How is tech transforming wellness and diet? Yeasty, Foodpairing, and Youniq Health weigh in at Positive Nutrition Summit 2023
FoodNavigator is putting nutrition-forward food and drink centre stage at Positive Nutrition Summit: Healthy Innovation for the Mass Market. The face-to-face event will run 29-31 March in central London.
Over three days, the Positive Nutrition Summit will take a deep dive into five core themes, including How Tech is Transforming Wellness and Diet. Our full list of speakers can be found here, and the advance programme is available here.
How Tech is Transforming Wellness and Diet
Digital technological developments are having a profound impact on what we eat. From digital apps that promise personalised dietary advice and consultation, to AI that can help reformulate products further and faster, we’ll analyse what the digital revolution means for positive nutrition and population health.
Quick-Fire Presentations
In a series of quick-fire presentations, FoodNavigator journalists will quiz innovative companies leveraging food tech to advance nutrition. From consumer-facing tools, to personalized nutrition, machine leaning and process innovation, we’ll be asking what developments will make the future of food healthier.
- Katherine Appleton, Professor, Bournemouth University will talk us through SMART 5-A-DAY: A new smartphone app for fruit and vegetable consumption.
According to research, significant health benefits are associated with the consumption of at least five portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables each day. Despite widespread awareness of the 5-a-day recommendation however, many consumers are unaware of the details of the message (which foods count, what counts as a portion, the need for variety), and these misunderstandings have been associated with low fruit and vegetable intakes. To try and increase understanding of these details, and so consequently also increase intakes, researchers have developed a smartphone app: SMART 5-A-DAY. Prof Appleton will share details about the studies that informed its development, how the app was designed, and what impact the research team expects it to have on fruit and vegetable consumption amongst its users.
- Alvaro Cuesta, CEO, Youniq Health is an expert in making personalised nutrition actionable.
Nutrition is becoming more personalized than ever: we can use thousands of data points, from wearables to at-home tests, and turn them into insights to design an optimal diet for someone. However, most people keep quitting these diets or nutritional behaviour changes. The main reason: lack of motivation and a lack of actionability. Thus, if we want to make personalized nutrition to change people´s lives, we need to reduce the friction involved into turning insights into tasty, convenient and affordable meals, believes Cuesta. Youniq has developed an app that aims to make this happen, and connect thousands of data-points into actionable insights, and recommend meals that fit the user´s taste, cooking time and ability, and budget, while delivering those meals to their home.
- Sarita Ribeiro, CMO, Foodpairing, will walk us through how tech is transforming wellness and diet.
How can AI and Digital Twins can be leveraged to use flavour as a tool for changing consumer habits as well as developing healthier products faster? Ribeiro will share how flavour is an enabler to change food habits of consumers, and how the reformulation of products to meet HFSS guidelines will impact flavour – and eventually liking – of products by consumers. The Foodpairing CMO believes digital twins of consumers can help companies understand what steps need to be taken to improve liking of their newly formulated products.
- Juan Londono, Co-Founder and COO, Yeasty, is well placed to discuss how an industry by-product, spent brewer’s yeast, can be turned into a mainstream super ingredient.
In this quick-fire presentation, Juan will detail the path Yeasty has followed to date. Starting with the problem of a wasted biomass in huge quantities, which is an economic and ecological burden for the brewing industry, Londono will share why it is key to understand the technological barriers at hand that made mass upcycling impossible, in particular for human food consumption. The Yeasty COO will then explain the technological solution that was found and the incredible, natural product which was finally unlocked.
But it's not all about tech transformation, over three days Positive Nutrition Summit 2023 will take a deep-dive into five core themes:
Session 1: Rethinking Reformulation
Nutritionists have been encouraging us to eat more fruit, veg and whole grains for decades - but this approach has failed to tackle issues like obesity. Reformulation and innovation are therefore key to securing a healthier and more sustainable future for food. In this session, FoodNavigator journalists will be joined by an expert line-up of speakers to discuss how public health challenges can be met by leveraging technical advances and ingredient innovation. What will healthier products look like in 2023 and beyond?
Session 2: Plant-Based Potential
Most of us need to increase the plant-based content of our diet to meet government-backed recommendations like the Eatwell Plate. But with the term ‘plant-based’ being stretched to include anything from ultra-processed burger patties, to bakery products and vegan nuggets, is there a risk that the plant-based category is falling fowl of health-washing? How can innovation in the plant-based space ensure products are delivering nutritionally dense, clean label products that also meet the organoleptic expectations of consumers?
Session 3: Food as Medicine
Between dietary interventions that promise to help reverse the onset of NCDs like obesity and a rejection of ‘diets’ in favour of wellness maintenance and body positive weight management, a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between diet and health is coming to shape consumer attitudes to food – and the innovation strategies of the brands that serve them. But, looking beyond the hype, what ingredients and strategies are truly delivering in this area? And how can the benefits be communicated?
Session 4: How Tech is Transforming Wellness and Diet
Digital technological developments are having a profound impact on what we eat. From digital apps that promise personalised dietary advice and consultation, to AI that can help reformulate products further and faster, we’ll analyse what the digital revolution means for positive nutrition and population health.
Session 5: Lifecycle Nutrition
The nutrients we need change dramatically as we age. From tot to teen, zoomers to boomers, our bodies need very different diets to support wellness. What innovation opportunities does the deepening understanding of lifecycle nutrition offer and how can the food industry meet the segmented needs of the mass market?
We’ll be bringing together stakeholders from industry, academia and civil society into one room to throw a spotlight on the latest in nutritional science and highlight the business opportunities in nutrition forward food. Alongside the informative and interactive content programme, the three-day event puts emphasis on quality networking opportunities for you to connect with your peers and discuss innovation opportunity presented by healthy innovation for the mass market.
For more information or to register, click HERE.
