Author: Prof Danielle McCarthy, RNutr – Nutrition Talent Co-Founder
Nutrition Talent was born on 1st February 2018. It’s our 8th birthday … our baby is getting big, and we are rather proud of her.
This business was established back in 2018 to empower nutrition professionals, businesses and organisations to achieve their sustainable health and wellness ambitions so that everyone can thrive.
Much has changed since 2018: in the market, in nutrition science, in policy, in how we work, in where nutrition and health fits within organisational agendas, within the public’s interest, not to mention an unimaginable epidemic that made us all think about our lives differently. In the UK, nutrition and health now directly impacts where foods can be situated in store and how they can be advertised and promoted. Healthy is most certainly healthy for business.
Over these eight years Nutrition Talent has grown and developed, and has successfully supported clients through these changes, helping them identify growth opportunities, navigate complexity, mitigate risk, and move forward with clarity and confidence. We’ve done this as a small, committed core team, and by extending our capability through the exceptional Nutrition Talent community, and for that we are extremely proud.
We have also supported our community of nutrition professionals through our recruitment work, finding them opportunities ranging from full time permanent roles at all levels to project-based work. We’ve had the privilege of cheerleading careers through pivots, returns to work, moments of doubt, and major breakthroughs. It has truly been an honour to watch with pride the careers of people we have placed in roles over the years and see how they continue to thrive and drive our profession forwards.
Anna and I are proud today as entrepreneurs and co-founders. We are on track, with greater momentum than ever before. We are energised for the teenage years ahead. Today we are stopping to celebrate and thank all our clients and Nutrition Talent community, many of who we work with on a continual basis. They say it takes a village to raise a child. We have learned it takes a strong network to grow and diversify a successful business and today we reflect on how we have achieved exactly that. From an idea two friends who met at uni had over a Turkish meal, all those years ago…
(Podcast episode to come as we reflect together on the journey so far….as successful entrepreneurs (who knew?!))
What have we learned along the way? Here are 8 insights gained through 8 years of Nutrition Talent:
Adaptability
Discovery, trial, error, change. Adaptability has shaped every aspect of Nutrition Talent – from client pitches and projects, market trends to life itself. I started this business with a one-year-old and two primary-school children. Two of those children are now teenagers, and one is a strong amazing girl with fire in her heart (chip off the old block!).
The realities of building a business alongside a life you want to be fully present in takes work. Reflection, communication and adaptation have been essential. Of exceptional importance has been a business culture and colleagues that value and trust you to get the job done – with flexibility and understanding. At times it has been a crazy juggling act. First and foremost, as co-founders we have learned a human centric approach to working culture is essential and helps ensure the time we spend on Nutrition Talent “sparks joy” – one of the objectives we set out right from the start and one which we keep as a central point of navigation.
Freedom
Our freedom to work across all sectors gives us breadth, distinctive insights, and powerful networks that deliver real value for our clients. From retail and ingredient suppliers to manufacturers, SMEs, out-of-home operators and trade associations, we have developed strategies and supported their execution. This cross-sector experience has deepened our understanding of the challenges our clients face, strengthened our thinking, and enabled us to unlock original ideas and practical solutions.
Flexibility
Flexibility has allowed me to develop first-hand experience in AI and nutrition intelligence in my other role as Chief Health Officer at Spoon Guru. I have built in-depth understanding of AI, the workings of it, its application and potential in retail, manufacture, charity and community settings. For sure this is the future. We need to be able to design, deploy and utilise robust AI tools to drive impact at a scale and efficiency we never could before – the kid just got a hover board! Future shoppers, agentic commerce, digital food environments, health ratings, food discovery, personalised health …. as applied nutritionists we need to consider how such tools can help us achieve our goals. We must ensure our profession has a key role in the development and deployment of such tools and that we keep abreast of their impact on consumer understanding, needs and behaviours so as we can ensure the guidance we provide within our organisations and to our clients reflects and is relevant within the ever changing contexts in which we live.
Bringing people together
An area we are proud of at Nutrition Talent is our ability to bring people together. Some of our most impactful work has come from participatory design: such as workshops that bring people together across sectors and across departments within organisations to build a shared vision, strategy and integrated implementation plans. Aligning stakeholders, breaking down silos, and driving shared ownership creates direction and focus, and ultimately change. Implementation becomes achievable, not theoretical.
Navigating change
Policies and how to measure success continue to evolve rapidly – with changes in legislation like the US dietary guidelines, approval of GLP-1 for weight management, new scientific publications and market responses to them, e.g. Eat Lancet, UPF. We have seen shifting mindsets and different people are now asking questions across organisations – Investors, CEOs, Heads of Commercial, Heads of Innovation. Our role has increasingly been to help businesses respond rather than react, bring clarity to our clients amid the chaos – supporting them to navigate cross-market, cross-sector, cross-consumer challenges, contextualising and simplifying information and providing training. A lot of our work has been with executive teams this past year, demonstrating progress on how important health now is for businesses.
Definitions of health
Defining health is harder than ever. With the rise of GLP-1, UPFs, definitions of healthy, labelling and rating systems around the world, debating evidence-led vs opinion-led; alongside the added complexity of conflicting data systems and differing data quality and availability. Our work has evolved to help clients navigate these areas too. The challenge for businesses is not whether to respond, but how to respond, feasibly, responsibly, for today and tomorrow. Decisions must consider consumer needs while evaluating unintended consequences. We often hear clients ask: What should we actually be focusing on? The answer is rarely simple, and no one should navigate that complexity alone.
Humanity
Through our Career Conversations and recruitment work, we’ve been inspired by the extraordinary strength and bravery of the decision making within our community – people returning from maternity leave, changing sectors, leaving long-held roles, finding more purposeful roles or stepping into positions they fully deserve after years of hard graft. We’ve shared the joy when someone achieves their goals. We’ve also seen doubt, amongst the most talented individuals. We can all benefit from seeking support – not only on the functional elements of our roles, but also the lived experience of our roles. Being able to cheerlead members of our community has been energising to the extreme.
Sharing
Launching our ‘Humans of Nutrition’ podcast was a step outside the comfort zone for both of us, but one that has been hugely rewarding. We have loved sharing the complexities and nuances of our world. Not everyone agrees and progress requires listening to multiple perspectives, grounding debate in evidence, and remembering the humans behind the headlines. The courage, passion, resilience and honesty of our guests in sharing their challenges as well as their successes, has made this one of the most meaningful parts of our work, and we will continue to create space for these conversations.
As we enter the “teenage years” of Nutrition Talent, we do so with energy, momentum, and gratitude. Thank you for being part of the journey so far, and for helping to shape what comes next.
Contact us if you have nutrition consultancy or recruitment requirements