Mike Glick: CEO of NIMA Partners

Episode 803

On today’s episode, we welcome Mike Glick, CEO of NIMA Partners — the company behind the next-generation portable gluten sensor designed to deliver real-time food testing with 99% accuracy across major gluten sources. With growing demand for food transparency and consumer diagnostics, NIMA is helping reshape how people with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity confidently navigate what they eat.
Mike’s journey to leading NIMA Partners has been rooted in a career focused on improving nutrition, safety, and health outcomes. Prior to joining NIMA, he led and scaled multiple food allergy and nutrition startups including Goode Health, Else Nutrition, and SpoonfulOne — the latter acquired by Nestlé. Earlier in his career, Mike spent over a decade at Abbott and began professionally in supply chain consulting after studying Business and Engineering at the University of Illinois and earning his MBA from Wake Forest University. Stepping into NIMA in 2025, he has been instrumental in relaunching the business at a moment when consumer trust and verification in food have never been more important.
In this episode, Mike shares why he transitioned from packaged foods to food-tech diagnostics, the powerful consumer problem NIMA’s sensor is solving, and what has changed in gluten testing since the company first launched. We discuss the prevalence of celiac disease, how people manage risk today, and the emotional impact of having real-time answers about what’s on your plate. Mike also talks about leadership, measuring success, recognizing the right moment to move forward, and why standing still is rarely an option. A thoughtful conversation for founders, operators, health innovators, and anyone interested in the future of transparency in the food system.

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Transcript

Mike Glick 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. I’m excited to have a returning guest, an incredible CEO, Mike Glick, who is the CEO of an incredible company that you are going to want to know about, all about innovation in a really important space. The company is called NIMA Partners and known also as NIMA or NIMA device. It’s a company leading the way in food transparency with its next generation portable gluten sensor designed to deliver real time testing with 99% accuracy across major gluten sources, and even if you do not have a gluten issue or celiac or anything like that, once in a while, you want to know what’s in your food, right? And you want to really look at exactly what it is that maybe you test and see whether or not it makes a difference in your life, and that’s exactly what NIMA is doing. So Mike has joined the company as CEO, helping to relaunch the product. It’s been around a few years, but the potential to transform how people, especially with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity, with this device, is awesome. So from a career spanning nutrition startups, Mike had actually joined us before, with a company called good health and joined NIMA Partners after, after that, but also had been in nutrition startups had been spent years with incredible companies, including Abbott and consistently focused on a mission of helping consumers make safer and more informed decisions. So absolutely love the NIMA product, and cannot wait to hear a lot more about it directly from the guy himself. So thank you, Mike, for joining us. Really excited

Mike Glick 2:50
you’re here. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to share more about NIMA and what we’re doing and just talking about our mission of just making sure more and more people can have safe meals. That’s the most important thing. And so excited to share more about the technology and what we’re doing, and appreciate you having me on the show again.

Kara Goldin 3:10
Absolutely so for listeners who may be discovering NIMA or hearing about NIMA for the first time, can you explain the product, the technology behind it, and what problem does it solve at the consumer level?

Mike Glick 3:28
Of course. So right now, there are 1% of people who have celiac disease and another 10% that have significant gluten sensitivity. So you add that up, right? 11% of the country, it’s a lot of people, 30 plus million people, and especially those with celiac, the only thing they can do is avoid gluten. But gluten is in a lot more than you imagine. It’s in a lot of different products and ingredients. It’s even sometimes in paper plates that people are eating off of. And so what the NIMA does is, in this simple little device, there are these disposable capsules, and it allows you to take a sample of your food, put it in the capsule and test it quickly and easily to find out if there’s gluten in there. So before you eat that meal, you could make sure if it’s been cross contaminated, or maybe there was some gluten in the ingredients themselves, so you could avoid what celiacs call getting gluten Exactly.

Kara Goldin 4:31
And so what is the most, I guess, surprising gluten filled product out there, and I say not necessarily Food Company, but you know, you mentioned paper plates and you know, things without making you crazy, what product really surprises people when they hear that it has gluten in it? You know there,

