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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Danone

Danone North America to Launch “Dairy-Like” Segment

One common complaint amongst those trying to make the switch to non-dairy milk is that some alternatives have a “plant-y” flavor; meaning, it doesn’t quite taste like cow’s milk. Some alternative milks might taste distinctively like soy, almonds, or coconut. That being said, companies like Oatly and NotCo have produced some pretty great milk alternatives that give conventional milk a run for its money.

Danone North America is the latest company to attempt to create a “dairy-like” segment of plant-based products in hopes of providing alternative milk that dairy-drinkers can enjoy. Through its two brands, Silk and So Delicious Dairy Free, it will launch Silk nextmilk™ and So Delicious Wondermilk™ in January 2022.

According to an email sent to The Spoon, the company’s scientists deconstructed the attributes of real dairy and the sensory experience, like the mouthfeel, of drinking milk. These characteristics were then recreated by blending different plant-based ingredients, including soy, coconut, and oats.

Both brands will offer a whole fat and reduced-fat version of plant-based milk. Silk Nextmilk will contain six key nutrients found in dairy (Calcium, Vitamin D, Vitamin A, B12, Riboflavin, and Phosphorus), with each serving offering 4 grams of protein.

Little information was disclosed in regards to the So Delicious Wondermilk. However, the Wondermilk line will also include frozen dessert (a vegan way to say ice cream) pints and cones.

Alternative milk, already a $2.5 billion market, is the most established category in the plant-based food space. Another company that aims to be a direct replacement for dairy is NotCo, which uses AI to develop its whole fat and 2 percent alternative milk. Other big players in the space that Danone’s brand will face competition from include Oatly, Ripple, Good Karma, and possibly Beyond Meat in the future.

When launched in grocery stores early next year, both Nextmilk and Wondermilk will retail for $4.99 per carton.

Danone Expands Brightseed Partnership to Uncover Hidden Healthy Compounds in Plants

Danone and Brightseed announced an expanded partnership today that will have the food and beverage giant using Brightseed’s Forager artificial intelligence platform to uncover more phytonutrients from additional plant-based ingredients.

Brightseed’s technology studies plants on a molecular level to identify and catalog previously unknown compounds that could have health benefits. For example, earlier this year Brightseed announced that it had discovered in pre-clinical trials that the bioactive compounds N-trans caffeoyltyramine (NTC) and N-trans-feruloyltyramine (NTF) found in black pepper can help with the clearance of fat accumulated in the liver. After these initial findings through Brightseed’s AI, the company will move forwards to confirm the results through clinical trials to determine efficacy as well as other factors such as dosage and administering the compounds.

Danone first teamed up with Brightseed in June of last year to study potential new benefits of soy. (Danone owns the Silk brand.) According to today’s press announcement sent to The Spoon, Brightseed’s Forager discovered 10 times more bioactives than previously known and 7 new health areas. As these findings are confirmed by more clinical data, brands like Danone benefit because they can tout additional health benefits around their products, but consumers benefit because there are then more plant-based tools to fight different ailments.

What’s interesting about companies in the AI space like Brightseed, Spoonshot, and Journey Foods is how they are shortening the discovery period for food companies looking to create new products. Before machine learning and artificial intelligence, food manufacturers had to first hypothesize about how particular ingredients might work together, or the health benefits of an ingredient. After that guess, they would run physical tests in a lab to see if they were remotely close in their hypothesis. If they were wrong, they’d have to start all over again from scratch. AI helps shrink that time by doing a lot of that guesswork up front quickly in a computer before any lab time is needed.

The whole space is very new, but Danone expanding on its partnership with Brightseed is a vote of confidence for the technology and should lead to more brands jumping into the use of AI and computational biology.

Two Good and Full Harvest Team Up With Chef Marcus Samuelsson to Fight Food Waste in Restaurants

Two Good Yogurt today announced a new food waste initiative the company has launched in partnership with Chef Marcus Samuelsson and food rescue company Full Harvest. The partnership aims to get more restaurants to cook with rescued produce in their kitchens, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Chef Marcus Samuelsson will lead the campaign by using produce rescued by Full Harvest at his NYC restaurant Red Rooster Harlem during Earth Week (April 19–24). The campaign will also support Two Good’s One Cup, Less Hunger initiative, which donates a portion of the proceeds from its yogurt product to City Harvest food banks.

Other restaurants are invited to email wastelessfeedmore@twogoodyogurt.com to get involved with Samuelsson’s Earth Week campaign. 

