The American company, CULT Food Science Corp, a pioneer in the investment, development, and commercialisation of cellular agriculture technologies and products, announced its partnership with Alcheme Bio to utilise the company's flavour optimisation platform to accelerate the development of cellular agriculture products for the CULT and its portfolio companies.
Alcheme Bio's proprietary approach utilises artificial intelligence and machine learning to revolutionise how cultured product companies optimise for flavour and nutrition. Experience targets are determined early in development, significantly reducing research and development time and costs. At the same time, machine learning is utilised to design the best taste experiences and determine how those tastes should be implemented in development. The outcome is products consumers love to eat, which is vital in ensuring the adoption of cultivated meats, dairy and other cell-cultivated foods.
Founded by Vanessa Small, PhD, MBA, who has two decades of scientific experience within organisations such as Pfizer and Abbott, Alcheme Bio is on the leading edge of taste innovation for cellular agriculture. Vanessa was most recently the Head of Biologics at CUE Health and previously developed products for Alere Inc and CalAsia that generated billions of revenue. She is a Scientific Advisor and Venture Partner for Digital DX Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on digital healthcare.
Including the Alcheme Bio platform is part of the company's larger strategy to build product development infrastructure to accelerate cellular agriculture startups towards market readiness.
"When it comes to food, taste and cost are king. Regardless of how sustainable a product may be, something that tastes amazing is key for adopting cultivated foods. The production process is multistage, and continuous improvement is a pivotal part of high-quality manufacturing, and that's why we're a big supporter of what Alcheme Bio is doing," said Lejjy Gafour, CEO of CULT.
"Flavouring is an afterthought for most cultivated companies because of the limitations of today's flavouring approaches. Alcheme Bio is pioneering a unique approach to flavouring that reduces R&D costs instead of increasing them. We're excited to build out our platform in partnership with CULT," said Vanessa Small, CEO at Alcheme Bio.
