The Not Company Uses Unparalleled Technology to Create Animal-Free Products [VIDEO]
UPDATE: In a recent feature in Business Insider, it was revealed that some of The Not Company’s (NotCo) products will “launch in American stores including Walmart in 2019.”
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Start-ups aiming to create or mimic all types of animal products without the use of animals are becoming increasingly more common. We know of Gelzen Inc., that creates a vegan version of gelatin, New Wave Foods, that focuses on algae-based shrimp, the Modern Agriculture Foundation, that aims to make cultured chicken free of slaughter, Impossible Foods, with their “bleeding” plant-based burgers, and the oat-based pulled pork via Gold&Green Foods.
Now, a group of Chilean scientists and their food tech start-up, The Not Company (NotCo), have joined this ever-expanding group, and have even been featured on Al Jazeera as a result of their products, which include animal-free meats, cheeses, milks, condiments and more. Engineer Matias Muchnick and Karim Pichara, a Harvard research associate, are both founders of NotCo, and work with biochemist Isidora Silva in order to develop the plant-based foods meant to help combat the negative effects of animal agriculture, such as global warming. Muchnick stated:
“When you get behind the scenes of the food industry, you don’t like what you see. There is a lot of things that we should be knowing…but we are blindsided by a whole industry that is making it really hard for us to see what we are really eating. We want people to eat better, but without even knowing. That’s the main objective of the Not Company.”
But what exactly sets this initiative apart from the rest? A fourth member of the NotCo team, known as Giuseppe, is referred to in the company as the “smartest food scientist on earth”. However, Giuseppe is not a person, but an artificial intelligence model built by the team that “uses deep machine learning techniques to understand food at a molecular level” and can:
“Replicate the taste, texture and even smell of animal-based products by copying their molecular structure.”
In the video, we see Al Jazeera correspondent Lucia Newman interview the team, and state that although companies creating products that contain no animal products is not new, what makes NotCo stand out is Giuseppe, who has “no registered match”. She is then invited to test the products, and tried the Not Milk, made from mushrooms and seeds, and stated that it tastes like a sweeter, richer and creamier version of dairy milk, and Muchnick stated that it had the same nutrition but with fewer calories than milk but was half the price of dairy alternatives. She also sampled the Classic Mayonnaise, and described it as “perfect” and also tried the company’s cheese, cream cheese, a chicken liver pâté, avocado-based mousse and even a nutella-esque chocolate spread. She enjoyed all of the products, but noted the cheese could use a little bit more work to get the flavor just right.
With the products of NotCo set to be featured in selected supermarkets in Chile next month, Muchnick spoke more about the efficiency intended behind the company as they state that they use less land, water, and resources than traditional food production:
“If we were to start from scratch, and we want to figure out the best or the most efficient way to deliver nutrition to the 7.1 billion people on this planet, the answer wouldn’t be animals. Science would tell you to do something different.”
Watch the full video below:
Photo Credit: https://www.facebook.com/thenotcompany
