Fermentation-derived flavors are getting an assist from artificial intelligence, through a partnership between Canadian agritech and food ingredient company Crush Dynamics and AI developer Atomic47 Labs.
The British Columbia-based ingredient technology company uses a proprietary fermentation process from residual materials taken from winemaking to create food ingredients, said Michelle Cordeiro, director of R&D at Crush Dynamics.
“We have selected microbials and created bioactive molecules to make functional ingredients that enhance shelf life, reduce sugar and reduce softness in food formulation,” she said.
Scaling flavor science
The technique enables Crush Dynamics to reuse biomass that would have traditionally headed to the landfill, Cordeiro explained. The company produces and sells fermented grape purée and a fermented grape powder using the process.
“AI will allow us to scale up with optimal costs and the safety that the food world requires,” she said.
The new AI partnership enables Crush Dynamics to run real-time simulations to create tailored fermentation models.
“The technology is expected to reduce energy consumption, improve product consistency, strengthen food safety controls and increase production efficiency,” according to Crush Dynamics. “By making fermentation more predictable, scalable and cost-effective, the project will accelerate the conversion of agricultural byproducts into high-value food ingredients and help advance a more sustainable and competitive Canadian food manufacturing sector.”
The partnership also will help scale the company’s pilot facility in Summerland, British Columbia, Canada, where Crush Dynamics is researching how to use residual material from crops such as cherry, cranberry, apple and avocado, Cordeiro explained.
“All those crushed residual materials can be used by our fermentation platform to become ingredients, and the AI will help us to optimize this end to end by real-time control and predictive simulations in the process, and also predictive simulations and how to use this as an ingredient, what kind of flavor design it can have, and which food matrix is more compatible,” Cordeiro said. “So the AI will be an end-to-end tool, a very powerful tool to maximize what we can do with all those residuals.”
Flavors of the future: global inspiration meets local innovation T
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AI simulations for optimization
Cordeiro explained that the Atomic47 labs tech enables Crush Dynamics to create a “digital twin” of the company’s fermentation models that can optimize the most efficient process for building ingredients.
Tracking those models prior to the AI partnership includes laboriously collecting samples daily, sending them to a lab and waiting on the results to make decisions, Coreiro said.
“AI will monitor the indicators in real time, give us feedback and run simulations to predict how to optimize and how to adjust in real time,” she said, explaining that the new approach is expected to reduce the company’s energy costs by 30%.
Protein Industries Canada, a government-backed industry group, said in June that the AI platform “uses existing industrial sensors and advanced machine learning to continuously infer fermentation conditions, food safety indicators, energy performance and process health in real time.”
Minister of Industry Mélanie Joly said in the Protein Industries Canada announcement that the partnership will help strengthen the country’s food supply chain.
“Automating industrial fermentation enables Canadian companies to compete internationally, reduce waste and promote more sustainable food production,” she said. “This is the kind of cutting‑edge technology that advances our government’s commitment to a strong, resilient and sustainable economy for all Canadians.”
Building a better plant-based food supply
Protein Industries Canada is committing $607,000 to the $1.4 million project, with the remainder coming from Crush Dynamics and Atomic47 Labs.
The AI project is part of Canada’s Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (PCAIS), an initiative of the Canadian government to encourage adoption of AI across the country.
The Canadian government also is advancing its Road to $25 Billion project, which aims to grow the country’s plant-based food, feed and ingredient sector to a $25 billion industry.
