Revolutionizing Food Ingredients: 2nd Nature’s AI Approach to Ingredient Discovery
2nd Nature, an innovative startup, is poised to launch its first product offerings this quarter, which include non-caloric natural sweeteners and umami flavor enhancers aimed at assisting companies in reducing sodium levels in their products.
According to co-founder and CEO Effendi Leonard, PhD, their cutting-edge technology utilizes artificial intelligence to expedite the commercialization of natural ingredients. The AI-driven system is designed to search for small molecules, fibers, peptides, enzymes, and proteins based on functional property prediction.
“Our AgWaste Portal has identified valuable compounds in the byproducts of crops such as wheat, soy, rice, peanut, and corn—substances that food manufacturers process in vast quantities and often pay to dispose of,” Leonard explained.
“What’s exciting is that these ingredients are hidden in plain sight; we can produce them at scale and at a low cost,” he added. Leonard’s background includes significant experience in gas fermentation, synthetic biology, and plant cell culture, having worked at Calysta and Ginkgo Bioworks among others.
“Our internal training sets are designed to map the molecular universe in agricultural side streams, enabling us to predict their functions,” he noted.
Harnessing AI for Ingredient Discovery
The AgWaste Portal integrates various machine-learning models, including taste prediction, embedding-based algorithms, and structure-based algorithms, along with sequence similarity searches. Leonard emphasizes, “The beauty of this tool lies in its ability to evaluate different models for their utility, enhancing the accuracy of our discoveries.”
Business Model Overview
2nd Nature’s business model is dynamic and collaborative, working alongside partners at every stage of the process, including food processors and ingredient suppliers. “While our central focus is on AI-powered ingredient discovery, we have also optimized processes for extracting functional ingredients from agricultural byproducts,” Leonard stated.
“We maintain our own downstream processing units to maximize ingredient extraction efficiency before transferring technology to third-party Contract Development and Manufacturing Organizations (CDMOs) for scaling.” He noted that the equipment used is commercially available, emphasizing the importance of optimizing different extraction methods to achieve high yield and purity.
Furthermore, 2nd Nature will manage the creation of GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) affirmations for their ingredients, guiding partners through the entire development process.
Collaboration Process
2nd Nature’s collaboration process consists of three key phases:
- Discovery: Utilizing AI to search for ingredients based on specified functions, accompanied by an onboarding fee from the partnering customer.
- Isolation: Physical isolation and testing of selected ingredients to verify their functionality, with partners paying for this service.
- Market Validation: Once validated, the partner is given an exclusive opportunity to co-develop the ingredient with 2nd Nature while the latter deploys its hardware to optimize production processes.
The First Product Offerings
In the realm of high-intensity natural sweeteners, current market options like stevia and monk fruit are somewhat limited, particularly when considering the challenges of flavor profiles and cost. Leonard asserts, “We’ve identified both proteins and small molecules that are 50-100 times sweeter than sugar, and they taste clean without compromising formulations.”
These ingredients can also be sourced cheaply from agricultural side streams, enhancing their market viability. Regarding flavor enhancers, Leonard stated, “Our ingredient enhances saltiness and would serve as an effective flavor enhancer.” Additionally, they have discovered Kokumi, which elevates savory and sweet flavors without relying on monosodium glutamate (MSG).
AI’s Unique Role in Ingredient Discovery
Unlike companies such as Brightseed, which primarily focus on human health indicators when discovering ingredients, 2nd Nature’s approach centers on functionality and the performance of ingredients derived from agricultural wastes. Leonard pointed out, “To our knowledge, we are the first and only company leveraging AI to explore agricultural byproducts for ingredient discovery.”
A patent filed by 2nd Nature encompasses a broad spectrum of applications spanning food and beverage, wellness, personal care, and medicinal domains, highlighting the platform’s versatile capabilities in identifying valorization routes for waste streams.
Further Reading
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