Mike Glick 4:56
if you truly have a sensitivity and have been dying. Knows you are pretty active about looking at ingredients. And gluten really comes from wheat, barley and rye, and so you’re doing everything you can to avoid those three things. But there are a lot of, you know, kind of derivatives and stabilizers and things like that. So there definitely are things that are packaged goods where, you know it might include some of those, but not necessarily be called out on the ingredient label. Actually, right now, the FDA is actively asking for feedback from the public about gluten labeling, because it is difficult to really know whether something has gluten in it. And just one other one example would be even just on medications. You know, there’s a lot of medications out there that have the active ingredient that your body needs, but it’s surrounded in a capsule made of gluten. And so even things like that, there’s just a lot of watch outs. And in addition, I would say, manufacturers change things all the time, you know? And so they’ll whatever it is, your favorite cereal brand or favorite product, for six months, it’ll be fine. And then all of a sudden, there’s a change. They’ve they’ve changed something in the ingredients, they’ve made something else on the same manufacturing line. And if you’re extremely sensitive, you will notice it. So it’s one of those things it’s difficult to kind of pinpoint and say, it’s this, it’s it’s in so many things

Kara Goldin 6:30
so interesting. My father in law is he’s retired now, but he’s a gastroenterologist, and deal has dealt with celiac disease patients his whole life. And he said something to me once, which really, you know, stuck with me, which was that, you know, it people say that, well, it’s just a little bit, it’s not going to be such a big deal. But what it does is start to, you know, inflame different areas of your system break down things, and so then the rest of your immune system starts to get affected as well. So it’s, it’s not necessarily that maybe you’re going to get a reaction like, you know, go into shock, or something like that, immediately, but it could also have that slow tail, right? That actually starts to affect your health too. So I think it’s, it’s so interesting, for sure.

Mike Glick 7:31
Yeah, just to add on that real quick, is the that was one of the most surprising things for me. I I’ve worked in food allergy a bit. This is different. This is actually, you know, celiac is an autoimmune disease. Your body is attacking itself, and there are 200 symptoms. It’s not just GI symptoms. You end up getting migraines, you get lethargic, you get energy issues. And one of the biggest things just malabsorption, basically the little villi in your intestine that absorb nutrients aren’t working properly, and so some people don’t even know their celiac until they find out that they’re anemic because their body’s not getting iron, and they do the test, they figure out their celiac or they have bone mineral density issues because their body can’t absorb calcium because They have celiac. So what that’s one of the most interesting things, is that a lot of people don’t have GI issues. They find out they have it because of other symptoms. So to your point, it’s, you know, it could, it could be hurting your body, even at a very, very small dose of gluten, even if you’re not kind of showing those symptoms.

Kara Goldin 8:40
So interesting. And is it hereditary as well as genetic, right? As far as we know?

Mike Glick 8:47
Yeah, yeah, it is. It’s, it’s definitely, I don’t know the numbers offhand, but if someone in your family has it, you’re, you know, 10 times more likely to have it, that type of thing. So usually it is something where you see, parents and kids and others in the family kind of have it, and so it is genetic. You know, when you look at autoimmune diseases, they’re all kind of difficult, right? Type one diabetes, and I mean, there’s a variety of them out there, Hashimotos, this is the only one, though, that they actually know what triggers the problems? Which is interesting, it’s, you know, they out of all the autoimmune diseases, they have no clue what actually is driving the specific symptoms and issues. Except for with celiac, we know exactly what it is, so you just got to avoid it.

Kara Goldin 9:38
It’s so, so interesting. So you spent a career in allergy related ingredients, I guess, but also nutrition ingredients and nutrition, and now you are running a diagnostics company. How different is this versus what you’ve. Done in the past. It seems kind of full circle to me, but really, really fascinating. I’d love to hear your your experience and what you’re learning.

Mike Glick 10:11
Yeah, that is a wonderful question, because I’ve been a nutrition person, nutrition guy, for so long, you know, 20 years about and it is different when you go from, you know, really focusing on things like taste, right? You know what that means, right? Having hint, it’s like taste is such a critical thing. You’re not going to have anyone come back if they didn’t like the taste, no matter how healthy a product is, you know. And so that is such an important piece of it. And here I am now on the other side where it has nothing to do with taste. It’s all about keeping yourself safe and measuring things. And so the the product that we’re actually selling, you know, ultimately, the KPI that I talk about all the time is meals safely eaten. You know, we want to measure meals safely eaten. Now the device in our app is one great way to measure it, but there could be other things that you can imagine down the road, but in the in the end, that’s, that’s kind of what we’re selling. Right? Is meals safely eaten? How can we make sure that everything you’re doing, whether it’s at home, traveling out to a business lunch or taking care of your kids that people are eating safely. And so it’s very different, right, than saying, Hey, we’re going to sell this many bags of food or bars or whatever, and really focusing in on things like, you know, taste and flavor and and price point and ingredients.

