Precision Nutrition
Finding a way towards a healthier future
Defining Precision Nutrition
Precision Nutrition is an emerging area of research that focuses on the relationship between genes and other individual-specific information, nutrition and health.
In contrast to a one-size-fits-all approach, it seeks to understand how an individual responds to what he or she eats, and how this knowledge can promote better health and prevent diseases. There is a lot of potential in this field that’s why the first Impact Platform that will be launched will focus on Precision Nutrition.
Why do we need precision nutrition?
We live in a time in which self-optimization is common practice in most developed countries. From measuring the steps we take throughout the day, to counting calories, to tracking how well we sleep – monitoring our daily activities has become the norm for many, enabled through smart devices and wearables.
One can even go a step further and make use of the services provided by a few startups and companies that go beyond the mentioned, and analyze a person’s blood or stool to give individual nutritional advice.
The word “individual” is important here. Today, we know that one-size-fits-all approaches, like the food pyramid, can give generic guidelines about what is healthy and should be consumed in what amount; however, we are also realizing that everyone’s reaction to a specific food is different and unique.
That leads us to Precision Nutrition, an emerging area of research. Harvard places Precision Nutrition, also referred to as Personalized Nutrition, under the umbrella of Precision Medicine and defines it as follows: “Precision Nutrition evaluates one’s DNA, microbiome, and metabolic response to specific foods or dietary patterns to determine the most effective eating plan to prevent or treat disease.” (1)
In an article about an imagined scenario in 2035, where Precision Nutrition is adopted by large parts of the population in the developed world, the Economist writes:
In the year 2035, “[…] there is broad consensus that the rise of Personalized Nutrition has done a lot to promote healthy and environmentally friendly eating over the past decade. In 2031 the proportion of obese Americans fell for the first time in more than 20 years, and the rate of diabetes has fallen for three years in a row from its all-time high of 22%.”(2)
Could precision nutrition be the future?
There are some challenges along the way, the high costs being one of them, but there is a lot of potential to create a positive impact, for instance, through preventing diseases.
That’s why the first Impact Platform that will be launched will focus on Precision Nutrition. A secondary focus will be on Targeted Nutrition that addresses a specific group of people’s average dietary needs, for instance, the elderly, children, athletes, or pregnant women.
The Swiss ecosystem actors
ADM
ADM is committed to providing a clean label to customers through traceability practices
Agroscope
Agroscope is the federal government’s competence center for agricultural and food research and is attached to the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG).
ALDI SUISSE AG
Simplicity, responsibility, and reliability are the core values that guide its actions. For the Swiss retailer, this means not only offering high-quality products at consistently low prices but also ensuring sustainable, environmentally friendly, and animal-friendly production.
ALLSUPPS
ALLSUPPS, founded in 2021 and based in Pfäffikon SZ, provides innovative and understandable supplements for individuals in the sports, esports, and lifestyle industries.
Amazentis
Amazentis is a dynamic and growing commercial stage company delivering innovative advanced nutrition to consumers.
Blattmann Schweiz
Blattmann Schweiz is a Swiss company with more than 160 years of experience in ingredient production.
Bossy Céréales
Since 1852, Bossy is the breakfast cereals specialist for both distributors and consumers. We supply a wide range of customers in Switzerland and in Europe.
Bühler
Bühler is developing smart solutions to revolutionize milling.
CleanGreens Solutions
CleanGreens Solutions provides growers cultivation technology and knowledge to lead a profitable business and agriculture towards sustainability.
Cluster Food & Nutrition
The Cluster Food & Nutrition is an association active in the agri-food industry since 2015.
Domani Food
Domani Food is a snack and chocolate production company that develops and produces tasty, healthy and sustainable products for modern consumers.
DSM-Firmenich
DSM-Firmenich is using Path2Farm™ – a proprietary digital traceability application – to provide customers with sourcing information from farm to final product.
Eat by Alex
We are here to prove that eating nourishing food using whole food plants can be simple and delicious.
Ecuacao
Ecuacao works hand-in-hand with local cocoa farmers in order to ensure the quality of our fine cocoa beans and make them available to customers around the globe; this way improving the quality of life of farmers.
EHL Group
The EHL Group is the global benchmark in education, innovation and consulting for the hospitality and service sector.
Embion Technologies
We commercialize the next generation in biomass processing technology to meet the planet’s growing demand in nutrition, materials and energy.
EPFL
EPFL through its Integrative Food and Nutrition Center – brings together more than 350 internationally recognized Professors that can provide expertise in the field of digitalization, from media analysis, food behavior monitoring and smart wearables to manufacturing optimization and modeling.
