September 27, 2018 — The “nutrition revolution” has begun, according to speakers at the Newtrition X. summit, which aimed to showcase personalized nutrition from an interdisciplinary perspective. Nutrition Overview spoke with two of the key speakers after the event, Professor Christian Sina from the University of Luebeck and Jo Goossens from nutrition consulting company shiftN, to present their views on the future of personalization. Both experts agree that the success of personalized nutrition lies in a multitude of players from different industries working in tandem, with Dr. Sina emphasizing scientific research and Goossens emphasizing technology companies.
One of the key themes of the summit was the idea that personalization is not just one of many options in nutrition; it is the central mechanism for preventing and fighting lifestyle-related diseases in the long term.
Professor Christian Sina explained how scientific research results could be translated into nutritional concepts suitable for everyday use, for example through partnerships.
Investments and collaborations are essential to the success of personalized approaches to health integration: “The Newtrition X. conference is an excellent example. Yet we are also seeing interest from manufacturers. We would love to see more companies get involved in this topic and ideally with concrete projects. What we often see is that there is general interest, but when it comes to investment, companies are hesitant and act as observers,” explains Sina. Nutrition Overview.
Professor of molecular gastroenterology at
the University of Lübeck.
“We recommend that companies seize the opportunity that personalized nutrition can represent for consumers and manufacturers. In our experience, companies that started with small projects achieved great success and continued on that path,” adds Sina.
Indeed, the nutrition world has seen a selection of successful personalized nutrition companies make headlines. DSM MixFit partnership and Nestlé and Nuritas AI and personalized nutrition collaboration are just two examples.
Fonterra’s B2B ingredients business, NZMP, said Nutrition Overview at Vitafoods Europe 2018, how are they doing looking at partnerships with start-ups, universities and research centers around the world to target the theme of personalized nutrition.
The food industry can actively participate in making personalized nutrition a reality by “developing fully personalized or bundled food products to make eating and drinking as simple as possible for consumers,” concludes Sina.
Neutral digital platforms are needed to ensure consumer trust
Presenting a different perspective on the topic, summit speaker Jo Goossens from shiftN asserted that personalized nutrition can only succeed with strong industry input. He says Nutrition Overview that “the food industry is not in the right position. Not from a core competency perspective or from a “consumer trust” perspective.
Goossens further explains that consumer confusion in the area of nutrition has led to a lack of trust in companies that provide products and diets, leading them to seek out different sources. He calls for new players to serve consumers, such as technology companies.
“They (tech companies) will bridge the gap between food, nutritional advice and tools/app companies to create a proper service. From this service, there can be various ways of presenting the service to consumers. Take for example an insurance company wishing to trigger healthy behaviors and thus “reward good behavior” from its customers based on their health or nutrition behavior. This will also combine a health and nutrition benefit with a financial benefit,” explains Goossens.
Tech companies will need to collaborate for these interventions, opening space for partnerships with other industries: “There is certainly a strong need for networking in this area as the services will require many different types of tools, since data entry (online, body monitoring, diagnosis) to advise algorithm generation and a multitude of tools and interfaces to connect with end users to retrieve information and provide them with advice » , he notes.
“As usual in the development of a new business, many players, small and large, attempt to develop their standalone service, but these generally tend to be too limited in scope, to be scientifically poorly validated and to not being flexible in terms of interface approach. and so on,” explains Goosens.
“Very often it is the algorithm that converts data into advice that is considered the primary value-generating tool, but how can it build trust if that algorithm is not publicly available and is essentially designed to generate profits? The right of everyone to receive the best possible advice is an ethical aspect that many personalized nutrition companies, as well as our authorities, will need to keep in mind.
Following the Newtrition X. Launch Summit in Luebeck earlier this month, the Innovation Summit plans to become a series of regular events to reflect rapid developments in the field of personalized nutrition. In 2019, Anuga (Cologne, Germany) will host Newtrition X.
“Newtrition X. has brought science and industry closer together. The next step now is to jointly develop solutions to make personalized nutrition usable by retailers and end consumers. Anuga is the meeting place for industry and retail where we can bring this hot topic into the spotlight of the international food industry,” concludes Lorenz Alexander Rau, Director of Anuga.
By Laxmi Haigh
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