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Personalised Nutrition journey: building bridges in food, health and tech  

When the Personalised Nutrition Community was launched in 2020, it marked Foodvalley’s entry into a fast-evolving domain, with growing relevance and momentum. Personalised nutrition had become a buzzword, with growing recognition of its potential to give consumer control and drive consumer behavior towards healthier choices. But behind the buzz, there were real barriers: practical, systemic and strategic ones. Our mission was to create a space where stakeholders could come together, explore these challenges, and take meaningful steps toward impact.

Laying the foundation: from buzzword to position paper

The community was born out of over a hundred of exploratory conversations. What makes it that the healthy choice isn’t the easy one? Who are the actors shaping the landscape? How can the system be changed from within?

From the start, we knew we had to address both the behavioural side of nutrition – how people make decisions – and the supply side – what’s actually available to them. Foodvalley saw its role clearly: unlock ecosystems, connect silos, and support collaborative innovation.

Cracking the code: three ecosystem barriers

Early on, we identified three consistent barriers slowing down real progress in personalised nutrition:

  • Organisations operating in this field work in silos, thereby not anticipating on the full potential of Personalised Nutrition.
  • There is a lack of (user) insights and data on the benefits of Personalised Nutrition to create an effective go to market strategy.
  • Although over 500 organisations worldwide are working on Personalised Nutrition, there is no profitable and scalable business model yet.

These findings led to the co-creation of our position paper, drafted by 55 motivated experts from all over the world. It redefined personalised nutrition from a business perspective, ensuring commercial feasibility was part of the conversation. It also resulted in a widely used definition for Personalised Nutrition:

‘Personalised nutrition could be a service or a product. It uses individual-specific information, is founded in evidence-based science and has the goal to give consumers control and promote a positive, sustainable dietary behavioural change. This may then result in measurable benefits for personal goals like health improvement and health maintenance, or disease specific benefits.’

This position paper became the foundation for our growing community.

Pilots in action: from insight to implementation

Our goal was always to translate ecosystem insights into tangible action. Among our proudest outcomes are the international EIT Food projects and the Personalised Nutrition pilots. Both Personalised Nutrition pilots, VIPS 1A and VIPS 1B, brought multiple partners together, including knowledge institutions, tech innovators and care providers.

Together, we co-developed a vitality programme with healthcare organisation Maeykehiem, tailored for their employees. It provided crucial insight into real-world challenges: what data matters, how interventions land, and where the system needs to evolve.

Partnerships that last

Over the years, the Personalised Nutrition Community became a springboard for long-lasting partnerships. Various organisations found each other through our network: proof that breaking silos works and that new business models can emerge through collaboration.

Some of these initiatives now continue without our direct involvement. And that’s exactly what we hoped for: a self-sustaining ecosystem driven by shared ambition.

The end of a chapter, not a story

Of course, there were challenges. The financial reality was tough, for many personalised nutrition pioneers and for us. Despite strong potential, some ideas didn’t find the traction they needed. Securing long-term funding proved difficult, even in the face of clear successes, which is one of the reasons why we’re now phasing out the Personalised Nutrition Community.

But we don’t see this as the end, rather, a natural evolution. Many of the core topics, collaborations and ambitions will continue to thrive, just in new forms. We’re proud to share that more than half of our community partners have already made the transition to Foodvalley’s Healthier Food Community, where they will keep working together on themes such as consumer behaviour.

And this door remains open. Whether your organisation is interested in shaping healthier food systems, exploring functional ingredients, working on sustainable proteins or upcycling streams, there’s a place for you in one of our communities. Or consider joining as a Foodvalley Network Partner to stay connected and help drive systemic change.

A lasting legacy and a new beginning

We’re proud of what we achieved together. From thought leadership to pilots, from concept to collaboration. We helped put personalised nutrition on the map practically, not just theoretically.

Most importantly, we built bridges. Between domains, between people and between ambition and action. Now it’s time to carry that energy forward.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Let’s keep shaping the future of food, together.