Kara Goldin 11:42
So you came in as as CEO, and you and I were chatting right before we hit record, and there’s been a couple of different people and running this company, but now you’re really focused on getting the word out and for an incredible product that should be out to more people. What do you think is the biggest challenge that you need to combat in order to make NIMA a household name?

Mike Glick 12:16
Yeah, the way I like to look at that is there’s a need for this product. It was actually created in 2013 by two students at MIT, very smart, very one of them had celiac. One had food allergy, and they developed this device. And six years later, they sold it to MEDLINE, large, you know, medical device company. The problem was then covid hit, and when Medline had to focus their supply chain on their higher, I would say, volume items, this product got shelved, unfortunately, and and, you know, and so since then, for the last several years, it’s kind of been on and off. Sometimes there’s inventory available, until our ARIA capital came in and basically bought it all up and said we are going to relaunch this. So the hard part has been the brand name itself. It’s a wonderful brand name, but for people in the community, in the celiac community, they’ve had a lot of negative experiences with NIMA, and so we’re really working to, I would say, correct that, and say, Hey, this is different, right? We’ve done something different. We’ve spent the last year completely rebuilding the supply chain, making sure that quality was better than it’s ever been before. We’ve also gotten third party lab results to confirm that we can measure with 99% accuracy down to 10 parts per million of gluten. So that’s below the FDA threshold, which, when you see gluten free on on items, they could have up to 20 parts per million. And so we have less than half of that. So that’s where we’re at today. I think the biggest thing is really overcoming for anyone who does know NIMA, overcoming some of the historical issues with supply chain that they’ve had for people that don’t know NIMA, it’s really making sure that people know that there’s an option that you could actually test your food. Only 3% of people who have celiac are even testing food before it is before they eat it. And so most people don’t even know that there’s an option. And there are more options than just NIMA, right? So there are a couple other options out there, but that, to me, is the key, right? You have all these people with celiac and only 3% testing. There should be more people testing whether they’re using our product or another one. You know, there should be the opportunity for them to eat their meal safely, without the anxiety, without the social isolation.

Kara Goldin 14:52
Yeah, definitely. So for someone using NIMA and real life today at a restaurant. Or a friend’s house or while traveling, what, what is the experience? Or can you share what the experience actually looks like? So when they open up their device, what is exactly is going to happen?

Mike Glick 15:15
Well, fortunately, one of the things we did, we actually call this a lab in your pocket, is there are other options out there where it is a bit more of a science experiment. You actually have to use a dropper and mix your food up in such a way where you know you and then you have to measure it. We tried to make this as simple as possible. And so you simply take your NIMA out, put it on a table, turn it on, open up your capsule, and you basically can put in your food. You could also dab the top of your capsule to make sure you cover anything on your plate that might have been cross contaminated, and then you close it up tightly, pop it in, and within three minutes, you will get an answer, and that answer is either going to be a smiley face, meaning good to go gluten free, or it is going to be a gluten found, be careful. And on our app, you know that your device is connected to there’ll be a little bit more information. You could see previous tests. You could also take notes. So you could put in a note of specifically, what was that food, or what was that restaurant you were at. So now you have a record of it. And so that’s, that’s kind of the experience. We want it to be simple, quick, allow someone to quickly test and be able to put it away. You know, nobody with celiac or who is dealing with this wants to be the center of attention. They don’t want people noticing what they’re doing, right? They want to kind of keep it quiet and simple and get it out of the way. And that is the way that we’ve designed it, is try to be sleek and discreet and quick and allow them to test and know that they could eat.

Kara Goldin 16:50
How did you figure out the pricing strategy for what this device would sell for? And can you share a little bit more about that?

Mike Glick 17:00
You know, we actually did a conjoint analysis, you know, which I can’t even explain exactly what it is, but I know it has a lot of different analyzes put together from a lot of different people to ultimately, kind of triangulate what that optimal price point should be. And so right, as a startup, we we had to do it inexpensively. We were able to to subscribe to a platform that allowed us to do this. And so we tested a variety of price points and combinations in terms of the device itself, the capsules, packages of pack. Capsules. Is it a six pack? Is it a 12 pack? And so we looked at a lot of different options. Ultimately, it’s interesting. We we made a decision, and we expected a certain response, right? A certain percentage of the founding former members would come back, and then we’d pick up some new members, and it has been significantly larger than than we expected. So, you know, we relaunched with capsules in November and then with sensors just a few weeks ago, January, 12, actually, on national Gluten Free Day, and what we have seen is about five times the revenue that we expected. So there’s a lot of interest and excitement in this, in this product, and it didn’t necessarily tie to that conjoint analysis that we did. So I used to have a we had someone at Abbott who said, I’d rather spend two days in the field, you know, with sales reps, rather than reading two inches of research reports. And I couldn’t agree anymore. You know, the research research reports are nice, but really, sometimes you just got to get in there and just see how it how it works, and how people react.

