Future Food-Tech Alternative Proteins

Proxy Foods CEO on AI’s potential in alt-protein market, creating ‘Canva ... for the food scientist'

25-Jul-2024 - Last updated on 26-Jul-2024 at 13:23 GMT

A solid data foundation is crucial to leveraging AI to address alternative-protein market challenges, including raw material shortages and developing on-trend products faster, CEO of AI-based recipe company Proxy Foods Panos Kostopoulos shared at the Future Food-Tech Alternative Proteins event in Chicago last month.

As many supply chains remain volatile, CPG companies are using AI to find alternative raw materials, allowing them to navigate with greater ease price fluctuations, shortages and geo-political tensions that might disrupt ingredient sourcing, Kostopoulos told FoodNavigator-USA at the event.

The alt-protein industry also can leverage AI to optimize cell lines, bioreactors or facility and process designs, he added.

“If you have ... a protein with a specific structure that [gives] specific characteristics texture-wise, flavor-wise, organoleptic-wise ... or any other properties, then you can go back to the database and identify another protein that has a high chance of recreating that,” Kostopoulos explained.

“Data is the cornerstone of any AI solution” and a “human in the loop” allows product developers to guide the AI or machine-learning (ML) algorithms to solve the problem that they want, Kostopoulos said.

Proxy Foods allows product developers to formulate ‘in a completely new way’

Earlier this year, Proxy Foods raised $2 million in a seed round, which the company is using to expand its data-science team, as the AI company seeks to work with CPG companies to incorporate AI more into their workflows, Kostopoulos previously stated.

Proxy Foods’ AI technology uses a blend of proprietary and public data to provide food and beverage developers insight on how best to formulate and reformulate a product, Kostopoulos said. The AI-based software shares information on the flavor, nutrition content and cost of a specific recipe as well as answers regulatory questions a product developer might have, he added.

Proxy Foods is trying to create “Canva ... for the food scientist,” allowing product developers to think about product formulations “in a completely new way,” Kostopoulos explained.

Canva is a popular tool used among marketers and social-media managers to create posts and marketing assets through a freemium web-based tool.