How is open innovation structured at Danone and how is the maker of Activia, Alpro, Silk and Evian engaging with the GLP-1 trend?
It’s early days, says the firm’s open innovation manager Irini Schoeman-Giziakis. But Danone is primarily focused on meeting the nutritional needs of people taking these drugs or trying to retain weight loss after coming off them.
As for products already in its portfolio that may fit the needs of GLP-1 patients, there are active discussions in the industry as to whether to actively position these as “GLP-1 friendly” or instead steer patients towards them via nutrition or online shopping apps, for example, she says.
AgFunderNews (AFN) caught up with Schoeman-Giziakis (ISG) at the US Davis discovery forum on GLP-1s in Sacramento, California, to discuss nutrition in the Ozempic era, AI, external innovation, and how Danone structures collaborations with third parties.
AFN: How is Danone engaging with the GLP-1 trend?
ISG: As we move into a world where more people are using GLP-1 or are advised to use GLP-1, what we would like to do is have the offers there for people to continue to have a diet without deficiencies, with the right nutrition. And this is how we see our goal, to provide health for as many people as possible.
AFN: Do you see it as a case of formulating new products that meet the nutritional needs of GLP-1 users, or is it more about saying actually, we’ve already got a bunch of products that meet the needs of this group, and it’s about positioning them to this audience?
ISG: This is something we’re discussing. It’s only been 18 months, right? From our perspective, we need time to understand what is the actual consumer need?
Is it a product that is saying on pack, ‘This is for GLP-1 users’ or is it where we say, actually, no, we’re not going to do that, but instead as we heard today [at the UC Davis conference] is it part of something [such as a nutrition or shopping app] where we use AI and it can tell you, Ah, you need more protein, have this product. Or you need more iron, or you need more of these ingredients, so take these products. In that case, we may already have a lot of products in the portfolio that can fit these requirements.
AFN: Is there an open innovation angle here such as external partnerships, collaborations?
ISG: It could be both. It depends on the direction we would like to take. If we want to go into a new pathway where we develop completely new products or ingredients, it could be something for open innovation. If we say we already have a lot of products, let’s see how we can utilize these, then no, it’s not really an open innovation pipeline for us.
But it might be both. One does not exclude the other. We may say, OK, we have what we have, let’s amplify the usage of that, but on the other hand, let’s see what can be created on top.
One thing about Danone is we’ve always been about health and we see GLP-1 and the learnings from GLP-1 as bringing a huge pre-competitive advantage to the whole understanding of metabolic health, microbiome diversity, the impacts of all these different aspects of health.
So we do not see this [the rise of GLP-1 drugs] as a negative [for Danone]. We see doctors getting more understanding about how important microbiome health is, how important gut health is, and Danone has always been about gut health and immunity.
AFN: AI and precision nutrition have come up quite a lot at this conference. Can you speak a little bit how that relates to open innovation at Danone?
ISG: So at the moment internally at Danone, we’re working at AI more on understanding our internal data and seeing how we can utilize it to speed up processes. I can’t share too much detail as this is quite confidential, but it’s a bit our focus.
Of course, we do really see AI as another part of our program on the tools to interact with consumers. So what type of tools do consumers use to monitor their diet or what type of wearables [are they using]? Can we also as a corporate utilize some of that data But understand that we are under very strict personal data laws because of our links with the European Union…
Our key goal is to understand what are the gaps in nutrition? How can we support the consumer in [addressing] these gaps?
We do want to work with a consumer-first model and AI is providing a huge window of understanding into what are those needs actually? How can we support consumers? How can we help consumers understand how they can cover these gaps?
So how can we support with the knowledge we have the advice that can be given? So we have a central hub in Singapore and our research institute in Singapore that is working with digital health tools.
AFN: How is open innovation structured at Danone?
ISG: I create the fundament for our experts to be able to access the right partners. So I don’t always reach out to startups or universities myself, but I create the platform for the interaction to be available. So be that [???], let’s say the people responsible for the spin offs at universities, or the people responsible for accelerators linked to universities or making sure we’re part of ecosystems like MISTA, EIT, or other venture funds or accelerators where we can put all these ecosystems together and say OK, what is the right approach, depending on the pillar of innovation we’re looking at, at that particular moment.
I don’t think there’s a right and a wrong way to do open innovation. I think it’s very company-dependent and depends on how each company is doing different things. What we’ve chosen to do at Danone is to have a very small open innovation platform, but have all our experts, whether they be on the science, whether they be on the technical side, to be linked in dotted lines with me or with whoever is working on open innovation.
So we’ve giving the power to the experts to have this mandate in this role, to either access startups themselves if they find something interesting, or to be able to approach us and tell us, OK, this is what I need, can we find the right ecosystem?
AFN: Do you do tech scouting?
ISG: Sometimes, depending on the question, but what we would do in these situations is usually hire a consultancy team or maybe look within the ecosystem we already have built up as a specific question, again, coming from the needs of the expert teams, or the need of a project.
So again, it is an internal request coming to us, and then we funnel it. So we wouldn’t necessarily do it ourselves. What we may be able to do is, in some cases, and this is a bit where we’re using AI also internally, is to have the possibility to look within the identified ecosystems internally… is there something we’ve identified before as not fitting [that could fit] in this new question or this new setup? Maybe we can re-engage because this is a new question, or can we use a [previously explored] technology in a different way?
AFN: How do you structure partnerships with startups so you can create a win-win for both parties?
ISG: We have a clear model where we maintain IP on product. Technology or ingredient IP is for the startup. We focus on product, and this is how we maintain this kind of ownership and partnership.
From there on, it is really dependent. Is it a technology startup? Is it an ingredient startup? Will there be an intermediate? Because there are many times where we may find an ingredient that’s interesting, but we may as Danone not want, or not have the capability to help this startup scale up, and we may need an intermediate, another b2b partner. That is a different partnership model, where you say someone has a technology which we can apply in a factory, a different partnership model.
So it really depends on what is the application. Is it a process? Is it an ingredient?
Further reading:
🎥 How does front end innovation work at Givaudan? In conversation with Alexandre Bastos
🎥Collaborate or die: Hacking the next generation of healthy foods at MISTA
The post Inside Danone’s open innovation model: From AI to Ozempic-era nutrition appeared first on AgFunderNews.
- Source: https://agfundernews.com/inside-danones-open-innovation-model-from-ai-to-ozempic-era-nutrition
