings that are designed to give each user their own optimal experience. In my opinion, the most interesting ones are those that are combining different sources of data to provide better context and products that match better with consumer demands. For example, we’ve seen products where the end goal is to layer genetic data, with specific types of consumer preference data to provide highly tailored recommendations that are focused on both health and taste.  

What do you foresee as some of the main challenges for companies looking to capitalize on food personalization and/or food as medicine?
There is a fine line between saying you are going to deliver something, whether that is an experience or a health benefit, and being able to deliver it consistently. The challenge with keeping every unique consumer happy is just that — they are all unique. What works well for me, may or may not work well for you. This coupled with the ever changing scientific literature can be more challenging as companies scale and need to have a supply chain that is reliable and flexible.

How do you envision the future of personalized dining evolving over the next five years?
More choices around both the food products and the delivery mechanism for those products. This means more services that allow people to better understand their unique physiology, genetic predisposition, and then for companies to provide more products that help them easily optimize their nutrition. What forms that will take is going to be interesting to guess at, but I’m confident that in 5 years we’ll have more choices while at the same time having to make fewer choices without data. 

Use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off your tickets for Customize — they’re going fast! We’ll see you in NYC.

Restaurants Will Soon Remember Your Dietary Restrictions and Birthday, Says SevenRooms CEO

There’s a lot to be said about becoming a restaurant regular: it usually means better service, personal touches, and an overall sense of community (ya know, if you tip well).

But what if you could effectively be a “regular” at every restaurant you step foot in, whether it’s around the corner from your house or on the opposite coast? That’s what BoH restaurant tech SevenRooms is trying to make a reality. The company lets restaurants track customer data to access guest information for more personalized service.

SevenRooms has its eye squarely on the future of dining, which is why we’re so excited to have its CEO, Joel Montaniel, speak at Customize at the end of this month. As a little amuse bouche we asked Montaniel a few questions about how he thinks the rise of personalization will change the way we eat out. Hint: Get ready for servers to remember your dietary restrictions, birthday, and favorite dessert.

Check out the Q&A below, then grab your tickets (discount code SPOON15 for 15 percent off!) to hear him speak in person on February 27th.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Tell us a little bit about what SevenRooms does.
From neighborhood restaurants to international, multi-concept hospitality groups, SevenRooms is a hospitality platform that helps operators unlock the full revenue potential of guest data. Combining operations, marketing and guest engagement tools into one front-of-house solution, the platform helps operators to maximize profits, build brand loyalty and enable personalized guest experiences. 

As restaurants become more automated, how do you think foodservice can maintain a personalized touch to keep customer loyalty?
In a recent study, SevenRooms found that 1 in 5 diners (20 percent) want to book a reservation at a restaurant that could create a personalized menu for them – clearly showcasing that the foodservice industry must take advantage of automated personalization to help deliver these expectations and build loyalty.

At SevenRooms, we see the operations arm of restaurants continuously becoming more intertwined as technology is integrated, making processes more seamless as the power of guest data is unleashed. Through direct integrations with POS systems and other technology partners, we can create complete guest profiles including dining preferences, allergies, order history and more. The restaurant industry is centered on human interaction; and by helping restaurants use technology to understand who their guest is and what they want, we can empower operators to have the most personalized customer interactions possible.

In addition to enabling these seamless, memorable experiences, technology can also help personalize guest marketing to draw them back in. Robust historical data helps restaurants more accurately market to diners, ensuring they’re able to reach the right guests, at the right time, with the right message. For example, if a diner has never ordered wine at a restaurant, it likely wouldn’t make sense to invite them to an exclusive vineyard tasting event.

Embracing technology provides restaurants with the ability to elevate experiences by creating and promoting specific events and perks that speak to their guests’ interests, solely by tapping into data collected across the guest journey.

Why do you think that the personalization trend has been on the rise lately? What about this particular time has given it opportunity to grow?
With the advancement of technology, consumers now expect more from their daily interactions, whether it’s suggested shoes for purchase on Amazon, songs to listen to on Spotify or shows to watch on Netflix. Hospitality is no different. According to recent research, when staying at a hotel with multiple properties, 29 percent of Americans expect their preferences and guest profile to be easily communicated between properties.

This clearly showcases that in the hospitality industry, it’s paramount to personalize the guest experience, exceeding expectations and ensuring the guest feels special in the process. For example, when a regular who happens to be vegetarian is seated, the waiter should have the new vegetarian pasta special on hand to recommend with the diner’s favorite white wine. If it’s a guest’s birthday, a complimentary glass of champagne can really go the extra mile to turn a casual dinner into a loyal guest.

From hotels to restaurants and nightlife venues, guests appreciate and desire personalization, especially at places they’ve visited before, with over half of Americans saying that a waiter/waitress simply remembering them from a previous visit would make their experience more memorable. The data, now available through technology, has afforded venues the opportunity to create these personalized experiences and fine tune their service based on customer preferences, in turn giving the trend more room to grow.

