Digital olfaction: Biosensor platform employs AI to mimic insects’ sense of smell to boost food safety

04 Oct 2023 --- New Zealand-based Scentian Bio has secured US$ 2.1 million in funding for making smell and taste digitization a reality by harnessing the potential of insect-level smell and taste sensitivity with its biosensor platform. Using AI, it can process and interpret signals to mimic the neuronal network insects use to decipher smell for applications like food and flavor quality control, food-pathogen detection, sustainable farming and environmental and wellness monitoring.

The AI start-up says it will use the cash injection to grow its team, further the development of its technology platform and accelerate commercialization plans for its industry-specific solution offerings.

Jonathan Good, CEO of Scentian Bio, tells Food Ingredients First: “Our first product is focused on quality assurance for key food ingredients. But this is just the start. The biosensors themselves could be used from farm-to-fork — all the way from helping harvest crops at the ideal time through the supply chain, to making sure they are not damaged or degrading in storage, in production and even by customers.”

“Biosensors are finally breaking out of the lab and changing our everyday lives. Our platform harnesses 400 million years of evolution into an easy-to-use handheld sensor.”

Scentian Bio spun out from Plant & Food Research, the New Zealand government research agency, which had worked on the technology for 19 years.

Its first digital biosensor solution is expected to launch commercially at the end of 2024.

How do they do it?
Scentian Bio’s patented biosensor technology is based on insect olfactory receptors (iOR) for the volatile organic compounds (VOC) detection tool.

“Our technology synthesizes insect olfactory receptors [the proteins that insects use to smell] and inserts these into an artificial membrane to create a small biosensor that generates an electrical signal — the sample lightning-fast signal that an insect’s neurons would receive in nature,” explains Good.

Jonathan Good, CEO, Colm Carraher, CSO, Andrew Králíček, founder and CTO and Di Brewster, biosensor technologist at Scentian Bio (Image Credit: Scentian Bio).“The signal reflects the VOCs in the sample, so we can use this to determine, in super high fidelity, the nature of the sample.”

For instance, a bacteria such as Listeria might have a particular electrical signal called a VOC print. If the signals from a sample include this fingerprint, it signifies the presence of the bacteria.

“Because insects’ lives are driven by the need to find safe food, they are exquisitely sensitive to VOCs, which enables us to be incredibly sensitive to food quality and the presence of food pathogens,” he adds.

The company highlights that the platform offers high sensitivity with “dozens of unique receptors that effectively recognize millions of VOCs” and delivers critical information “quickly, accessibly and at significantly lower cost” than previous digital sensors.

Interestingly, researchers developed an electrochemical sensor to detect noroviruses and mycotoxins in foods last year.

Emergence of digitization & AI in F&B 
Smell plays a vital role in the taste and experience of any food and beverage. Thus, analyzing the digital odor data allows formulators to improve NPD or enhance existing products.

“Digitization in the food and beverage space has been a theme for many years but has historically focused on digitalization or digital enhancements to existing processes. AI will lead to much bigger changes — changes that we are only just beginning to imagine,” remarks Good.

Insects’ lives are driven by the need to find safe food, which makes them exquisitely sensitive to VOCs.“AI has different strengths to humans, so it unlocks entirely new possibilities — be that personalized nutrition, predicting new foods, ingredients or non-destructive sensors that can test everything at once.”

Innovations in AI, such as generative AI by Stravito, are also helping food businesses gain fast and distilled market research and insights to reduce the time spent researching and analyzing essential data.

According to Good, Scentian Bio has received strong interest from the F&B firms it has engaged with, including its initial pilot work with a leading global food company. 

“There is a lot of interest in new opportunities — not only ensuring quality but enabling a higher level of assurance and customer promise.”

Stepping up quality control
Good flags that there is a massive opportunity for Scentian’s technology to serve the F&B industry as companies seek ways to increase efficiency and improve their quality control, formulation and food safety efforts. 

“Our first solution will address a primary pain point for the food industry — shifting from slow, subjective, expensive quality control methods to data-driven, objective, fast and cost-efficient digital tools,” he says.

Focusing on essential oils for now, the company plans to add more types of food safety and quality tests. This includes recognizing food pathogens, checking for residues and confirming provenance and organic credentials.

“Ultimately, our biosensors can provide assurance throughout the supply chain to help meet the ever-increasing expectations of customers and consumers.”

Investor backup
The investment was led by Finistere Ventures and Toyota Ventures, with participation from Icehouse Ventures and Our Crowd, among others. 

“We are at the cusp of a new era of nature-driven technology solutions, especially in the food and health industries,” underscores Dean Tilyard, venture partner, Finistere Ventures. 

“The development of Scentian Bio’s biosensing platform is taking a truly novel approach to smell and taste digitization, overcoming the obstacles faced in previous attempts by early innovators.”

As per Jim Adler, founder and general partner at Toyota Ventures, over 400 million years of evolution have enabled insects to perfect the art of detecting organic compounds through scent receptors that contain sensitivity levels "a million times better than humans and a thousand times better than dogs."

The company also received a US$ 1.7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last year.

By Insha Naureen