One.bio: Making Food Healthy Again

Wes Selke
Better Ventures
Published in
5 min readJan 8, 2025

The industrialization of our food system has not been kind to our health. In an effort to drive sales over the last few decades, Big Food has engineered their products to taste better and be more addictive by adding more of the bad stuff (sugar, fat, salt) while cutting out a lot of the good stuff (fiber) in many of the foods and beverages across our grocery market shelves. Meanwhile, the mass adoption of high fructose corn syrup as a cheaper alternative to sugar in the 1980s fueled the rise of ultra processed foods, which now account for 50%+ of the calories consumed by the average American. The result? A diabetes and obesity epidemic of staggering proportions that’s cutting lives short and wreaking havoc on our health system to the tune of $400B annually for diabetes alone.

Time to move to Italy!

A big culprit in the rise of debilitating chronic disease is the massive fiber deficiency in our diets, with the average American eating less than half of the recommended daily amount of 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men. Fibers are one of the best macronutrients to prevent chronic disease thanks to their many health benefits including satiety and weight management, digestive and gut health, blood glucose control, and cardiovascular health. In fact, fibers could be described as “nature’s Ozempic” (or rather, perhaps Ozempic should be called Big Pharma’s fiber) given that they naturally stimulate the release of the GLP-1 hormone from your gut to your brain to trigger satiety. Many companies are waking up to the benefits of fiber and getting into the game, including functional beverage maker Oliopop, which offers 9 grams of fiber per serving and has skyrocketed to an estimated $500M in revenue in just five years. But the industry is being held back by the current fiber options, which face both formulation challenges and health limitations.

Source: Reynolds et al Lancet 2019

Enter One.bio, a foodtech startup we recently backed that seeks to improve human healthspan and longevity through the widespread application of bioactive fibers across the food and beverage industry. The company, which was co-founded by CSO Matt Amicucci at UC Davis in 2019, uses the molecular characterization of fibers along with applied chemistry to unlock a diversity of highly-soluble bioactive fibers that beneficially feed the gut. The company’s “precision prebiotics,” as they like to refer to their fibers, are based upon Amicucci’s academic work at UC Davis to develop a “Glycopedia” under renowned food and nutrition scientist Carlito Lebrilla. Their efforts leveraged breakthrough innovations in mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography to characterize the molecular structures of over 4,000 fibers found in nature and provide insights into how each fiber is broken down by “good” bacteria in the gut microbiome to produce metabolites that are beneficial for human health. One.bio is led by CEO Matt Barnard, a visionary founder who previously co-founded and led the vertical ag startup Plenty and has dedicated the next phase of his entrepreneurial journey to “extinguishing the industrial inflammatory diet.”

One.bio’s Glycopedia characterized 4,000 fibers in nature

What’s special about One.bio’s fibers is they can be formulated into a wide variety of food and beverage products to significantly improve their nutritional value without impacting taste or texture. The company’s “secret sauce” is in their ability to cut long-chain polysaccharides (i.e. raw fibers) into short-chain oligosaccharides (that’s fun to say, give it a try!) that are odorless, colorless, and tasteless. The ease of formulation and the demonstrated bioactivity of One.bio’s fibers based on internal studies (clinical trials coming soon) give them a big leg up over other fibers used in food and beverages such as psyllium husk, inulin, wheat dextrin, and others, which face a range of challenges from formulation and shelf stability to gastrointestinal discomfort and limited health benefits.

For example, psyllium husk, the fiber used in Metamucil, is very healthy and great for your gut but cannot be added to beverages without significantly changing their viscosity (think about how appealing Metamucil is!). Meanwhile, inulin is widely used as a dietary fiber addition (including in many functional beverages) because it is highly soluble, but inulin is known to cause gastrointestinal discomfort for some consumers and breaks down into sugar in acidic liquids at room temperature (be sure to refrigerate your Olipops!). One.bio is solving these challenges with natural fibers that are highly soluble and shelf stable, good for your gut, and don’t cause gas or bloating even at high doses.

My son loves smoothies but not so much this morning when I swapped out flaxseed meal for psyllium husk!

One.bio is starting with oat fiber, a well known prebiotic with many established health benefits including cholesterol reduction, blood sugar control, weight management, gut health, and even cancer prevention. The company will derive their highly soluble oat fiber by tapping into the byproduct of oat milk production, which will add an attractive sustainability story to their mission. We see a big opportunity for One.bio to expand the $7.5B fiber market given their unique ability to deliver high doses of fibers without negatively impacting product taste and texture. Once the secret is out, the sky is the limit for formulation into many food and beverage products.

The company is pursuing a B2B model and will initially partner with large beverage companies seeking to jumpstart revenue and margins by launching their own functional beverages with 10–20 grams of oat fiber (equivalent to 4–5 bowls of oatmeal!) per serving. Given their convenience, beverages are a great way to boost daily fiber consumption, and the rapidly growing $50B functional beverage industry is a testament to the big opportunity. CEO Barnard is a seasoned founder with a large network and has already made significant inroads with several well known CPG firms in sparkling beverages, juices, soda, oat milk, and yogurts that are chomping at the bit to get on the fiber train.

We’re excited about the prospect of One.bio’s fibers making their way into many mainstream food and beverage products over time to help consumers solve their fiber deficiency, prevent chronic disease, and live longer, healthier lives. Products with the company’s oat fiber should be arriving on grocery shelves soon, and we look forward to stocking them in the Better Ventures fridge!

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Better Ventures
Better Ventures

Published in Better Ventures

Backing mission-driven companies leveraging science and technology for a better world

Wes Selke
Wes Selke

Written by Wes Selke

I’m co-founder of Better Ventures, which backs founders on a mission to build a better world. I’m an avid cyclist, father of three, and live in Oakland, CA.

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