Dutch supermarket Jumbo launches personalized nutrition app for cyclists

02 Jul 2020 --- Following the successful launch of Jumbo Foodcoach for certain sports, Dutch retailer Jumbo has released a free app that is touted as a personal nutrition coach for cyclists. Jumbo Foodcoach provides a professional nutrition plan to boost performance during sports training and cycling competitions. By delivering a wide range of personalized recipes to the consumer, the app converts the recipe’s required products directly into a shopping list. Sports such as running, team sports and fitness will follow later in the year, before it becomes suitable for everyone in nutrition and health in early 2021.

“Consumers are consciously opting for a healthier lifestyle and want to feel good about themselves. This includes choosing healthy food that is tasty and easy to prepare,” Robert Jan Koens, Manager Foodcoach, tells NutritionInsight. 

“With Jumbo Foodcoach, we make the connection between good personalized food and better performance. We started with that belief a few years ago, when the app was initially for the top athletes of [bicycle] Team Jumbo-Visma. Everything we’ve learned, we’re now taking into account in making the app available for the fanatic cyclist and soon also for the rest of our customers. In this way, we want to help more and more people choose a healthier lifestyle,” Koens details.

Jumbo Foodcoach is being further developed and the rollout for customers is progressing in phases. It has been developed and extensively tested in close collaboration with the A-selection of football club PSV, the performance staff and athletes of Team Jumbo-Visma and leading movement, nutrition and behavioral scientists Asker Jeukendrup, Luc van Loon and Stef Kremers. 

“With Jumbo Foodcoach, we make the connection between good personalized nutrition and better performance,” notes Colette Cloosterman-van Eerd, CCO at Jumbo.“With Jumbo Foodcoach, we make the connection between good personalized nutrition and better performance,” notes Colette Cloosterman-van Eerd, CCO at Jumbo.

“For the cyclists of Team Jumbo-Visma, the app really adds value. Nutrition is crucial for top athletes,” says Merijn Zeeman, Sports Director at Team Jumbo-Visma. “A good balance in nutrition and thus weight control is important to perform optimally. Our riders now have confidence in the app and know that they can build a nutrition schedule on a daily basis. The convenience and diversity of the meals and the simple ordering of the products is experienced as very positive. It is nice that the amateur athletes can now also experience this. I am sure they will get a lot of insight into what personalized nutrition can do for you. ”

Cloosterman-van Eerd explains that healthy eating and exercise play a major role in a healthier lifestyle. Making healthy choices is not always easy, but we would like to show that it doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. 

“In addition to improving recipes for private label products, the focus on fruit and vegetables, sponsoring the King’s breakfast and developing its own line with meat substitutes, Jumbo Foodcoach is the next step in offering help to healthier eating and living,” she concludes.

In the same spirit, smart nutrition bottle maker LifeFuels and Aldi Australia both previously employed the power of digital nutrition as well. In Aldi’s case, the grocery chain unveiled the Healthy Picks smartphone app, which conveys the nutritional profile of products to shoppers using barcode scanning.

By Kristiana Lalou