New Nutrition and Health Consortium Launched: The Future of Food is Personal

30 Nov 2016 --- As the rise of personalized nutrition penetrates the daily lives of more health conscious consumers around the world, Wageningen University & Research is joining forces with TNO (Innovation for Life) to research technology and knowledge needed to make personalized nutritional health advice possible on a large scale.

The Personalized Nutrition and Health Consortium aims to give users tips of the ideal way to prepare meals and offer suggestions for the healthiest things to eat and drink. The idea is that tailor-made advice helps people learn and maintain healthy behaviors, and therefore has significant potential to prevent nutrition-related issues like obesity and diabetes. 

“Optimizing and maintaining health includes choosing the proper food and lifestyle, but every individual has a unique set of goals and preferences  Today’s consumers want convenient yet suitable support to make informed decisions about their health, in a format, moment and place that is right for them,” says Wageningen.

“They want easy to use apps that monitor their progress, make relevant suggestions and offer personal support, no matter what their health goals are. The future of food is personal, that’s why TNO and Wageningen University & Research established the personalized nutrition and health consortium.”

“The consortium supports consumers health goals in every stage of their daily lives and explores how to connect relevant date to everyday technology. We will create tools to help people conveniently measure food intake and monitor health most effectively, build and use reliable models that crunch big data for deeper insights, give personal and give personal health advice that people are eager to follow.

“Create coaching tools that empower users to achieve real change and offer advice and support for what they buy.”

The Consortium is a Public Private Partnership between retailers, food industry, food service experts, ITC companies, psychologists and sociologists and by collaborating with partners along the entire value chain to translate research into real world cases and novel business models.

Scientists from a wide variety of disciplines are working together in the consortium: from life scientists and behavioral scientists to data analysts and sensor technology specialists. Partners also include Philips, Google Food, health insurance company Menzis, Dutch retail giants Albert Heijn and Jumbo, dairy producer FrieslandCampina, data provider PS in foodservice, ICT companies Noldus Information Technology and SmartWithFood, and eHealth companies VitalinQ Lifestyle Support, Sense Health, NIPED and Vital 10.

The aim of the consortium is to convert the technology and knowledge into effective, personalized and scientifically supported products and services. Those products and services, in turn, will help people make healthier choices in what they buy, how they prepare food, and what they consume, but will also match their personality and social environment.

For more insight on the personalized nutrition trend, take a look at NutritionInsight's most recent special report, The Rise of the Personalized Nutrition Trend.