Campbell's Soup Wants Your Next Meal to Include Blood Test

It's investing in a meal delivery startup that uses customers' genetic data
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 28, 2016 3:40 PM CDT
Campbell's Soup Wants Your Next Meal to Include Blood Test
Campbell's Soup wants your next meal to start with a blood test.   (AP Photo/J. David Ake, File)

Campbell's Soup wants you to draw some blood before planning your next meal. Quartz reports the soup giant has become the sole investor—to the tune of $32 million—in meal delivery startup Habit. When Habit launches next year, it will send customers a blood-testing kit to use at home. It will then use customers' genetic data from their blood sample—along with their weight, height, waist circumference, and more—to craft meals tailored to each customer's specific dietary needs. Fortune calls it a "futuristic-sounding approach" to food. But it's an approach that fits with current US dietary recommendations, which acknowledge that a healthy diet for one person isn't necessarily a healthy diet for another.

Habit was founded by Neil Grimmer, whose prior venture, baby food company Plum Organics, was bought by Campbell's for $249 million in 2013, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports. In a blog post, Grimmer says Habit is offering an "owner's manual for your body." After running tests on himself to discover his body's particulars—metabolizes caffeine slowly, stores fat, etc.—Grimmer adjusted his diet and says he lost weight, got healthier, and had more energy. "It wasn’t some magic cure or quack diet, it was via a highly personalized method that made sense," he says. In addition to personalized meals delivered to customers' doors, Habit will also offer "coaches" to help customers reach their health goals. (Italian researchers say pasta doesn't make you fat.)

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