More than 44 million people battle food insecurity in the U.S. In addition, about half of American adults have a preventable chronic disease, and many are related to poor quality eating patterns. Due to these challenges, the food-as-medicine movement has been picking up steam, with several startups emerging in the space and gaining funding. Between 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, $373 million has been invested in 22 digital health startups focused on food as medicine solutions, according to Rock Health.
So what does the future hold for the food-as-medicine market? This was a topic of discussion during a PitchBook webinar moderated last week by Aaron DeGagne, senior analyst of healthcare at PitchBook. DeGagne was joined by Eric Dobosh, principal of Route 66 Ventures; Josh Hix, co-founder and CEO of Season Health; and Lauren Driscoll, founder and CEO of NourishedRx.
According to Dobosh, there will likely be some consolidation among food-as-medicine companies in the future.
“I think there’s going to be potentially some [mergers and acquisitions] and I can see that happening over the next few years,” he said. “There are larger companies that really care about the space and want to make investments. Especially in this tougher macro environment, they’re going to spend more time thinking about their main profit center. … I think there could be some really exciting opportunities for M&A. Of course, it’s early and the markets are evolving. The public market is cold right now. Hopefully that changes in the next couple of quarters. Could we see some direct listings and IPOs in the next couple of years? For sure.”
Driscoll of NourishedRx said she hopes to see the majority of payers “leaning in” to the food-as-medicine space in the next five years, though she wants reimbursement to become more straightforward. NourishedRx serves payers and providers and offers personalized food solutions, such as grocery support, prepared meals and meal kits. It also provides nutrition education and wraparound support like helping patients sign up for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“Today, food as medicine is primarily focused — at least when you have payers paying you for it — on those conditions for which you can hopefully drive a return pretty quickly, like maybe even within the health plan contract year,” Driscoll stated. “And so therefore, we’re focusing on uncontrolled diabetes, heart failure, kidney disease and high-risk pregnancy. It’ll be nice to see the aperture open so that we go from uncontrolled diabetes to diabetes to pre-diabetes and across all of those conditions.”
Hix of Season Health said he believes technology will likely greatly improve the chronic disease burden in the U.S. over the next several years. Season Health is a digital health company that provides personalized food recipes, pre-made meals, grocery support, nutrition education and access to dietitians.
However, he noted that technology is also the “source of the problem” since the U.S. has a much larger chronic disease burden today than it did 100 years ago.
“In many ways, we have done this to ourselves,” he said. “The good news is that we can undo it. We can solve it and part of that is helping to arm people with better tools. I think about the trackers of the world. They may only be in a certain segment today, but you’re seeing the prices get lower and the adoption get broader. … And I think that there’s a parallel there for food. Helping to build tools or in our case building tools that help people navigate these environments better has got to be a big part of the answer.”
Photo: vgajic, Getty Images
