Imagine a world in the not-so-distant future… You wake up and scan your Apple Watch for data on your sleep quality, gut microbiome, and blood glucose levels.

A notification pops up: It’s breakfast time. 

At your doorstep, a bot has delivered a custom meal kit, engineered to meet your specific nutrient needs for the day. It’s fresh, nutritious, and ready in minutes.

Think this sounds unrealistic? Think again. Personalized nutrition may soon be heading for your plate.

The Future is Personalized

In the past decade, personalization has swept nearly every consumer-facing industry.

• Spotify dominates music streaming with individualized music suggestions and custom marketing.
• Netflix and Amazon built their empires on carefully tailored recommendation algorithms.
• Shoe giants Nike and Vans have seen success offering customizable footwear.

Across the world, consumers have come to expect hyper-curated experiences and intimately crafted products.

While the food business has historically lagged behind, a growing number of companies now want to personalize what you eat.

No Size Fits All

What it is: Personalized nutrition extends beyond food. Based on a variety of factors, like a user’s genetic profile or microbiome, startups offer tailored nutrition advice or craft custom supplements to fit your unique needs.

Emerging nutrition tech includes devices like wearables and fitness trackers, services like at-home DNA tests and stool analysis kits, and even personalized meal delivery services.

A tough nut to crack. Nutrition science, however, has had it rough. A metaphorical grocery list of confounding variables, from epigenetics to age to lifestyle factors, make effects difficult to isolate:

• Nearly 40% of peer-reviewed dietary research turns out to be wrong.
• Nutrition science is significantly underfunded, with just $88M of annual federal budget (<7%) going towards nutritional research.

Diving deeper, researchers are finding that the premise of a one-size-fits-all diet may be fundamentally flawed.

In 2015, a landmark study on nutrition discovered that responses to foods are highly individual — different people can have completely different reactions to the same meal. Even the same food eaten by the same person can be either healthy or unhealthy depending on time of day or amount of sleep.

As scientists uncover the massive impact diet has on well-being, it’s no surprise that decades of generalized dietary advice, willpower-driven diets, and predatory weight loss companies have left our health in shambles.

Last year, obesity and hypertension cost the US a collective $200B. Meanwhile, a steady diet of processed foods and refined fats/sugars are driving a surge in life-threatening food allergies.

Digging In

Thanks to increased demand and better technology, nutrition science may be on the edge of a renaissance.

• Since 2014, mentions of “personalized nutrition” in the news have risen sharply.
• The pandemic boosted interest in nutrition tailored to support factors like immunity and mood, with 64% of consumers considering it a top priority.

Eager to jump in, startups are leveraging everything from DNA to stool samples to determine how our bodies respond to food.

• Genomic: DNA test giant 23andMe, which offers personalized nutrition insights, went public via SPAC this past June. Analysts predict that the genomic data scene is just starting to heat up; the industry is projected to clear $7.4B this year.
• Microbial: Microbiome testing, a hot nutrition topic as of late, has had a big year — Seed Health ($40M), DayTwo ($37M), and ZOE ($20M) all led lucrative funding rounds.
• Metabolic: Continuous glucose monitors from companies like Levels, NutriSense, and January AI help provide real-time information on the body’s metabolic reactions.
• Other: Elo Health uses blood tests to provide precise nutrition recommendations. At-home test kit Everlywell ($75M) helps users identify food sensitivities and allergies.

Meanwhile, made-for-you meals add yet another layer of convenience. Daily Harvest has enjoyed increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Trifecta just closed a $20M Series B.

Pandora for Food?

While nutrition startups have drawn interest from investors, the current market is relatively small. Experts project $64B in sales in the next few decades, but in 2019, the global market came in just short of $2.5B.

For now, there’s no telling whether improved tech will make a difference — scientists have been trying to crack nutrition for decades to no avail.

Further, critics of the movement believe that nutrition is more art than science and that precise nutrition is simply an unattainable goal. Brita Rosenheim, partner at Culterra Capital and Better Food Ventures, sees a disconnect:

“Normalized human behavior, especially when it comes to food, is simply not precise.”

That’s not to say personalized nutrition is a pipe dream.

Consulting firm BCG predicts that the companies most likely to succeed will be those who can construct a comprehensive ecosystem, marrying the different steps of the nutrition pipeline from data to diagnostics to delivery. And many companies are assembling the pieces:

2019: Viome acquired Habit. Kraft Heinz acquired Wellio. Mars Edge acquired foodspring.
2020: Bayer assumed majority ownership of Care/of.
2021: Unilever acquired Onnit. Nature’s Way acquired Baze/ Seed Health acquired Auggi. Elo Health partnered with 19Labs.

Nestlé’s shopping spree. Leading the charge, Nestlé has spent lavishly to build out capabilities across all stages of the nutrition value chain.

• In 2017, Nestlé spent $2.3B for Atrium Innovations (owner of supplement makers Pure Encapsulations, Garden of Life, and Douglas Laboratories).
• Last year, the company acquired personalized vitamin business Persona, medical nutrition startup ZENPEP, collagen maker Vital Proteins, and meal delivery startup Freshly.
• This April, Nestlé moved to acquire multiple nutritional supplement brands from The Bountiful Company for $5.75B.

Playing the long game, Nestlé’s bets seem to be paying off. Its portfolio has seen 12.2% YoY growth, with sales topping $3.7B in 2020.

Takeaway: Personalized nutrition has huge potential, though the industry is relatively immature. Over the next few decades, nimble startups may no longer be frontrunners in this space, especially as legacy food giants reveal their appetites, leveraging their war chests and snapping up emerging innovators.