Advancing the almond: Blue Diamond and Brightseed team up to tap into the nut’s potential

08 Jun 2023 --- The Forager AI platform has identified 188 predicted bioactive and health-benefiting molecules in the classic ingredient. According to Brightseed, the newly discovered compounds could have significant impacts for mental wellness, immunity, metabolism and overall health.

The findings are set to expand almonds’ uses across F&B and food supplement spaces and beyond mere snacking. For Brightseed, this marks a continuation in innovation and partnerships such as its work with Ocean Spray, ofi and ADM and with ingredients like hemp and plant polyphenols.

“As an almond-focused grower cooperative and an innovation leader in almond-based ingredients and consumer products, we collaborated with Brightseed to gain a deeper understanding of this unique superfood,” says Kurt Waananen, senior director of R&D at Blue Diamond. 

“Our work with Blue Diamond enables Forager to tap into a global food staple and illuminate the almond health story for consumers worldwide,” Brightseed co-founder and COO, Sofia Elizondo, elaborates. “This is an important leap for the industry to champion food and functional ingredients as powerful and accessible modalities for precision nutrition for proactive health.”

Brightseed’s Forager AI platform found 188 predicted bioactive and molecular compounds with potential health benefits. Image credit: Blue Diamond and BrightseedAdditionally, the two companies state that, in the future, they will continue to assess options for further research and broaden the scientific knowledge of how almonds contribute to human health, including new areas and potentially previously unknown attributes of almond consumption.

AI-powered almonds
Blue Diamond highlights that almonds have long been hailed as a nutrient-dense food and ingredient that can significantly impact heart health, weight management and gut health. Moreover, recent studies have verified the almond’s influence on other areas of human health, including insulin and blood glucose, cognition and brain health and even muscle recovery. 

Blue Diamond further touts the ability of Brightseed’s Forager AI technology to find new ways the nut could impact human health and expands the ingredient applications. 

“Science has long known that bioactives are essential health-driving components within plants, but pinpointing their underlying mechanisms of action has been a largely intractable problem for the food, health and nutrition industries,” Elizondo explains. 

“Almonds are already well-studied, but this collaboration gives us a deeper understanding and new ways to view future exploration of nutritional benefits and clinical studies,” says Waananen.

Blazing new trails
Another facet of the partnership spotlighted by Blue Diamond is the opportunity it brings for almond innovation into new and emerging markets. 

The company revealed that it is constantly monitoring trends and conducting consumer research and are looking for ways that these newly found bioactive and molecular compounds may be utilized to aid with consumer’s overall food, beverages and diets, as well as their nutrition habits and needs.

“We’ve found that consumers today want to lead healthier lifestyles but find it difficult to prioritize nutrition as a daily habit,” says Sarb Dhanjal, senior director of consumer insights for Blue Diamond Growers. “The Global Future of Food Survey by McKinsey & Company confirms that consumers worldwide desire to eat better, but nearly half struggle to find the right way to do so.”

“Consumers are also navigating a highly crowded marketplace with the proliferation of plant-based F&B options claiming holistic health benefits,” she concludes.

Edited by William Bradford Nichols