Personalized Nutrition Is Trying to Reach The Masses

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Personalized nutrition is one of the newest ideas catching the eyes of consumers and the big food companies. In theory, it seems like the next big thing to overtake the healthy eating marketplace. However, there are a few hurdles that innovators are battling for this concept to reach the mainstream. Consumer knowledge about their personalized nutrition needs, food manufacturing, and distribution are going to need to change to make this a reality.

Habit: The Startup Company Leading Personalized Nutrition

Habit, a San Francisco-based company, is offering personalized nutrition through genetic testing. The big food company, Campbell’s Soup, has been following closely and recently invested in the startup.

Habit is structuring itself as a personalized nutrition meal delivery startup. They take information gathered from an at-home test kit to create specific meals to meet customers’ needs. At the moment, Habit’s business model is a little expensive for the average consumer. It costs $249 to receive the personalized test kit, results, and advice from nutrition coaches. On top of the $249, each meal will cost you $8.99 for breakfast and $13.50 for lunch and dinner meals. Without a significant technological change to food development and distribution, personalized nutrition appears to be a luxury in the short term.

3-D Food Printing Could Be The Solution

As mentioned earlier, consumer knowledge on food development and distribution would need to change in a significant way for personalized nutrition to reach the masses. 3-D food printing could be the groundbreaking technology to make it possible. If 3-D printers could become as regular as microwaves, they could completely change the way consumers prepare food at home.

Big food companies like PepsiCo are already testing 3D printing to create prototypes of different shaped and colored chips. Other firms like Barilla have used 3-D food printing to make pasta that is shaped like a rose. The number of obstacles facing the industry are still there, but the future looks bright for personalized nutrition.

Inspired by www.fooddive.com