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“The Standard American Diet kills us slowly in normal times and quickly in COVID times,” Michael Pollan told Kara Swisher in a recent interview for his Sway podcast.
For Pollan, it’s clear that people who suffer from pre-existing food-related conditions are more likely to get serious COVID-19 infections. Forty-nine percent of people hospitalized for COVID-19 had hypertension, 48 percent were obese, and 28 percent had diabetes. He argues that we need to pay more attention to how diets affect health. Directly, they cause noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. As a result, people are more vulnerable to diseases such as COVID-19.
The COVID-related coverage we see in the news and the discussions we have with friends, families and colleagues might not pay enough attention to the impact of healthy eating on immunity. Nonetheless, it seems to me that the pandemic is helping to illuminate and propagate the systemic links between diet, health and wellness. And as an added bonus, much of the progress doesn’t just benefit health, but sustainability as well.
There are promising signs in three dimensions that I will highlight today. But I would also like to put a caveat front and center. At least for now, these improvements do not trickle down to the low-income population groups that would benefit the most from the dietary improvements.
Before I got started, I wanted to plug in an exciting opportunity for entrepreneurs: Accelerate applications at VERGE are open until August 13. We are looking for Seed to Series B startups in the fields of energy, hydraulic infrastructure, carbon, food and mobility. The selected finalists will present themselves in front of more than 10,000 leaders from the private and public sectors, utilities, solution providers, investors and other startups.
1. Nutrition security is gaining ground
Before we can overhaul an industry, we need to start thinking about old markets in a new way. Over the past couple of years and increasingly during the pandemic, the conversation around food security has shifted to a new concept called nutrition security.
At first glance, the standard definition of food security – having physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food – seems to cover all essential aspects. But when assessing what food security looks like in food aid policies and programs, the nutrition aspect is often insufficient. The quantity, not the quality, of food dominates reality. Dariush Mozaffarian, Dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University, has been one of the most prominent leaders in this field. In Tufts’ coverage of one of his recent articles, he points out:
“Nutrition security” incorporates all of the goals of food security, but with additional emphasis on the need for healthy and wholesome food and drink for all. COVID-19 has made it clear that Americans most likely to be hungry are also at greatest risk for diet-related illnesses, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and many cancers – a heavy legacy of structural inequities and racism in our country.
By reframing food security and putting nutrition at the forefront, Mozaffarian and others hope to achieve food policy and innovation that will deliver foods for health, wellness, and disease prevention and treatment. more to fight against hunger.
2. More cooks and better grocery stores
The pandemic has also given consumers enough time to rediscover their relationship with food and develop new habits. Whether out of necessity or pleasure, many people have started to cook more at home and learn about what healthy immunity-boosting diets look like. Deloitte’s market research suggests this trend is likely to survive the pandemic – 42% of consumers say they plan to continue cooking more food at home.
Home cooking and temporary shortages in supermarket supply chains have also strengthened decentralized and local supply chains. Direct-to-consumer models such as farmer’s markets, community-supported agriculture vegetable boxes, and home gardening flourished during COVID-19. Data from Deloitte suggests that 29% of consumers intend to continue buying more fresh food after the pandemic.
This is encouraging news for innovative platforms trying to tap into these markets. MilkRun is an Oregon-based company that consolidates products from small farms into local centers and delivers them directly to consumers. Their service was launched in the Pacific Northwest and expanded to Austin within the past year. GrownBy is another app connecting farmers directly to consumers, increasing their profits by taking advantage of the surge in online orders linked to COVID.
These new approaches have the potential to improve the health of consumers by bringing fresher and more nutritious products to their refrigerators while strengthening food sovereignty.
3. Alternative proteins and indoor farming thrive
The venture-backed startup world has also advanced with products at the intersection of nutrition and sustainability over the past 18 months. Indoor farming that promises to bring more nutrient-rich products to consumers at a lower environmental cost has continued to expand during the pandemic. Likewise, the alternative protein sector has grown. Plant-based meat, egg and dairy companies together raised $ 2.2 billion in 2020, more than three times more than in 2019, according to the Good Food Institute.
Two health-related developments in the alternative protein sector stand out to me. One is the continuous iteration and improvement of established products such as Beyond Meat’s burgers. The company plans to launch two new versions of its beef patties that will contain between 35 and 55 percent less saturated fat than its beef counterparts.
Another is the rise of a new generation of plant-based companies, such as Today, that have health written in their DNA. This San Francisco-based startup was founded during the pandemic. In less than a year he has brought clean label chicken nuggets to market that taste fantastic while relying on just seven ingredients and improving a superior nutritional profile. As the industry map above shows, Today is part of a thriving ecosystem that strives to improve personal health and nutritional security.
The pandemic has also given consumers enough time to rediscover their relationship with food and develop new habits.
A recent analysis from S2G Ventures, a multi-stage venture capital fund that invests in food and agriculture supply chains, looks at how pandemics have historically led to structural changes in the food and agriculture industry. . “For consumers, the pandemic has pushed niche environmentalism into the mainstream, which has enabled structural changes in a very short period of time,” Dan Ripma, senior partner at S2G told me. He and his colleagues advise their portfolio companies on how to adapt business tactics to these new executives.
Policy innovation is needed to scale entrepreneurial approaches to nutrition security, making them accessible to low-income communities who struggle with nutrition security and cannot afford high-end products and services. Some developments in the United States, such as the promotion of better and universal infant nutrition programs and President Joe Biden’s support for a minimum wage of $ 15 for workers, are a good start. But based on my reading of nutritional assistance programs that have been stepped up as part of COVID relief programs, the government’s focus remains overwhelmingly on tackling emergency hunger. While this is essential support for millions of people right now, it does little to strengthen long-term community health.
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