At the exhibit hall of the Food as Medicine Summit happening in Chicago next week, there will be organizations familiar to food banks, including Feeding America, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the International Fresh Produce Association.
There will also be exhibitors that many food banks have likely never heard of before. All of them have their eye on the funds starting to become available through insurers to address food insecurity and ensure good nutrition. Here is a sampling:
Chef2Home
Chef2Home was founded in 1994 to meet the dining needs of hospitals and other institutions, and is now preparing for “exponential growth” in the medically-tailored home-delivered meal sector. Last year it provided 15 million healthcare and senior chef-made meals, often covered by federal or state health plans.
Crunch Pak
Crunch Pak started over 20 years ago by packaging sliced apples as a snack, and has since expanded into other types of healthy snacks. It sells through major retailers and also in bulk to restaurants and schools.
Homestyle Direct
For 30 years, Homestyle Direct has been delivering healthy meals to populations facing food insecurity and health challenges. Its medically tailored meals address diabetes and cancer, as well as gluten, heart and renal issues.
iQPay
iQPay is an eight-year-old digital card provider that recently began developing solutions for food banks, community based organizations and government agencies interested in offering food benefits. Digital purchase cards can be programmed to only allow purchases of healthy food, for example.
Keen Growth Capital
Keen Growth is an investment firm seeking financial return and social impact from investments in healthy food products, supplemental nutrition products, and emerging technologies like biomarker measurement. It says that 157 million Americans are in need of transformative health solutions.
NielsenIQ
NielsenIQ tracks the health and nutrition shopping behaviors of consumers.
NourishedRx
Founded in 2019, NourishedRx partners with healthcare companies to nourish their most vulnerable members through the delivery of healthy food and with the support of registered dieticians. It works with healthcare payers and insured individuals.
Performance Kitchen
Performance Kitchen implores visitors to its website to “get meals covered by insurance” and invites them to click a button to go through a one-minute qualifying process. Since 2021 it has been delivering ready-to-eat wholesome meals to qualifying health care members.
Savor Health
Savor Health offers INA, Intelligent Nutrition Assistant, which helps people with cancer eat healthy and stay well-nourished throughout their treatment journey. Patients can fill out a form to speak with an oncology dietician.
Season Health
Visitors to the website are invited to see if they qualify for a virtual visit with a dietician (95% do). Once they receive their personalized care plan, patients can get recipes and prepared meals from Season Health’s online food marketplace.
Sifter Shop
Sifter Shop lets people scan UPC codes to discover whether the products they are choosing at the grocery store fit their personal dietary requirements, whether they are diabetic, gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, etc.. Sifter, started by the founders of the Peapod online grocery service, say that people who shop by diet represent a $268 billion sales opportunity.
Sylvan Health
Sylvan Health is building a nationwide network of registered dieticians capable of seeing patients covered by insurance. By helping patients with nutrition counseling and meal planning, it helps to reduce the total cost of care.
Youtopia
Youtopia sells “precision nourishment,” which matches nutrients to your body’s needs. It plans to provide “personalized prescriptive nutrient plans” and deliver fresh local meals through a variety of channels, including dine-in restaurants and cafes, and home delivery. At the moment, Youtopia is taking a “brief intermission,” according to its website.
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