We recently discussed the “5 levels of food personalisation”, from “wandering in the supermarket” (no personalisation at all) to having your foods (meals, supplements and ingredients) personalised. I received very interesting feedback on this classification, and fortunately, interesting deals were announced in this space during the week. Here are three elements to think about the future of this space:
1 – a misunderstanding that tells us a lot about the current state of the technology: putting “personalised” names on candy or a bottle is not personalisation; it is marketing.
2 – Faeth Therapeutics, a US-based startup, raised a very significant $20M in its food-as medicine research. The startup develops a machine learning engine that aims to identify nutrients that impact the growth of tumors depending on the genotype, targeted organ, and therapy used. Il will start this year their first clinical trial (on humans).
Food personalisation will be highly expensive. More research will be needed if it ever works, and food-as-medicine applications will certainly lead the way. If it works, then prevention with personalised food will follow.
3 – Consumers are looking for more and more “easy nutrition”. This week, Kencko, a US & Portugal-based startup, raised $10M to grow its ready-to-drink dehydrated fruits & veggies. Another example is New Zealand’s Athletic Greens which also raised this week $115M (and became a unicorn along the way). The startup has … one product, AG1, which is basically one superfood supplement.
In a word, the appetite of consumers and investors for foods that help us better and longer lives is there. Beyond using personalisation as a marketing tool (which is nice), large corporations should seriously consider this space. Indeed, as shown in some of the examples above, it’s a space that will be built on technology, time and multiple experimentations to find the right product-market fit.