“We all know that food is [a] number one reason for climate change,” Samuelsson told me over the phone recently, adding that chefs’ carbon footprints are impacted by which companies they choose to supply their ingredients and what happens to leftovers and unused parts of the food. 

Roughly 1.3 billion tons of edible food goes to waste each year, and some of this is surplus produce or produce considered too “cosmetically unfit” for sale. There are many companies nowadays that rescue these unwanted food items to keep them out of landfills, including Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market. Full Harvest, however, is slightly different in that it sells directly to food businesses, rather than consumers. 

The company first partnered with Two Good in December 2020 to make flavored yogurt using rescued fruits, including lemons. 

Along with Samuelsson, these companies are hoping that the new initiative will familiarize more chefs with the concept of rescued food items and get more of them using the method, educating consumers in the process.

Of food waste in general, Samuelsson noted that fighting it has to be “as easy and accessible for consumers as possible.” 

Food Tech News: Muniq Raises $8.2M for Protein Powder, Danone Launches Plant-Based Cheese

Welcome to this week’s Food Tech News round-up! This week, news that caught our attention included Muniq’s recent funding round, Danone’s new plant-based cheese, Torchy Taco’s new contactless services, and Zero Egg’s restaurant debut.

Muniq raises $8.2 million for blood sugar regulating protein powder

Muniq, a protein powder created specifically for blood sugar control and gut microbiome health, raised $8.2 million in its Series A round. The round was led by Alpha Edison and Acre Venture Partners, with participation from Baron Davis (former NBA star and investor) and Cathy Richards (founder of SimplyProtein). The protein powder contains a high amount of prebiotic resistant starch that can help regulate blood sugar and weight management, and it was developed specifically with those who live with diabetes or struggle with weight loss in mind. Muniq’s five flavors of protein powder include Chocolate, Vanilla Creme, Mocha Latte, Vegan Vanilla, and Vegan Chocolate. A bag of protein powder with 28 servings costs $99 and is available for purchase on the company’s website.

Photo from Danone’s website

Danone launches plant-based cheese through So Delicious Brand

Danone’s So Delicious brand recently announced the release of new dairy-free cheese products, which include plant-based shredded cheese, slices, and spreads. All of the cheeses are vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, and non-GMO, but it is currently unclear what the main ingredient in these new products is. The shredded and sliced cheese products are now available in stores such as Target, Walmart, Market Basket, Fresh Thyme across the US. The cheese spreads will be released sometime in March.

Photo from Torchy’s Taco website

CardFree and Torchy’s Taco partner to develop contactless services

Torchy’s Taco, a fast-casual taco chain, partnered with CardFree, a provider of modern ordering services, to revamp online ordering and contactless services in the restaurant’s location. Customers eating at Torchy’s will now be able to use the Text-to-Pay solution, which enables them to pay on a mobile phone for both phone-in and drive-thru orders. The new Order@Table solution allows customers to add to their order while dining in without getting back in line or interacting with a cashier. The taco chain is also trialing curbside pickup with “I’m Here” notifications for curbside pickups; the customer can simply send this notification from their phone to let the restaurant know they have arrived. These new features and services are now available in Torchy’s 83 locations across seven states.

Zero Egg makes debut in Birmingham, AL restaurant

Plant-based egg producer Zero Egg made its first restaurant debut at Tropicaleo, a Puerto Rican restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama. The restaurant created a special menu to celebrate Veganuary, and several of the menu items showcase Zero Egg’s soy, potato starch, and chickpea-based eggs. The speciality dishes include breakfast sandwich with vegan cheese, Zero Egg biscuit, and Beyond Meat patty, as well as a rice bowl with Zero Egg scramble, Beyond Meat sausage, and sweet plantains. These menu items are available now, and it is unclear if they will become permanent menu fixtures.

Full Harvest Partners With Danone to Launch Yogurt Made From ‘Rescued’ Produce

Full Harvest, a B2B service that rescues imperfect produce, announced this week it has teamed up with Danone to launch a yogurt made from food that would otherwise end up in the landfill. Called Two Good ‘Good Save,’ the yogurt will be part of Danone’s Two Good line. Full Harvest said in a press release sent to The Spoon that this is the first dairy product to use 100 percent rescued produce.

Full Harvest is best known for its online marketplace that sells imperfect and surplus produce rescued from farms. The company works directly with farmers to identify the fruits and vegetables that will go to waste, then connects those farmers with food producers via its marketplace. Food producers creating products from Full Harvest-rescued goods come with a seal of verification. As yet, the marketplace is a business-to-business operation.

