A Q&A with the FoodHealth Company on “Nutrition Transparency”

You Are What You Eat - Nutrition Transparency's Integral Role

 Dan Stanek

 Kate Fisher

Estimated Read Time: 6 Minutes

Let's face it, we spend a lot on treating illness in healthcare, but perhaps prevention is where more effort and investment should be going. The US spent $4.3 trillion on healthcare in 2021, and we are on pace to top $7 trillion by the end of this decade. Yet, it is estimated that only 12% of Americans are considered "metabolically healthy," meeting basic medical guidelines for metrics like blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, and other markers of metabolic health. An estimated 90% of the annual cost of health care in the United States is spent on medical care for chronic diseases. For many of these diseases, diet is a major risk factor and even modest improvements in diet could have a significant impact.

Poor diet, overall, is the leading cause of mortality in the United States, causing more than half a million deaths per year. What's more shocking, only 10 dietary factors are estimated to cause nearly 1,000 deaths every day from heart disease, stroke and diabetes alone.

As more people are impacted by poor diet choices, there is increasing need to use food education, nutrition interventions, and policy to improve health. As consumers are more empowered to move from reactive to proactive health through their daily diet, there are many angles and creative ways that companies can bring better health to people through their eating habits and choices.

At the forefront of the nutrition transparency movement is the FoodHealth Company, a nutrition technology company on a mission to improve health through food. The FoodHealth Company is offering a FoodHealth Score to help consumers make informed choices through "nutrition intelligence". By simplifying nutrition and providing educational tools they are empowering people to make healthier choices in their day-to-day lives.

The following Q&A with Christine Oleksiuk, Chief Commercial Officer at the FoodHealth Company, discusses the mission guiding the FoodHealth Company, the applications of their offerings, and the role it has in supporting their approach to healthier food choices and a wellness-based lifestyle for its users.

Q: What was the inspiration to create the FoodHealth Company?

A: Our Co-Founders, Samantha Citro Alexander, and Chris Fanucchi had deep personal experience with food's impact on health. Sam was eleven when she started having gastrointestinal issues, and after enough bloodwork to make her queasy she started playing around with the elimination of different foods. She was losing weight and missing days of school when her pediatrician suggested she start drinking protein shakes… they were whole milk based– and they made things worse! That is how she figured out that she was just severely lactose intolerant.

She was inspired by her own journey, and wanted to translate all the things she had learned on her own nutrition journey into a tool that other people could use and not have to spend thirty years studying food to figure out. That's how she ended up here and how we decided to build the FoodHealth Company!

Q: What is the FoodHealth Score and what is the science behind it?

A: The FoodHealth Score is a personalized scoring system (1-100) that is aimed at helping people identify which foods can help them manage their health conditions and goals.

The FoodHealth Score looks at the full picture of a food's healthfulness—not just calories. Calories measure energy, but they are only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to how food interacts with your body's unique chemistry.

To truly understand the healthfulness of a food, we look at two measures:

1. Nutrient Density – How many nutrients you get per calorie
2. Ingredient Quality – How good for you are the ingredients that make up this food

We focus on key details, like the balance of fiber to carbohydrates, to ensure our scores are as accurate as possible. Built on insights from 80+ clinical studies and developed by our team of Registered Dietitians and Data Scientists, the FoodHealth Score represents the cutting edge of nutrition science and innovation.

It is also FoodMed Certified to help with key markers such as cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure and weight. To learn more visit: https://www.foodhealth.co/the-science

Q: How can the average consumer use your application in their own food journey for proactive health or for chronic disease management?

A: It is important to empower consumers navigating their food journey, in the places where they are already making daily food decisions. Starting with the grocery aisle, consumers can use the FoodHealth Score to determine what food products best support their proactive health goals and/or chronic conditions. The 1-100 score + four color system makes it easy for consumers to understand the healthfulness of each food item and highlights similar, healthier items that may better meet their health goals. In addition to the score itself, consumers can learn WHY the item scores the way it does through our insights feature (i.e. high in whole grains, high in artificial sweeteners). Improving your aggregate score by just 10 points may lead to positive shifts across seven key health outcomes–cholesterol, blood pressure, and A1C, to name a few.

Nationwide, the FoodHealth Score is live across thirty banners, and available, for free, to 20M shoppers to access online, a banner's mobile app and/or in store (depending on the banner). The FoodHealth Score powers various food and nutrition initiatives, including Kroger's OptUP™ Program.

Q: What industries partner with the FoodHealth Company and in what ways?

A: We collaborate with a variety of industries, to ensure consumers are supported by the FoodHealth Score across a majority of their food decisions. Our partners include food retailers, data providers, brands, manufacturers, and food benefit card providers.

Q: Are there other Food Intelligence products on the horizon for the FoodHealth Company?

A: In addition to our static FoodHealth Score focused on disease prevention, the FoodHealth Company currently powers insights behind the score, and better for you swaps. Coming later this year, the FoodHealth Score will go beyond individual product scores, and will start scoring an individual's cart/basket and recipes. Last, but certainly not least, the FoodHealth Company will further support those with chronic conditions and specific health goals, through their personalized FoodHealth Score supporting twenty-five different physical and mental health conditions!

For more insights into health + wellness and the need for more food education as we move from reactive to proactive health, read our full POV on Food Is Medicine (FIM).

At WD Partners, we work with our clients to implement these emerging trends and strategize together as we envision a new era for pharmacies, retail, groceries, health systems, social wellness clubs, and customer health journeys and relationships. Our mission is to create extraordinary experiences everywhere through brand-right, ops-right and build-right solutions. With our integrated strategy, design, and operations, we help solve our clients' challenges while anticipating their future needs and delivering innovation at scale.

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