Kara Goldin 18:45
Definitely is, is there something when you think about innovation of the product? And obviously it’s pretty great right now, but everybody has ideas about I you know, this product can be any product can be better, when you think about it, what is kind of the the thing that it’s not quite there yet, because the technology can’t quite be there yet, but I’m hoping that It will be soon that consumers really want

Mike Glick 19:21
the technology. Itself was, was good, to your point, it was good, you know, when they originally launched 10 years ago, I would say we’ve gotten more accurate with a better visual ID system and better LED lights inside of the device, and some of those things. To me, what will take it to the next level is cost reduction. So right now, right the price point is $220 for the device capsules, a six pack is $72 it’s pricey. It’s not cheap. Part of that is because it is currently manually a. Assembled the whole thing. And so everything’s manually done, manually assembled. So if we could shift more to automation, we could significantly reduce the cost. In addition, while shifting to automation, you could also, you know, tweak some parts of it, and basically remove some redundancies, improve some of the materials. So overall, I think one of the biggest things is reduction of cost. But while we’re doing that, we would try to speed it up right three minutes while everyone else is eating. Can feel like a lifetime when you’re sitting there waiting for your result. You know, if we could make it 30 seconds or 60 seconds, how much better would that be? So I think speed can help. And ultimately, what is being measured are the proteins inside of the glutens. The gluten proteins, okay, just like you measure proteins from covid test or a pregnancy device or any other food, we could measure other proteins as well. And so that is, you know, even longer term. But you could imagine this can work on peanuts, shellfish, sesame, soy milk, eggs, other potential allergens, where it would allow you to quickly make sure that food is safe. You know, today it’s gluten and it’s, you know, we’re focused on those with celiac disease, but you could imagine it can it can go into other areas as well.

Kara Goldin 21:29
I always say that it doesn’t matter your gender or how much money you have, your demographics, if you don’t have your health, you have nothing. Right? It’s something that is so critical, especially when you don’t have it. And today it’s, it’s challenging, right? For so many health care prices are going up. Where do you see a product like NIMA, you know, kind of helping people? And Does, does insurance cover it in some cases as well, is that something that is like, I almost feel like NIMA Partners too could be having to advocate for that in many ways, because it’s, it’s really helping people, hopefully, to stay out of the hospital and not have attacks of and in many ways. But where do you, where do you see that in the future,

Mike Glick 22:27
we need help on this, this, this is one where, when you think about diabetes, you know, diabetes has continuous glucose monitors, both type one, type two. You could, you could wear a continuous glucose monitor, which is covered by insurance that measures your glucose, keeps you safe, makes sure you know what you need to do. This should be no different. This is an autoimmune disease where you cannot eat gluten. This measures the gluten before you eat it, keeping you safe, reducing emergency room visits, reducing work, you know, missing work. And so as you start to actually look at the cost of celiac disease and the impact it can have, it’s kind of a no brainer that this should be covered today. It’s not because it is not a medical device. This doesn’t fall into any of the categories that the FDA currently sees. And so this is going to have to take a slightly different route to get coverage. What we are doing is two things. We are working to make sure that even today, you could use your HSA and FSA cards so you could at least use some of those pre tax dollars on something like a NIMA The second thing is, we are actively reaching out to employers, because if you’re a large employer, then one to 11% of your employee population is going to need a device like this, and by having this device, it will keep them working happier, healthier, you know, for years to come. And so it’s worth the cost?

Kara Goldin 24:04
Yeah, definitely. So that would be a very, very interesting piece, if you guys could figure out how to get that incorporated into that because, and I know you well, so it’s,

Mike Glick 24:19
yeah, it’s one step at a time. And the employee one, you know, we hear a lot about, you know, these sad stories of, I was in DC, and I was talking to this lady, and she works in an office of maybe 40 people, and she said they decided, hey, every Friday, let’s bring in lunch, you know, and they would do that. Well, she’s celiac, she’s not going to eat a lunch with all these other people where, you know. And so she would go in the bathroom and sit in the stall and eat her food, like, away from everybody and and trying to, you know, keep herself safe, you know. And so that’s just one example from a work standpoint, where you know and think about work dinners, client meetings, travel, all. Of that is risky for somebody with celiac and so, you know, I really feel strongly that employers need to do a better job of taking care of their employees, keeping them both physically but also even socially healthy, you know, to be able to be with everyone else in the organization and build those relationships.

