Season Health – Healthcare
What it is:
Season launched in 2022 and is a “food as medicine” platform intended for clinicians to prescribe condition-specific nutrition. The platform pairs a patient with a dietician and chef to implement a clinician’s food prescription. Meals are suggested to the user, who can keep, swap, or remove meals from their schedule. Fresh ingredients and recipes are delivered directly to the user. There is also a selection of curated, premade meals and low-prep recipe options for those that do not like to cook.
Season is ideal for people with conditions like prediabetes, diabetes, heart disease or congestive heart failure, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, celiac disease, and more. There are breakfast, lunch, and dinner options.
Season operates on a self-pay model; patients pay $75 per month as a subscription fee, which includes access to a dedicated registered dietitian, personalized meal recommendations, and concierge ordering. Season is not currently covered as a health plan benefit. The monthly subscription fee does not include the cost of food – the cost per serving for each recipe is available when users are making their selections.
Season is currently available to patients in Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia. The company plans to be available nationwide by June.
Who Made It?
Season was founded in 2020 by Josh Hix and the company is based in Austin, Texas. Hix is the former CEO of Plated, an online platform intended to provide ready-to-cook ingredients and recipes for home delivery. Plated was acquired by Albertsons in 2017. Hix serves as Season’s CEO, Mustafa Shabib is the CTO, and Michele Rager, RDN-AP is the VP of Clinical Nutrition.
According to a February 2022 Fast Company article, Season is coordinating meal plans for patients at several health systems: Geisinger, CommonSpirit Health, and kidney-focused telehealth provider Cricket Health. Season has launched a clinical trial with CommonSpirit to make a case for insurance coverage.
Funding status:
- The company raised $34M of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Andreessen Horowitz on April 4, 2022. LRV Health, Company Ventures, and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round.
- Season plans to use the funding to rapidly expand payer and provider collaborations, grow its team and ramp up national retail integrations, company executives have said.
- The company raised $8.24M of seed funding in the form of convertible debt from Healthy Ventures, Springbank Collective, LRVHealth, and Tet Ventures on June 30, 2021. Other undisclosed investors also participated in the round.
- The company raised $2.55M of Seed funding from Company Ventures, Musha Ventures, and other undisclosed investors on February 6, 2020.
Why we like it:
- Connects the patient back to food – it isn’t preprepared frozen meals, the patient can cook themselves and prepare meals with fresh ingredients directly tailored to their clinician’s recommendations for their diet to manage conditions
- Users can engage Season’s dieticians and receive recipes but opt to food shop for themselves
- “Food as Medicine” is a proven way to improve health and manage existing conditions
- Actively pursuing ways to engage with health plans, health systems, and providers. While Season is not currently covered as a health plan benefit, this engagement, as well as the clinical trial with CommonSpirit, could hopefully lead to coverage in the future.
Did you know?
“Unhealthy diets are a core reason for nearly 85% of U.S. healthcare costs. While there have been decades of investment in the consumer food world to entirely digitize that industry, it is time to marry that work with the healthcare world to drive a total rehaul of nutrition in this country,” – Josh Hix, CEO of Season