Motif and NemaLife to advance plant-based food technology using in vivo testing

05 May 2022 --- Motif FoodWorks has revealed a technology development partnership and investment with NemaLife Inc., a Texas-based microfluidics screening platform company. Motif is investing in developing and utilizing Nemalife’s in vivo testing and protein characterization platform, which is novel to the F&B industry.

Using a microfluidics approach, NemaLife can test and categorize bench-scale proteins using far less volume of sample products than today’s testing mechanisms.

Long-term potential for industry
A microfluidics approach can efficiently identify Motif’s breakthrough food tech by testing the validity in terms of health effects, safety and effectiveness. The data can also help guide R&D decisions, marketing claims and streamline large-scale commercialization. 

“The long-term potential of NemaLife’s screening technology could open the door for Motif and the entire food and beverage industry,” says Stefan Baier, Motif’s head of food science. 

“Identifying the most viable proteins from precision fermentation is not enough. We need to understand how these animal-free equivalents might perform as food technology. Using NemaLife’s AI-assisted microfluidic screening platforms will provide an early assessment that ensures a protein has the right functional characteristics and in vivo performance on its own and during formulation.”

“The consumer is evolving,” Baier tells FoodIngredientsFirst. “Consumers are interested in incorporating plant-based foods into their diet to support their beliefs regarding health, sustainability and animal welfare. But the leading driver behind that is taste. Two out of three consumers would eat more plant-based foods if they tasted better.”

“Utilizing NemaLife’s platform, we can test various proteins and investigate food tech that could lead to better tasting, crave-worthy products for consumers to enjoy.”

“We believe there is still a world of ingredients to be discovered to create better-tasting plant-based products. Our investment in the NemaLife platform will allow us to screen our precision fermentation candidates at the microtiter well-plate level to identify unique food-tech fractions from edible sources with high functional performance. This means things like emulsification, gelling, foaming – and scale the most promising targets,” he details. 

NemaLife’s AI-assisted microfluidic screening platforms will provide an early assessment of viable, animal-free proteins with suitable functional characteristics in weeks. “This will help companies like Motif discover breakthrough food technologies more quickly while saving time and money.”

Product development pipeline
The current model of novel ingredient testing is a slow and resource-intensive process, taking months, if not years, and requires samples of newly developed ingredients that are often not initially available in large quantities. 

The collaboration will support Motif’s rapid food-technology product pipeline by utilizing in vivo testing for the functional properties of plant-based proteins.

Using NemaLife’s platform, Motif will be able to de-risk and accelerate its product development to generate safe and functional food technologies with improved taste, texture and nutrition compared to alternative dairy and plant-based foods.

“We are excited to further our work with the Motif team on NemaLife’s rapidly growing in-vivo and physical characterization platforms to determine the most promising ingredients,” adds Siva Vanapalli, CEO of NemaLife.

He believes that “Motif’s science-driven focus is at the frontier of plant-based innovation” and is essential to building a more sustainable future for healthy plant-based foods.

Previously, Motif’s CEO Jonathan McIntyre told FoodIngredientsFirst that “food science can nail the plant-based experience.” Research also revealed that over 50% of consumers were “skeptical” that plant-based foods will ever look or taste as good as their animal-based counterparts.

Earlier this year, Motif revealed it is expanding its development and manufacturing processes to advance plant-based foods’ taste and nutrition profile. The move came on the heels of Motif unveiling the beef-like heme-binding protein Hemami recently, following GRAS approval by the FDA.

Meanwhile, sensory gaps have been spotlighted in plant-based foods, and last June, Motif revealed they are eying “radical sensory improvements” in plant-based analogs following US$226 million funding.

By Elizabeth Green