“The need to feel special”: Personalized nutrition sector bound for technological growth, expert says

30 Sep 2019 --- Personalized nutrition will see drastic growth in the next three to five years, including more AI-driven offerings as well as new modes of use, such as embeddables and ingestibles. This is according to what Ashley Desrosiers, Vice President, Personalized Wellness Lead at FoodMinds, tells NutritionInsight. Desrosiers identifies significant potential for companies and commodities to impact public health through product development, collaborations and integration with existing systems and services. “Demand for more personalized products and services cuts across industries and consumers increasingly expect their unique needs to be met through tailored products and services,” she notes.

In the health and wellness and nutrition sectors, personalization is rapidly gaining momentum. Industry is seeing the trend rise with bespoke NPD and nutritional services becoming increasingly mainstream. From tailored gut testing to gene testing and wearable technology, the methods and techniques surrounding personalization are growing.

Desrosiers insights come as FoodMinds – a food and nutrition affairs company – recently published a paper in the journal Nutrition Today, titled Personalized Wellness Past and Future: Will the Science and Technology Co-Evolve? The paper captures the state of the field and explores how science can support the personalized wellness space, as well as offering a look at the future of the sector. 

FoodMinds partners with companies to help define their position in target markets and support the co-evolution of personalized wellness science and technology. For companies developing or evolving their strategic approach to personalized wellness, FoodMinds delivers data-driven insights and research pipeline development. In addition it offers strategic communication programs, health professional and influencer engagement strategies, as well as regulatory landscape monitoring and analysis. The company is also a division of Padilla – a media company based in Minneapolis, US.

“Beyond seeking more targeted health and nutrition advice to drive better outcomes, there’s an overarching consumer mindset to consider: people want to feel special,” Desrosiers says. “Beyond seeking more targeted health and nutrition advice to drive better outcomes, there’s an overarching consumer mindset to consider: people want to feel special,” Desrosiers says. “FoodMinds can be a concept partner on the best approach for staking a claim in this evolving space.”

Increasing sophistication
“Personalized wellness technologies will continue to become more sophisticated, she says and the personalized wellness applications of tomorrow will likely include embeddable, ingestible and digiceuticals. This will offer the nutrition segment greater precision,” Desrosiers notes.

She adds that whether by creating more accurate feedback loops that encourage ongoing optimization or simply by prompting greater vigilance around tracking health behaviors, AI and innovative technologies can boost efficacy and offer a greater feeling of control for the end-user.

“Precision nutrition – meeting the needs of the individual through tools like genetic testing – can help provide tailored recommendations for certain nutrients. Research tells us that meaningful genetic differences between population segments are often watered down in clinical research or population-level guidance. By taking averages or using the bell curve approach, clusters of common variants are less detectable,” Desrosiers notes.

In the same space, nutritional genomics,the study of how genes and nutrients interact to influence health outcomes, can help an individual understand if they metabolize a specific nutrient (such as folate, dietary cholesterol or lactose) differently than other people and what dietary modifications (supplementation, food choices, etc.) might help mitigate the impacts of that genetic variation. 

This sort of nutritional interventions and testing, however, can be expensive and difficult for the public to access. Desrosiers says that costs for personalized wellness products and services vary greatly, but from a public health perspective, it is critical for the industry to consider equity and access across population segments. 

For the sector to progress further, Desrosiers suggests that several steps have to be taken:

• Building the body of evidence for product development and demonstrating efficacy. Most of the evidence used to inform genetic tests is based on data from people of European descent, so it can be challenging to accurately generalize findings between population groups.
• Wider adoption by health care professionals, especially registered dietitians, who are crucial partners to help consumers interpret results of genetic tests and work with them to implement personalized recommendations.
• Integration of personalized wellness in standards of care for health professionals increased coverage through health insurance and other health funds (e.g., some direct to consumer genetic testing products can be purchased with health savings account (FSA) funds).

 FutureProof Retail (FPR) has partnered with Halla, a software company that profiles human taste to help people make better food choices.Industry moves towards personalization
Major companies have identified the potential of personalization and already made moves in the space. Nestlé Health Science recently entered the space with the acquisition of Persona, a personalized vitamin business founded in 2017. 

In April, Dutch multinational Royal DSM partnered with digital health provider Panaceutics to bring to the market “affordable” products geared specifically towards health and wellness. Last year, DSM also acquired a majority stake in personalized nutrition start-up Mixfit. The combination of DSM’s customized solutions and Mixfit’s advanced technology means consumers can analyze and receive the nutrients they need at the time they need them and from the convenience of their own homes, DSM reports.

Mayo Clinic and Viome also joined forces to better understand the role of nutrition in disease. Meanwhile, last week, personalization moved into retail as mobile checkout and service counter solutions provider FutureProof Retail (FPR) partnered with Halla, a software company that profiles human taste to help people make better food choices. 

By Kristiana Lalou