Food Supplement Bottle, orginally uploaded by ertessplastic
Over the last couple weeks, the New York Times has put out two articles on “food additives” that offer, I think, an interesting case study for what works and what doesn’t in what will likely be a growing field.
In the first, “Magical or Overrated? A Food Additive in a Swirl,” Gary Rivlin addresses Martek Biosciences, a venture-backed entity that has experimented with and marketed various forms of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation. The company has seen success selling the additive to infant formulation companies but has faced challenges in gaining broader adoption. And the question is: “Why?” Well, management suggests that food manufacturers are slow to act:
‘The food and drink industry does not adapt quickly,” said Martek’s president, David M. Abramson. The industry average for testing a product before releasing it on the market, he said, is 2.1 years.
And apparently omega-3 adoption in infant formularies took 10. In the venture business, the way a company’s customer base behaves can often make or break its success given an investment horizon (typically five years). Martek’s dilemma here is interesting in that the industry operatives with which Martek must partner may be slow to act but consumers are also misinformed, and therefore, less than ideal end customers. Specifically, as someone who has done a fair bit of self-education on the nutrition front (a gaping void in our educational system as far as I’m concerned), I know that not all fat is bad fat and eating fat doesn’t necessarily make one fat. But most Americans aren’t there, the ones that are are not looking for “additives,” and the rest may not be interested for another 5-10 years. That’s a problem.
Eight days after the Martek piece, the Times published, “In Live Bacteria, Food Makers See A New Bonanza” by Andrew Martin and Christopher Maag. This one covers the rise of Dannon’s new “live bacteria” yogurt which surpassed the $100 million sales mark in its first year, a rare feat for newly introduced foods. Much like Martek’s omega-3’s, the benefits of such probiotics are up for debate, but somehow “gut regulation” has won where “heart health” (or a host of other omega-3 benefits) has lost. Dannon’s in-house R&D, production, and marketing may certainly have helped, but I bet the hurdle to gain adoption via enhancement of an existing role (yogurt is generally seen as gut friendly) is a lot lower than attempting to sell calorie-counting Kellogg’s consumers that a special type of fat additive on their cereal is health-building. Anyway, fascinating stuff.
If you’re interested in the topic from an investment standpoint, Great Spirit Ventures seems to have a relevant portfolio.
Interesting discussion point re: fat - healthy or unhealthy.
Having grown up with a Biochemist for a Mom (Mom also contributed to NIH’s Nutrition Pyramid–the one that places fats and sweets at the top of the pyramid), I was deeply ingrained with an aversion to fats. In some cases, this learned aversion is so strong, that I don’t even enjoy certain fatty foods. Today, I avoid fat as much as possible.
I am certainly aware, as were scientists 2 decades ago when this first food pyramid was created, that there are different kinds of fats–so called “good” fats and “bad” fats. However, the fact remains that too much fat will clog your arteries and lead to heart-disease.
I remain skeptical of “cutting-edge” thinking in regards to nutrition, largely because many of these “breakthroughs” end up as fads that do not offer long-term health benefits (e.g. the Atkins diet–a ludicrous proposition, particularly from the stand-point of heart health). Part of the reason that “breakthroughs” are not really possible is that diet is tremendously complicated to analyze and so any truly meaningful claim requires decades of empirical data. Many of these nutritionalists are surmising new ways of eating without the years of data and long-term studies required to make scientifically-sound recommendations.
Now, there may in fact be some value to consuming certain omega-3 fats, however I personally believe that this only applies to the people that are consuming too much of the bad fats and are thus attempting to offset this unbalance with supplements. The truly health-conscious eater would simply reduce overall fat intake and focus his/her diet on natural sources of these omega-3 fats. These fats are in the same foods that we’ve always known were healthy: fish, avocados, and many oils.
I think that we can all agree that nutrition and our consumption behavior, as you state in your post Matt, are very slow to change. This is likely due to our reliance on what we learned as we grew-up and our habits, convictions, and comforts from early-life. If we are all agreed on this point, then we should all collectively work to eliminate McDonalds and other fast foods from the vocabulary of young children. In a Business Week article last week discussing the success of a McDonalds somewhere in the deep south (it had recently expanded its hours to 24/7), they quoted a factory worker who was eating there 5-6 times a week on his way to/from work as saying something like: “I just trust the McDonalds brand, after all I grew-up on it.” What a sad (and scary) statement! May we all make it our personal resolution in 2007 not to support companies such as McDonalds and moreover ensure that none of our children grow-up on that poison.
Loren:
Thanks for lending your thoughts; your point re “breakthroughs” ending up as fads without long-term benefits is, I think, particularly astute.
I’m still not a believer, though, that one should limit fat intake as much as possible and only consume omega-3s to balance omega-6 consumption. The Weston A. Price Foundation (which is generally devoted to promoting health via nutrition) has published a fantastic piece on the role of fat in diet called “The Skinny on Fats” which can be found here: http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/skinny.html.
Also, consider Andrew Stoll’s “The Omega-3 Connection” sold on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Omega-3-Connection-Groundbreaking-Anti-depression-Program/dp/0684871386/sr=1-1/qid=1170276848/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-0949280-0437254?ie=UTF8&s=books
You neatly tie the importance of upbringing on belief sets by starting with your mother’s impact on your own fat views and ending with the factory worker’s nostalgia and satisfaction with McDonald’s. It’s amazing what childhood experience (and pop culture) can do to harden our perspectives. The challenge, of course, is to keep an open mind and a critical eye. Appreciate your lengthy reply!
Best,
Matt