EraCal Therapeutics
EraCal Therapeutics develops a novel class of appetite suppressors to fight obesity
esmë
esmë drinks creates natural sparkling drinks, through a unique steam extraction method of fruits in order to flavour beverages naturally, with a unique taste and less sugar.
FOOD2050
FOOD2050 measures and monitors the environmental impact of each stakeholder group within the food world and helps them to improve their environmental footprint with clear actions enabling all participants within the value chain to make a change, bite by bite.
FoodHack
Where Food & FoodTech professionals come to get the inside scoop on industry news and meet partners, friends, mentors, investors – and everything in between.
Founder Institute
The Founder Institute is the world’s most proven network to turn ideas into fundable startups, and startups into global businesses. Since 2009, their structured accelerator programs have helped over 6,000 entrepreneurs raise over $1.75 billion in funding.
Fruitful Farming
We are Fruitful – a team of tech enthusiasts using cutting-edge data science and image processing for controlled environment agriculture.
genknowme
Everything we do is about self-knowledge. We believe that knowing oneself is a priority, and we demonstrate this by revealing the most intimate knowledge there is, your epigenetic profile explaining how your genes interact with your environment.
Givaudan
Givaudan‘s Sourcing4Good program is driving transparency across supply chains.
GOOD IS…
The main goal of the association GOOD IS… is to ensure via the automatic distribution (known as vending):
The promotion of healthy, vegan, natural food-based exclusively on ingredients from fair trade, sustainable, renewable sources, respectful of the environment and natural cycles…
Helbling Technik
The Helbling Group is a leader in technological innovation and engineering for food and beverage systems and supports its international clients in all phases of product development and in their business processes.
Hoorah Sàrl
Oba! is a plant-based company helping everyone reduce their dairy consumptions with a delicious alternative.
House of Lab Science
We empower science-preneurs to focus on validating game-changing ideas, business growth and maximising capital efficiency.
Innopearl
Innopearl develops a unique marketplace to activate start-up – corporation partnerships. We make the partnering process radically easier, quicker, and smarter for founders and corporate leaders.
KAEX (ph. AG)
KAEX® reload is a nutritional supplement that reloads the body with vital elements after intense training or social drinking, thereby improving regeneration and mitigating mental and physical fatigue the next day.
Kickstart
Kickstart is one of Europe’s largest zero equity, multi-corporate ecosystem innovation platforms that run a scale-up program for later-stage startups with a goal to accelerate deep tech innovation.
Lowimpact Food SA
Sustainable protein production through insect farming, using an innovative circular agriculture system that upcycles food production byproducts and redirects them back into the food production system.
Luya
Luya is a flavor-loaded plant-based alternative to meat that doesn’t try to be meat. We rescue organic okara – a by-product of tofu and soy milk production of which more than 14 million tonnes go to waste globally every year – and turn it into ready-to-cook slices, chunks and patties.
Maison Amarella SA
MAISON AMARELLA is a Swiss company specialised in producing high-end artisanal macarons. The heart of our philosophy is based on the quality of Swiss ingredients and a profound respect for nature.
MassChallenge
Since 2016, MassChallenge Switzerland has been a leader in helping startups grow their businesses by accelerating 610 startups across the world in multiple industries. They have raised more than $985M in funding.
Mocoffee
Mocoffee was founded in 1991 by the hand of a revolutionary engineer who invented the coffee pod with the aim of sharing the best espresso worldwide.
Mövenpick Fine Foods
Mövenpick Fine Foods creates premium food products with a unique enjoyment experience, active in Switzerland, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Canada.
NeoCarbons
NeoCarbons™ provides industrial solutions for the effective remediation of effluent CO2 and/or for the economic production of high-value added chemicals via the generation of micro-algae biomass.
Nestlé
Innovation is Nestlé’s hallmark. We’re committed to developing innovative products and services that provide nutrition and health for people and pets everywhere, across all their life stages, in a way that’s good for our planet.
NutraSwiss
NutraSwiss is a range of dietary supplements that are highly effective for the health of everyone. And if you wonder why it is useful to consume them, it is because you have not yet consumed them
nutriMenu.ch
nutriMenu.ch is a digital tool that helps private and public sector catering partners to monitor and improve the nutritional and environmental quality of their meals and provides them with an ecoMenu score to help consumers make more informed choices.