Kara Goldin 25:20
Yeah, definitely, when you’ve worked in a lot of different companies, as well as CO founding a company, how do you decide that what you’re doing is successful, right? It’s always, I mean, there, there’s always this metric that is out there that, you know, it’s a budget number that you signed up for. But I think there, there is always this, is this company you know, going to be here next year? Obviously, you want capital, cash in the bank and be able all those kind of things. Is it? But when do you know that you’ve really hit it, where consumers are accepting it, they want it, they need it. And you found the gold.

Mike Glick 26:08
Yeah, that’s, you know, as, you know, as a founder. I mean, that is a that is a constant struggle and a constant focus is kind of real, valuating product market fit all the time. You know, I thought it was this, here’s what we’re doing, but actually this is working over here and so, you know, so you’re constantly trying to make sure you’re doing and saying the right things, and you’re focusing on the right audience to build and drive the business. You have to be flexible. You have to be able to measure, I think a couple things that I would say are really giving me a lot of of, you know, excitement for what we’re doing here. You know, one is even given our expensive price point, which we know we don’t, we would love to bring that down. If we could bring costs down. We didn’t expect the response and the amount of sales and interest at this level, like I said, so we’ve seen, just in the last few months, an immediate Hey, we’re in. We’re excited, and people coming back to NIMA. The second thing is the NPS score. So we have been tracking the Net Promoter Score, and you know, we are asking people like, would you recommend us to a friend? And kind of doing the math on that anything over 40 is really good, we have a 71 so overwhelmingly, people not only are coming back and using the product and buying the product, but they really, really like the experience. They like the company. So that’s telling us something really good. And of course, that leads to what we’re seeing with like our retention numbers. And I’d say the third thing is it goes back to the My top KPI, which is meals safely eaten. So we truly are measuring this, and my goal is to have 10,000 meals safely eaten within the first six months of 2026 and we’re well on our way there. So that’s exciting to me, and you know, just to be able to think about right? This is somebody who would have said no to that dinner invitation. This is somebody who would have had to bring their own food to that that party and be eating on their own somewhere. Or this is somebody who just chose not to take that trip overseas, and now, all of a sudden they can so to me, that is probably the most important, you know, KPI and metric that we’re looking at.

Kara Goldin 28:28
One of your favorite quotes I heard was from Franklin Roosevelt. There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still. How has that mindset guided your career?

Mike Glick 28:41
Wow, yeah, that is an oldie, but a goodie. But that is a, I’m definitely a you know, if you’re familiar with like, Clifton Strengths, or the strengths finders model, like, I’m definitely like an activator. So I like to go. For me, it’s about choosing a path going and being able to quickly analyze whether it’s working or not, and either redirect or double down. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that definitely has kind of guided what I do as you think about any manager, you have resources, you have people, you have you have dollars, you can only do so many things, and so a lot of what I do is trying to lay out kind of, here’s the strategy, or the path forward, and, you know, really analyzing and reviewing what’s working what’s not, and making decisions along the way. But I really do not like to spend too much time, you know, kind of thinking through every single little detail of every decision, because you’ll never be able to move forward. You know, if you wait till everything’s perfect, then, yeah, it’s it’s too late. You just missed it, especially in a space like this that’s super innovative. There are other, you know, companies in the space. There’s others that are that are looking to enter. And so this is one where I want to make sure we continue to move forward.

Kara Goldin 30:08
Love it. Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining today. It was great to see you again, and I love how NIMA Partners is helping consumers better understand what’s in their food and your contributions to a future where transparency isn’t optional. And really leading the way by by leading NIMA Partners is terrific. So everyone’s got to check out NIMA Partners and what you’re doing and follow the the overall journey. I really think this is a product that is is pretty special, and I’m excited to see how you continue to grow it. So thank you again, Mike, definitely appreciate you taking the time to come on again. Mike Glick, CEO of NIMA Partners.

Mike Glick 31:01
Thank you so much. Kara. Appreciate the time, and look forward to hopefully meeting with you again sometime and sharing the wonderful story of NIMA as we continue to grow.

Kara Goldin 31:13
Yeah, definitely. And I should also mention NIMA spelled N. I m a for anybody who’s looking for the product, and all the information will be in the show notes on how to purchase it. So thanks again. Mike Perfect, thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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