Dairy Alternatives

Climax Foods creates plant-based protein ingredient

According to Climax Foods, it is the first successfully replicate the functionality, texture, and taste of the major protein in animal milk using only plant ingredients.

Climax Foods Inc., an A.I. Food Tech startup using data science and machine intelligence to create animal-free products from plants, announced the discovery of the first-ever plant-based protein ingredient replicating the functional performance, in particular the melt and stretch of the dairy protein casein, the company stated.

With this discovery, it is the first company in history to successfully replicate the functionality, texture, and taste of the major protein in animal milk using only plant ingredients, according to Climax Foods. This alternative to animal-based casein is completely free of hormones, antibiotics, or any of the top eight allergens. Furthermore, Climax Foods’ revolutionary “precision formulation” process allows them to produce this protein sustainably at scale, with price parity to traditional animal-based casein.

Climax Foods’ owes this radical new casein replacement to its proprietary process, “precision formulation,” which uses data science and AI to dramatically 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’ AI-powered precision formulation process dramatically accelerates innovation and discovery.

"While our work is based on a deep scientific understanding of plants, we don't have any need to genetically engineer plants to create our unique proteins," said 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 very, very close attention. This gives us the ability to model and verify formulations at the microscopic level in a fraction of the time that 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."