Office for Economic Affairs and Innovation / State of Vaud
The Office for Economic Affairs and Innovation (SPEI) supports companies that are located in the State of Vaud, especially those involved in the sectors of advanced technology and industry. SPEI advises entrepreneurs and puts them in contact with organizations that are appropriate to their specific needs. SPEI can also provide direct financial support.
planetary
planetary is an infrastructure platform designing, building and operating upstream, downstream and formulations capacity and related IP for biomass and precision fermentation players globally.
Planted
Planted produces delicious meat from alternative proteins, focusing on the perfect bite. Inspired by nature, the company pioneers a novel biostructuring approach that combines protein structuring and biotechnology.
plusbiome
plusbiome’s purpose is to democratize knowledge about the human microbiome. Knowledge about the microbiome is growing in the scientific community, but very little translation work has been done to make it accessible to everyone.
ProSeed
ProSeed provides upcycled food raw materials to the professional ingredients market. By combining technological know-how and a circular approach, ProSeed upcycles by-products from the food industry, such as brewers’ spent grains and fruit pomace, into quality raw materials.
QualityChain
QualityChain helps Italian agribusiness SMEs transform their products from simple exhibits to true digital experiences capable of enhancing their uniqueness.
Raps Schweiz
Raps Schweiz is a specialist in the development of individual products and applications for the food industry.
REM Analytics
REM Analytics provides a novel method to profile the micro type in people.
Scantrust
Scantrust is a connected goods and products platform that drives better supply chain traceability.
SERA Intelligence
At SERA, our mission is to simplify the complexity of horticulture. We believe no problem is more essential than ensuring humanity’s continued access to healthy, affordable and sustainably grown food.
Sight and Life
Sight and Life is a Swiss-based foundation and humanitarian nutrition think tank working to innovate in nutrition towards eradicating all forms of malnutrition in children and women of childbearing age and so improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Spiruline SwissMade
Spiruline SwissMade is the first dedicated spirulina farm in Switzerland
SURI BioTech
SURI BioTech is a biotechnology company, developing health promoting bacterial strains with targeted mechanisms of action for the first 1000 days of life. Our proprietary strains are natural and safe and can be included in food supplements for pregnant women, mothers and newborns.
Swiss Food Group
Swiss Food Group is an independent group investing in aspirational brands and specific know-how in the Food & Beverage industry in Switzerland.
Swiss Nutrition and Health foundation
The SNH foundation is driven by science to contribute to a better world through research, innovation, and education on nutrition and health. We believe in science as an enabler of trust between people. Anchoring trust through science is our slogan.
Terraview GmbH
Terraview enables vineyard managers take data backed decisions to optimise quality and quantity of harvest. TerraviewOS, our SaaS platform aids in scouting, traceability, and helps our customers be better prepared for challenges from climate change.
The Fribourg Development Agency – State of Fribourg
Since 1971, the Fribourg Development Agency (FDA) has been helping local businesses to get off the ground, outside companies to relocate to the region, and established companies to expand their operations.
Thought For Food
Thought For Food is the world’s next gen innovation engine for food and agriculture. We create, empower and support a new generation of leaders to solve our planet’s most pressing challenge: How to sustainably feed 10 billion people?
Vegipack
With Vegipack, we offer you a multitude of containers (bottles, flasks, final products) already tested in many fields, made from bagasse (sugarcane waste) and respecting a circular economy.
Weekly Food Sàrl
Weekly Food – Fresh box of meals prepared in Switzerland and ready to eat since 2021.
Yumame Foods
At Yumame Foods we produce delicious,healthy and sustainable food based on fungi and fermentation.
Precision nutrition & the Sustainable Development Goals
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 global goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015 with the aim of ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring peace and prosperity for all. Find out how precision nutrition can contribute to to the delivery of these goals below.
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By providing personalized nutrition recommendations to people in need, precision nutrition can help to address malnutrition and improve food security. This can be especially important in low-income or food-insecure communities where access to a varied and nutritious diet may be limited.
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Personalized nutrition recommendations based on an individual’s unique characteristics can help to optimize their health and well-being. This can be especially important for people with specific health conditions or goals, such as athletes or people with chronic diseases.
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By providing individuals with personalized nutrition recommendations, precision nutrition can help to reduce food waste by ensuring that people are consuming the right amount and type of nutrients for their needs. It can also help to reduce the environmental impacts of food production by minimizing the production of unnecessary or unused food.
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The food system is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. By optimizing the nutrition of individuals and reducing food waste, precision nutrition can help to reduce the environmental impacts of food production and consumption.