Recently, Beyoncé gave her first major public performance since giving birth to twins.
Forty-four days before her Coachella performance, she announced via Instagram that she was going vegan ahead of the show.
She also changed the link on her Instagram bio to her new vegan meal planner so others could eat like her as she prepared for the event.
And it seems that her decision to go vegan paid off.
The internet has been buzzing that Beyoncé is in the best shape of her life.
The story behind her meal planner is more significant than it appears at first glance.
Although it might sound like a stretch, Beyoncé may have just delivered the future of personalized nutrition.
This power couple has surprised a lot of people by embracing their plant-based diet so openly.
Beyoncé and Jay Z started their public vegan journey in 2015. They had been working with health and wellness expert Marco Borges, who has trained a number of notable celebrities.
Borges regularly touts the benefits of a whole-food plant-based diet for health, vitality and better performance.
After eating under Borges' guidance, Beyoncé and Jay Z have said that this will become a permanent part of their health and wellness plan.
"What I discovered [when I eat vegan] was increased energy, better sleep, weight loss, improved digestion, clarity and an incredibly positive feeling for my actions and the effects it would have on those around me and the environment," Beyoncé said.
More importantly, Beyoncé and Jay Z recognized that healthy eating and expert guidance "shouldn’t be reserved for a select few but is a right for all."
This thinking is what led them to team up with Borges to launch 22 Days Nutrition, which started with powders and bars and soon expanded into vegan meal delivery.
Beyoncé decided to launch their meal planner ahead of Coachella, with a goal to democratize healthy eating and make Borges' guidance available to everyone by leveraging the power of technology.
Her post leading up to Coachella sparked a wave of interest in her plant-based prep for the performance.
Their platform allows users to discover meals, plan their week, shop and cook all through the same site.
All of the meals were created by nutritionists and meet Borges' nutrition recommendations, which are the same guidelines Beyoncé and Jay Z follow. Importantly, every meal the users see is personalized.
Artificial intelligence is likely to become an increasingly important tool in creating the future of nutrition and shopping. Machine learning can enable platforms like 22 Days to help people eat healthy without the barriers that exist now.
Meals are recommended based on a user’s individual preferences and habits.
Meals are also recommended based on what other people with similar preferences like to eat. As it gets to know the user and his or her preferences, the meal planner becomes smarter and smarter over time.
22 Days’ platform has integrations with Instacart, Peapod and, apparently not long from now, Amazon Fresh.
So users in U.S. markets can see Beyoncé on stage, be inspired to eat like her and have a customized bag of groceries delivered to their home before their inspiration wears off.
From there, the users have access to a team of trained food coaches, cooking videos and a suite of other support tools to keep them on track.
Memberships are $14/month or users can save 40% by signing up for a year. 22 Days will be integrating more grocery delivery partners in the months ahead.
They're also working on translating the meal planner into other languages in order to reach and empower as many of Jay-Z’s and Beyoncé’s friends around the world as possible.
As of now, the company has not released the number of users on it's platform.
In recent years a few other machine-learning meal planners have come onto the market, including Gathered Table, backed by Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks. They recently made headlines after being acquired by Medifast and Plate Joy, which is now covered by insurance for its diabetes prevention program.
Before 2013, when Instacart came onto the scene, grocery shopping online held an insignificant percentage of market share and the big players in the space were barely engaged.
Now we have the grocery wars, with Amazon buying Whole Foods ($13.7 billion), Walmart buying Jet ($3 billion) and Target buying Shipt ($550 million).
Every grocery store is realizing that they need to become a technology company that sells groceries, rather than a grocery store that happens to have some technology in its veins. In a time of omni-channel shopping and endless, mind-numbing choices for consumers, the key to success for food companies and grocers will be personalization.
Marco Borges is serving up tasty solutions to a public that really needs his advice to get and stay healthy.
Beyoncé and Jay Z’s meal planner represents a important step forward for the role that technology can play in guiding consumers to eat and shop for good.
Everyone is trying to eat better.
Technology can and should play a vital role in helping people shift their habits toward health, vitality and better performance.
Instead of just making a broad statement about how a plant-based diet is better for the health of our bodies and hoping people figure out on their own, the meal planner considers a user’s experience and changes in behavior, and then supports them on their journey.
Five years ago this wouldn’t have been possible, but in 10 years it could be the norm.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z have entered this new frontier so their hundreds of millions of followers can accelerate their own journey to a healthier lifestyle.
Since this bold duo are known for leading the way on many fronts, it is likely that this is just the beginning of their push to enable better eating for all.
