An interview with Jaed Khan, founder of Foodmaestro, one of Forward Fooding’s top 500 Food Tech startup.

It’s time to put a face to the name…

We asked our FoodTech 500 top-runners to give us a bit of insight into how they started out as a company and their thoughts on the role of technology in Food innovation. Meet Jaed, the mastermind behind Foodmaestro, a data and dietetic technology that helps people eat easier and happier. Let’s see what he had to say.

So tell us a little bit more about you! Where did the idea for your FoodTech company come from?

Jaed: We were at a birthday party when my son was younger and he ended up eating some candy. It turns out the candy contained something that triggered his severe egg and nut allergies, which resulted in an anaphylactic reaction. We took him to the hospital and thankfully got him recovered. Afterward, I was frustrated by not knowing what was in the candy to have caused the reaction, and obsessed with how to prevent this from happening again. I realized that it was too difficult for people, in general, to figure out if the food they’re buying is safe to eat based on their individual needs. At Foodmaestro, we’ve solved this problem with accuracy and scale by processing massive amounts of food data and applying our technology and dietetic expertise.

How is tech central to your business?

Jaed: We work with some of the world’s largest grocery retailers and dietary organizations to classify hundreds of allergen, dietary, nutritional, and lifestyle definitions. Technology allows us to scale accurately and safely to positively impact that millions of grocery shopping experiences that people are having. As an example, identifying if a food product is gluten-free requires analysis against multiple ingredient triggers (e.g. wheat). Is there any contamination warning? Only through our advanced data analysis can we confidently solve this problem.

Why do you think it’s important to see the food industry embrace tech?

Jaed: The food industry generates a plethora of data because of how many interconnected parts exist in between growing food and eating it. There’s too much data! We need technology to help us identify how to improve safety, health, and sustainability. Marrying these insights with what we need to consume as individuals is essential to making this technology a positive experience.

 

 

Want to know more? Check out Foodmaestro’s full profile here.

Congratulations again to Foodmaestro for ranking 9th in the “Consumer Apps & Services” category of the Foodtech 500 list.

To find out who else made it into the FoodTech 500; the top Food Tech companies in the world, click here.

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