Profit meets purpose in AI supermarkets targeting personalized nutrition, says Spoon Guru

24 Mar 2022 --- Supermarkets must harness technological advancements to democratize nutrition via personalization. This is according to Johanna Bolinder, head of health and sustainability at Spoon Guru, which uses data to deliver “insightful and satisfying” shopping experiences.

“Supermarkets do surprisingly little when it comes to supporting shoppers who want to lead healthier lives,” she tells NutritionInsight.

Seven out of ten adults are motivated to make healthier lifestyle changes, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, she continues. However, Spoon Guru’s research shows 75% of shoppers believe supermarkets don’t do enough to support their health ambitions.

“Supermarkets in the past have offered healthy meal suggestions or promoted certain recipes to entice shoppers to cook more nutritious meals, but few have offered engaging digital tools to help shoppers meet their individual health goals,” Bolinder explains.

“Supermarkets are naturally driven by profit, but meeting the needs and demands of consumers is going to be essential in the near future, meaning profit can meet purpose.” 

Bolinder is a registered associate nutritionist and brings experience working on business-critical product change projects.

Matching Spotify’s personalization 
Bolinder proposes that supermarkets use specialist nutrition technology for accurate food discovery, personalized recommendations and offers.

For example, when a customer sets up their food preferences, technology can help them achieve their goals by making recommendations they will trust.

“Technology can identify and inspire healthier and more sustainable options, and shoppers can track their progress in real-time,” she emphasizes. 

Furthermore, retailers using the technology to offer personalization and gamification benefit from offering a greater choice for consumers, better conversion to sale, larger basket size and increased brand loyalty through active engagement.

“All supermarket retailers should be offering the same level of personalization offered by other technology platforms, such as Spotify. Platforms such as these learn from your interaction, and the experience gets more personalized and curated based on your specific needs the more you use it,” according to Bolinder. 

Permission is crucial
Bolinder adds that shoppers welcome the use of technology, with a recent survey finding 57% want digital engagement in the aisle to inform purchasing decisions. 

Addressing concerns around data privacy, she acknowledges that an obvious challenge for retailers in Europe is ensuring they comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“Data is core to personalization, but permission is critical. Retailers must ensure they collect and process customer data transparently and respectfully.”

She continues that the quality of the data is vital if retailers want to use it to draw any meaningful conclusions.

“For example, retailers may be sitting on swathes of data that they do not know how to extract relevant insights from, or the data might simply be out of date. A study by Deloitte found that 71% of consumer data was inaccurate. By not having the right data or data segmentation to know your customers, retailers risk losing business to the competition.”Personalized shopping experiences are now a must-have for retailers, argues Spoon Guru. 

Supporting better choices
Ultimately, these mainstreaming technological advancements are democratizing nutrition, according to Bolinder.

“There is no such thing as a universally healthy diet as everybody has unique biological requirements. Shoppers, therefore, require support that matches their unique requirements and nutritional needs.”

AI allows for nutrition insights at scale that ensure retailers can effectively cater for individual health goals and objectives, as well as making it easy for the consumer to understand how to make healthier choices.

“There are multiple factors leading to poor food choices: education, perception of high prices, social status, lack of information about food products and time pressures. Digital tools not only simplify the whole food search and discovery process, but they can also actively support shoppers to make better choices and drive lasting behavior change.” 

Symbiosis is key
Data-led nutrition is an emerging science whereby health and nutrition initiatives must be scalable at speed.

Bolinder adds that merging data knowledge with nutrition expertise is not an obvious one, but symbiosis is key in order to really deliver value.

The combination of machine learning and nutritional expertise gives “unparalleled” accuracy and scalability. It also allows for highly personalized shopping experiences. 

“Meanwhile, the ‘human in the loop’ principle, in this case, the nutritionist, will ensure the highest level of accuracy and compliance with medical and dietetic guidelines and local legislation, and train the AI model further.”

“Nutrition gets a wider audience leaning into the data, and data responds with feedback to help build impact stories and grow the depth of understanding of consumer behaviors.”

She continues that the key to successful data-led nutrition approaches is validating it in science and a deep understanding of how to use the data.

In this space, a study from 2020 found that using technology in combination with advice from dietitians can improve dietary intake in adults, with more personalized diet plans leading to better results. 

Meanwhile, supermarkets including Jumbo, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose have all rolled out personalized initiatives. 

By Katherine Durrell