Where to next for personalised nutrition?
Iotti’s view is that many companies in personalised nutrition are profitable and have found their own niche—some sell to athletes, some to the general public; some sell diagnostics, and some supplements; some propose advice, some provide ready-to-eat meals. While they may be profitable, there are still issues surrounding scaling up and growing. In future, Iotti believes these companies will need to merge or collaborate to create a more holistic solution that better answers consumer needs. He concludes, “If I have to bet on the future, a community driven holistic personalised solution will take it all.”
To Clabbers, closer interaction with the consumer is a cornerstone for creating a two-way stream of data and knowledge between the user and the company. They both learn over time, they grow together, there is reciprocity, a level playing field and, importantly, trust and transparency. Secondly, he identifies partnerships that work to add true value and consolidate offerings for the consumer in to be important. “This cooperation and co-creation of the personalised nutrition space requires companies to be honest about their strengths and weaknesses and thus their position in the future value chain. Building consortia to start and grow these ecosystems is an important step towards this shared future,” he says.
Since its early beginnings, the personalised nutrition market has shown that companies evolve their business models constantly, and these changes depend on the solution and the target users. “It appears that the companies with long-term success (i.e. 5-8 years) base their solutions on the available science without overpromising,” says Abrahams. “They keep the offering simple, they focus on solving one problem, and they are transparent about how they dictate their recommendations.”
Jones observes that subscription models are resonating very well with consumers, as in other industries. Therefore, he believes offering personalised solutions that require little effort for the consumers (e.g., ‘just tell me what I need and I will take it’) will have the most success. If the solution requires too much effort from the consumer, or has strong barriers to entry (i.e., too costly, too tech-savvy, or requires too many in-person visits), it will only have success with a small subset of consumers.
While many products and services have launched over the years, some may be somewhat similar in the offering, which requires existing or even new companies to consider how they innovate to stay current or introduce something entirely unique. “The most important thing for brands to do is future-proof their business by staying ahead and serving developing dietary trends,” says Stripf. Consumer needs are becoming increasingly complex and brands need to innovate their capabilities to respond more quickly to changes in expectations, he adds.
Jones sees a need for companies to continuously innovate, and at an increasingly faster speed. “This requires more agile structures—frequently used in new, smaller companies, which give them an upper hand against slower moving, larger companies.” However, strategic partnerships are paving the way for larger companies to leverage the speed and innovation of fast-moving start-ups. Importantly, he adds a holistic approach to health requires a multidisciplinary team as well as a strong ecosystem of experts.
In this emerging industry where companies are tweaking their business models to see what works, many are adopting a blended B2B and B2C approach. This can include partnering with other credible companies that have a different target market to co-create and conduct joint projects, says Abrahams. “Companies such as ingredient and supplement suppliers need to take advantage of new ways of conducting research through digital studies to collect new data, reach new users, and involve customers in the creation of new products and services.” In a world that is moving faster than ever and consumers are fickle, all of the above can be done through a networked approach, changing the organisational structure to one that is agile, data-driven and responsive to consumer needs.
Considering major health and wellbeing shifts globally over the past decade, the personalised nutrition market will undoubtedly look different in the years to come as consumers evolve their priorities and solution needs. There’s also a wider need to explore where personalised nutrition has an opportunity to address existing and emerging public healthcare issues, such as mental health, obesity and malnutrition.
As an example, Stripf highlights that there are approximately 100 million Americans with diabetes or pre-diabetes, which reflects a major health crisis. “People need to eat more healthily and personalised nutrition will be a significant enabler for these shifts; however, we need tools that make it easier for consumers to find the right foods for their needs.” Innovation that improves the shopping experience by making it both more accurate and convenient will be a huge focus area, which is the case for Stripf’s company, SpoonGuru.
Through Iotti’s five-year lens, he predicts that transformation will mostly come from external companies (such as large tech corporations) and some industry underdogs. “Those players will silently take the lead of a sector where the traditional players (large nutrition conglomerates, B2B and B2C) have loudly claimed their leadership with scarce results. Consumers will take a central role and will become the real drivers of change—only community-based initiatives will be successful,” he says.
To Abrahams, the pivot toward healthy lifestyles will remain a priority. She perceives increased adoption of digital tools and self-monitoring, which means increasing reimbursements of the use of digital tools and rewards for those who use them. However, governments and regulators will need to protect the public from potentially harmful advice and tools by elevating and protecting personalised nutrition experts to ensure trust remains a priority. Abrahams also believes subscription models will become the norm and consumers will become more comfortable with at-home testing to track progress. Interoperability will improve with companies needing to be more flexible in providing the best experience for the user whilst generating new data sources. She adds: “Nutrition education and a lifestyle medicine approach will continue to grow, meaning that we will see organisations needing to collaborate in order to build bridges toward new ways of working and delivering care, as the value of experts has changed. As mentioned, personalised nutrition is becoming everybody’s business and responsibility if we have any chance at impacting population health.”