It’s touting itself as a revolutionary new meal delivery kit, one that can accommodate a person’s specific dietary needs on an individual level. The only catch? You have to prick yourself for blood.
The new service, Habit, which plans to launch next year, will collect genetic data on its customers through home blood-testing kits that measure nutrition-related biomarkers to analyze how different bodies process different foods. The kits also collect basic body metric data, including body weight, height, and waist circumference.
“We all deserve to know what foods are best for us — and often that means knowing our bodies and ourselves at the cellular level,” said Habit CEO Neil Grimmer in a statement.
This week, Campbell’s Soup Co. became the sole investor in the Silicon Valley startup, injecting it with $32 million. That’s a sizable start, given that global funding in meal kit startups totaled $23 million in 2016’s second quarter, according to research firm CB Insights.
New official dietary recommendations in the US point out that what constitutes a healthy diet is specific to people’s individual health needs—i.e. there is no one-size-fits-all.
In a statement, Campbell’s CEO Denise Morrison told the Philadelphia Business Journal that the company was capitalizing on a growing ”wired for well-being space” that prioritizes personalized nutrition.
Investors may be keener than meal kit customers. In a nascent industry that has attracted more than $600 million in venture capital, the vast majority of its customers drop their subscriptions within six months of signing up.