How do you see personalization evolving with shifting restaurant setups, new technology, and an increased consumer demand on convenience?
We’ve seen significant disruption in the restaurant industry in the last few years — especially when it comes to increased delivery options and a rise in consumer expectations both inside and outside the restaurant. Convenience is king — and consumers want faster, more seamless choices. But as consumers increasingly demand this convenience, we are also seeing them expect much more personalization out of their experiences when they choose to dine-in a restaurant.  

A quarter of Americans admit they wouldn’t return to a restaurant if their dining experience wasn’t memorable or special, so restaurants must continue to evolve how they deliver personalized experiences.

The future of this will come with new voice and wearable technology. Today, operators use tablet and computer interfaces to access guest information — from reservation times, to whether or not they’re celebrating a special occasion or an allergy. However, by harnessing new voice technology, SevenRooms users will, instead, be able to voice queries like “Alexa, who’s at Table 12?” to find out robust data on the guest — learning that it’s a birthday party for a regular diner whose favorite dessert is the vegan chocolate mousse.

This enables the in-service team to create a new guest touchpoint that will boost loyalty — having the GM touch the table to deliver birthday wishes, and offering a complimentary dessert — all without having to visit the host stand to find out the information. This seamless personalization experience will only continue to grow as the status quo for guests across the hospitality industry. 

Will super-personalized menus really become the norm for restaurants? Come here Montaniel speak at Customize on February 27 to get his take — use code SPOON15 for 15 percent off tickets!

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).

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. 

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.

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.


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.

Perumal Gandhi of Perfect Day Thinks that Yeast and Bacteria Can Help Feed the Planet

The temptation of ice cream can be a killer for even the most devout dairy-abstainers and flexitarians. So much so that Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya were motivated to create Perfect Day, a company that makes animal-free dairy products with the exact same proteins as the real thing, thanks to fermentation. Their debut product, a suite of ice creams, disappeared as soon as they were released (I can personally attest that they were very, very delicious).

We reached out to Perumal Gandhi to learn more about his motivation behind co-founding a company that makes dairy from microbes. It’s just a snippet of what he will discuss onstage at the Smart Kitchen Summit {SKS} on October 7 & 8 in Seattle, so get your tickets now!

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. 

What inspired you to create Perfect Day, a company that makes dairy without the cows?
For me it all comes back to the animals and the environment. My entire life, I’ve always been a nature lover and been conscious about humanity’s impact on the world. Although I was raised eating meat, dairy, and eggs, I decided to go vegetarian when I was young. This first transition was pretty easy, I just ate more dairy and eggs to compensate. Fast forward to grad school, I learned that dairy and eggs are part of the same problematic system of industrial farming, so I changed to a 100% plant-based vegan diet.

This second transition was far from easy — I found that I really missed cheese and dairy products. Given my scientific background, I knew that there had to be a way to make real milk in an environmentally friendly way, so I looked into it. Then, thanks to a coincidental twist of fate, I got connected with Ryan Pandya through our mutual friend, Isha Datar of New Harvest. New Harvest is a nonprofit research institution dedicated to funding cellular agriculture research. Isha told Ryan and I that we were the only two people who had ever approached her with the idea to make dairy without animals.

Ryan, like me, had a background in biomedicine, loved the natural world, and had struggled to completely give up dairy foods. We started trading our ideas for making dairy using well-known fermentation techniques. The rest is history! Five years later, we now lead a team of nearly 70 people, have begun to commercialize and scale our technology, and we plan on working with food companies around the world to help evolve what is possible for dairy foods and beyond.

You call your animal-free dairy “flora-based,” instead of plant-based or cell-based. Why is that?
Microflora refers to microorganisms collectively. We use flora as a shorthand way to refer to the fungi, yeast, algae, bacteria and other organisms commonly used across the world to produce ingredients via fermentation.

Not only can fermentation using microflora address the world’s nutrition needs — and our demand for animal products — without the significant environmental and climate impacts caused by animal agriculture, it can also allow for a climate- and geography-agnostic way to produce nutritious food.

Protein made using our flora-based approach is identical to that from animals, but also fundamentally and functionally different than plant-based proteins. We use the term “flora-based” rather than plant- or cell-based because it’s the most scientifically accurate term. We’ve found that it differentiates us from both plant and animal products and describes the origin of our protein in a concrete way.

Perfect Day recently launched its first product: flora-based ice cream (which was delicious). Where is it available now/when will it be on grocery shelves?
We’re so glad you liked the ice cream! This launch was very limited and was only available for purchase through our website. However, we’re working hard to get products made with our protein into stores in the near future. For now we’re directing people to sign up for our newsletter at our website — subscribers will be the first to know when, where, and what the next product will be!

What other products can we expect to see from Perfect Day?
It’s too early for us to share any details about future product launches – but we can say that we’ll have another announcement before the end of this year. Stay tuned!

What a tease! Come see Perumal speak about next-gen protein at SKS on October 7th and maybe you can get some more details out of him. Get your tickets here!