Increasing Demand for Customized Meal Services
Food Industry Enters Market, Moves to Secure Lead
Focus on Enhancing Customer Service Going Forward
As interest in personalized health management grows, the era of personal nutrition is fully underway, going beyond personal training. With increasing demand for customized meal services, the food industry is launching a series of services to secure an early market lead.
According to the food industry on the 13th, Pulmuone recently introduced a new personalized diet subscription service called ‘Design Meal’ featuring an integrated personal dietary management solution called the ‘AI Nutrition Diagnosis Service.’ The AI Nutrition Diagnosis Service provides integrated personalized solutions through an AI recommendation algorithm. The service algorithm is designed to propose nutrition management guides, customized meal plans, and health supplement solutions tailored to individuals based on the Korean Dietary Reference Intakes (Korean Nutrition Society), clinical nutrition management guidelines (Korean Dietitian Association), and more. By responding to brief questions about basic information, dietary behaviors, eating patterns, and lifestyle, the service categorizes over 50 dietary management types and personalized health supplement recommendations according to individual health management goals and required calorie intake.
Ourhome also officially entered the personalized subscription meal service business in May by launching ‘Callis Lab.’ Callis Lab provides personalized meal plans based on health diagnostic data. In addition, it offers one-on-one nutrition consulting with clinical dietitians, periodic body measurements, and health improvement tracking. Through consultations via a dedicated application, it aims to support sustainable health management. Ourhome plans to aggressively expand Callis Lab, which is currently operated mainly in some client company cafeterias such as LG Display, starting with its entry into IFC Mall this month.
Hyundai Green Food also launched a new subscription meal product for kidney disease under its care food specialty brand ‘Greeting.’ This year, Hyundai Green Food established a separate category called ‘Greeting Disease-Specific Meal Plans,’ combining diabetic meals, cancer patient meals, and kidney disease meals. The number of meal plans has increased more than threefold from 36 at launch to 117.
Recently, companies have jumped into the personalized meal subscription business because they clearly see its market potential. As awareness of the importance of health management steadily rises, demand for dietary management, which is inseparable from health, is also continuously increasing. The food industry recognizes the need for systematic dietary management, but since many consumers find it difficult to manage nutrition on their own for various reasons, they see growth potential in the personalized meal business.
An industry insider explained, "There are clear dietary standards for patient meals managing diseases or for strict diet control combined with exercise, but attempting this individually has limitations in terms of nutritional knowledge and cooking expertise. Therefore, professional meal and health management services are seen as having business potential."
As service demand is expected to continue increasing, companies plan to focus on advancing their services. Ourhome intends to build more detailed customer-tailored digital health management services. A representative from Ourhome said, "We are continuously conducting research and development related to general meals such as meal development and nutritional balance, as well as special foods and meal plans like care food and medi-food. In addition, we are promoting the advancement of IT technologies such as mobile platforms to enhance customer accessibility and ease of use." Pulmuone also stated plans to add a ‘care service’ to help individuals effectively follow the personalized meal plans and dietary management guides proposed through the nutrition diagnosis service in the future.
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