“Precision formulation”: Climax Foods develops plant-based casein replacement using AI

14 Jun 2023 --- Climax Foods has discovered the first-ever plant-based protein ingredient replicating the functional performance specifically relating to the melt and stretch of the dairy protein casein. 

By leveraging data science and machine intelligence to create animal-free products from plants, the AI food tech start-up says it is now the first company in history to successfully replicate the functionality, texture, and taste of the major protein in animal milk using only plant ingredients.

This alternative to animal-based casein is entirely free of hormones, antibiotics, or any of the top 8 allergens. 

Opportunity to scale
Furthermore, Climax Foods’ revolutionary “precision formulation” process allows them to produce this protein sustainably at scale, with price parity to traditional animal-based casein. 

With industrial animal agriculture contributing to global warming and depleting the Earth’s resources, this scientific breakthrough represents a significant win for the planet and a milestone for the future of food, trailblazing toward broad adoption of dairy alternatives, underscores the company. 

Climax Foods’ plant-based non-GMO casein alternative is free of hormones, antibiotics, or any of the top eight allergens.Climax Foods owes this radical new casein replacement to their proprietary process, “precision formulation,” which uses data science and AI to significantly speed up the discovery of optimal ingredient and process combinations that fully harness the power of plants. 

While food innovation historically has taken centuries of trial and error, Climax Foods’ AI-powered precision formulation process dramatically accelerates innovation and discovery, the company details. 

The science of plants 
While our work is based on a deep scientific understanding of plants, we don’t have any need to engineer plants to create our unique proteins genetically, explains Daniel Westcott, head of protein and texture at Climax Foods. 

“An immeasurable range of protein diversity and combinations already exists; we simply use data science and machine learning to pay close attention. This allows us to model and verify formulations at the microscopic level in a fraction of the time it would take a traditional approach. And while we love learning through data science, we generate our data by making cheese, which means that the busiest half of our lab is the kitchen.”

Today’s plant-based dairy alternatives are blends of oil and starch that fall short on nutrition, texture and performance. Over US$1.5 billion in funding has been poured into over a dozen companies trying to produce a casein replacement in microbes through precision fermentation. 

Unfortunately, these attempts have faced scalability and regulatory issues. 

Climax Foods’ scientists have found an alternative solution by identifying plentiful and naturally occurring plant proteins that bring true melt and stretch to plant-based cheeses.

“As foodies and scientists, we have a profound appreciation for the complex flavors and textures of dairy products, but also recognize their vast inefficiencies,” notes Climax CEO and founder Oliver Zahn. “Our production process uses 500 times less water at our current pilot scale.”

“Our goal is not just to give vegans better options – we are offering a better way to everyone, especially hardcore cheese lovers,” Zahn continues. “To do this, we committed ourselves to understand, on a microscopic level, what makes animal-based foods so craveable, and used that understanding to determine the precise steps needed to get that same performance from plant sources like seeds.”

Zahn says that Climax Foods is not genetically changing ingredients: “We’re using what is already there.”

The difference comes from the company’s depth of knowledge of the rich biodiversity of the plant kingdom down to a cellular level. 

“Plants can impart the same texture, taste, and performance of animal-based ingredients – our AI-enabled Deep Plant Intelligence platform removes the guesswork. For our casein replacement, our AI platform and precision formulation process helped us uncover a mechanism in specific plant proteins that imparts indistinguishable melt and stretch and mouthfeel from casein while also dramatically improving nutrition,” Zahn outlines. 

Plant-based cheeses made with Climax’s casein replacement have already won praise from Michelin chefs such as Dominique Crenn and Jean Georges and plant-based chefs Tal Ronnen and Matthew Kenney. Cheese manufacturers, including Bel Group, also see Climax Foods’ potential in helping reformulate and refashion their core cheese products into plant-based versions.The start-up uses AI with a proprietary “precision formulation” process to create a seed-based protein source that melts and stretches like animal-based casein.

Bel Group’s director of research and applications, Anne Pitkowski, says: “Caseins are involved in all dairy transformations including cheese, yogurt, cream, and others. They are directly responsible for the product’s texture and stability and bring the unique property of stretchability. 

Those properties are linked to the specific micellar structure of the casein assemblage that, until Climax Foods’ discovery, had not been met anywhere else in nature.”

In April, The Bel Group acquired an equity stake in Climax Foods and revealed it aims to use the AI platform to develop plant-based alternatives to its brands. 

Zahn stresses that Climax Foods’ precision formulation process can eventually be applied to replace other animal-based foods. 

“This is one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in food in the last six thousand years – since humans invented animal agriculture – but we are only getting started,” concludes Zahn.

Edited by Elizabeth Green