Ascensia Diabetes Care has revealed that UK-based Whisk have been selected as the winner of the Ascensia Diabetes Challenge, a global innovation competition that set out to find digital solutions to support type 2 diabetes management.
Whisk’s winning innovation is a Culinary Coach that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide personalized food recommendations based on flavor preferences and food avoidance, that will be expanded to use blood glucose data for people with diabetes.
The Whisk platform is an AI-powered nutrition platform that currently enables users to browse recipes based on factors including their personal taste preferences, time constraints, budgets, weather and dietary restrictions or allergies.
Once a user adds a recipe to their meal plan, it can be automatically added to an online shopping cart at some of the world’s leading grocery retailers, seamlessly allowing them to buy ingredients.
As winner of the challenge, Whisk plan to create a personalized food experience for people with type 2 diabetes that will learn from their blood glucose readings and make food recommendations that are more tailored to their own diabetes.
Using readings from Ascensia’s blood glucose monitoring systems, the AI will learn how the user’s blood glucose readings react to specific foods and recipes, allowing them to build a tailored meal plan for their diabetes that can help to keep their blood glucose in range.
The Culinary Coach for diabetes will start by providing personalized recipe recommendations, and will in the future develop to suggest convenience foods and restaurant options.
Michael Kloss, CEO and President of Ascensia Diabetes Care, said: “Nutrition and food selection is a huge component of type 2 diabetes management. The panel of judges and I were hugely impressed by Whisk’s current tool and how they plan to develop it for people with type 2 diabetes. By helping people with type 2 diabetes find personalized and tailored meal recommendations that are based on their own blood glucose data and food preferences, we have the potential to empower millions of people with type 2 diabetes to make healthier food choices that they will enjoy.”
Whisk’s solution was selected from 116 entries that were submitted to the challenge from 25 countries and they will receive a cash prize of euro100, 000 to build and pilot this exciting new service for people with type 2 diabetes, working closely with Ascensia Diabetes Care to bring it to patients.
Whisk’s core technology uses extensive food ontology known as the Food Genome™ that incorporates and understands macro and micro-nutritional data, flavor compounds, store availability, price and promotions. Whisk is currently available in the US, UK and Australia, powering half a million shopping lists every month at grocery retailers including Walmart, Tesco and Amazon Fresh.