Giuseppe is an artificial intelligence program — and plant-based alternative company NotCo’s not-so-secret sauce.

The program can analyze any item, like chicken breast, at the molecular level to determine what makes it taste chickeny. Then, pulling from an extensive database of plant-based ingredients and components, Giuseppe can reverse-engineer the chicken breast, creating something that tastes just like the original without harming a single chicken.

It’s a neat, extremely high-tech trick. It’s also the very real reason NotCo’s plant-based chicken, beef and milk are near-worldwide sensations, and why NotCo has inked co-development deals with huge multinational companies like Kraft and Mars.

More and more, I'm seeing companies starting to apply the concept to other areas within the alt-protein industry. Like British ingredient company Multus Biotechnology, for example.

Multus relies on AI to develop growth factors for cultivated meat production. Its proprietary program analyzes conventional growth factors and determines how to recreate the proteins and vitamins via precision fermentation.

One upping conventional growth factors, Multus was able to isolate factors with “enhanced potency and prolonged activity.” Even better: At least one of its products, rh-Vitronectin, is available at a lower price point than conventional Vitronectin, a protein present naturally in animals.

BioCraft Pet Nutrition, which is working on cultivated meat for pet food, has also been getting a lot of attention in the space lately. We don’t cover pet food on Alt-Meat, but I’ve been reading that coverage with interest. Because now that I've seen more of AI can do, my head is almost spinning with possibilities.

Could we program an AI to tool through a database of fungi or bacteria to help determine which microorganisms might create specific specialty ingredients? Could it help us determine the most sustainable way to co-locate plant-based ingredient and product manufacturers to reduce carbon emissions? Could it help us uncover a fifth pillar of alt-proteins? What's the next frontier?

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