How clever use of data can leverage product innovation [Interview]

The fast-moving “food as medicine” innovation space aims to leverage huge quantities of information. This includes personal information such as age and gender; health data around pre-existing conditions and medication; and behavioural data like diet, activity, and mood.  

All these datasets promise more personalised, targeted, and effective products. A key challenge, however, is ensuring that this information is gathered, analysed, and implemented in a way that makes sense and adds value. 

“Companies are often so focused on customer acquisition that they don’t think about using the data to actually help consumers reach their health goals,” says Abrahams, the founder of Qina, a platform and strategy and nutrition innovation consultancy.

“The data collected in surveys, or at the sign-up stage, doesn’t always follow through to the actual outcomes that are important to the consumer.”  

Key reasons for this include the fact that data sources do not talk to each other, quality data is not properly structured, and there no common language when it comes to data collection.

“While it might seem like a quick fix to simply collect all this data and apply AI, this doesn’t mean that you will be able to make sense of it,” adds Abrahams. “It’s rubbish in and rubbish out. I think this is where we are right now.”  

Unlocking internal data to boost innovation workflows 

At this year’s Fi Europe Future of Nutrition Summit, Abrahams will be delivering a session on how companies can unlock all this internal data to improve innovation workflows.

“Data is gold,” she says. “But data means nothing if we can’t get good insights. Data collection that is cleverly targeted, and that connects food and health more closely, is the direction in which nutrition and innovation needs to be going.” 

Abrahams explains Qina’s approach to this challenge.

“We have datasets that look at the market itself, and which help us to identify where we see growth,” she says. “For example, food tracking apps, at-home blood testing, and personalised food shopping solutions are increasingly popular. So based on a market analysis, we can say that these are the market segments that are growing fastest, and that within these segments, these are the specific solutions that are trending.”  

This data is then used to produce market insights, which can help R&D and product teams to know where to focus. Qina also makes use of natural language processing. Here, AI is applied to content created by Qina’s in-house experts, as well as publicly available information and scientific papers.  

“The point here is that there are patterns and trends that we can identify by combining disparate datasets,” says Abrahams. “This is about leveraging our domain expertise in nutrition and behaviour alongside AI to achieve efficiencies. By adding more rich data to your existing knowledge, your failure rate will be lower, your costs will be lower, and you will become consumer target-driven.”  

Food and health to become further intertwined 

At Fi Europe 2024, Abrahams will stress the need for a structured approach to data. Without this, food and beverage companies may find it hard to make sense of consumer needs and perceptions, she believes.  

“This process always starts with identifying what your health goal or benefit you are seeking is; which area of health you want to focus on; and who your target customers are within that area,” she says. “Once you narrow this down, your strategy should become clearer.”  

Very often, the data that companies need is already at hand. A key issue is overcoming departmental siloes, as well as developing a comprehensive strategy that everyone can work towards. You need to collect the right data and gather useful insights first, says Abrahams, and then work out which additional data can be accessed or created to innovate.  

Moving forward, food and health are set to become further intertwined.

“I see a future where health data will be stored on smartphones, and all customers will need to do is tap their phone at a store to identify which products or brands they should be buying,” says Abrahams. “Retail and health will work closer together, and healthcare professionals will have a key role in ensuring a human expert in the loop. The future I see involves all these areas working together.”  

Abrahams will give a presentation at Fi Europe’s Future of Nutrition Summit entitled “No data, no cry: Leveraging in-house data and technology to unlock innovation workflows.”