The initial product from the Full Harvest-Danone partnership will use California-grown Meyer lemons that would have otherwise gone to waste due to cosmetic imperfections, overproduction, or a lack of secondary markets for the farmer.

The sources of food waste and loss varies by region. While the bulk of waste in the U.S. happens at consumer-facing levels, the Full Harvest-Danone partnership nonetheless shows that there is also work to be done in curbing waste long before food reaches stores, restaurants, and homes. 

Full Harvest, meanwhile, is one of a growing number of companies rescuing so-called imperfect foods from going to the landfill. Incorporating those items into food production is one tactic. Other food-rescue companies, like Imperfect Foods and Too Good to Go, work further down the supply chain, collecting surplus food from grocery stores and restaurants and selling it at discounted prices to consumers. Imperfect went as far as to release a holiday snack box this year featuring treats that taste great but just happen to look a little less than conventionally perfect.

Danone’s Two Good ‘Good Save’ lemon product is available now. Additional flavors are slated for 2021. 

Danone North America Implements Latis To Determine Ingredient Sustainability

Danone North America recently announced that it is the first company to partner with HowGood to use the latter’s food sustainability platform called Latis, which helps determine the source location, sustainability standard, and environmental impact of ingredients.

Latis tracks factors like an ingredient’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, soil health, animal welfare, labor risk, and working conditions. The Latis data engine contains 30,000 ingredients, chemicals, and materials, and Takoua Debeche, SVP of Research and Innovation at Danone told me by phone last week that the company will use Latis to determine the sustainability of ingredients found in Danone’s existing products, as well as future offerings.

Danone North America is the world’s largest certified B corporation, and implementing Latis will further expand its sustainability efforts. Trends show that consumers have a heightened desire for products that align with their own values around sustainability, and are reaching for products that are both sustainable and transparent. At the same time, other food businesses are responding with their own initiatives: Just Salad recently launched a “climatarian menu” to showcase menu items with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions. Even quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s and Starbucks have pledged to increase sustainability efforts.

In addition to sourcing sustainable ingredients, Danone is also looking at uncovering more nutrition benefits of the ingredients it already uses. This summer, Danone also partnered with Brightseed to use its artificial intelligence (AI) platform to uncover phytonutrients of certain plants. Danone is currently using this technology to specifically analyze soy, but will soon also be analyzing the nutrition benefits of other plants as well.

After partnering with Latis and Brightseed, more plant-based products will be in Danone’s product roadmap according to Debeche. Danone will use these two technologies to improve the flavor, texture, and nutrition content of current and future plant-based products.

Danone to Use Brightseed’s AI to Uncover New Health Benefits of Soy and Other Plants

Danone North America and Brightseed announced today that they have formed a partnership to use Brightseed’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform to profile and uncover health benefits of key plant sources.

Part of the food as medicine movement, Brightseed is a three-year-old San Francisco startup that examines plants on a molecular level to uncover hidden phytonutrients that can contribute to healthier lifestyles. As it uncovers compounds, Brightseed’s AI platform is then used to predict what impact they will have on the human body.

An example of a phytonutritional compound would be something like the caffeine in coffee or the antioxidants in blueberries.

“We use AI to illuminate the dark matter of nutrition,” Sofia Elizondo, Co-Founder and COO of Brightseed told me by phone this week. “Once you have completed this circle of knowledge. You can transform the food ecosystem.”

Elizondo explained that Brightseed’s platform works for both the sourcing and production sides of CPGs. On the ag side, it can help identify healthy compounds and encourage plant breeding to maximize those benefits. For CPG companies, Brightseed can help source plants that are beneficial and reveal new phytonutrients in existing plant ingredients around which new products can be built.

The partnership with Danone, which owns the Silk and So Delicious Dairy Free brands, will start with Brightseed turning its AI on soy to illuminate the unknown health benefits of soy.

Brightseed, which has raised and undisclosed sum of venture funding, is among a wave of companies using AI to unlock new understandings of our food. Other companies like Spoonshot and Analytical Flavor Systems are using AI to help predict flavor trends and novel food combinations.

But while those companies are looking at existing data, Brightseed is building an entirely new body of data from which entirely new discoveries can be made.

“A lot of technology in our field is built to manipulate nature,” Elizondo said, “There is so much more to learn from what nature has already provided.”