AI-enabled protein discovery company Shiru has announced a partnership with Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition North America to develop and commercialize sweet proteins that can replace sugar and sweeteners in beverages and specialty products.
Sweet proteins can deliver up to 5,000 times more sweetness than sugar, and could potentially replace 70-90% of the sweetness provided by sugar in foods and beverages. While refined sugar spikes blood sugar levels, sweet proteins can moderate them because they are metabolized differently. This could potentially help with managing conditions such as diabetes.
The cutting edge of functional ingredients
This will be the first time Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition has tested sweet proteins, and the company will contribute its deep expertise in fermentation to the partnership. It is also Shiru’s first foray into the category; the company will use its AI-driven discovery platform, Flourish, to uncover natural, food-safe proteins not previously known to be sweet. It is hoped that the platform will help to overcome challenges relating to the taste effects and stability of sweet proteins.
“Our partnership with Shiru is one of many examples of our approach to innovation,” said Ryan Smith, Chief Growth Officer and Executive Vice President at Ajinomoto Health and Nutrition. “As collective industry leaders, we believe this partnership will position both of us to be on the cutting edge of what’s next in functional ingredients, specifically in protein, an increasing category of interest for consumers. This partnership, and our balanced strengths, will allow us to identify natural proteins for use as sweeteners across numerous applications to meet the changing demands of the food industry and what consumers expect.”
Positively impacting human and planetary health
In May, Shiru announced the launch of ProteinDiscovery.ai, described as the “Amazon for proteins”. The marketplace makes it possible to search, discover, pilot, and buy molecules for a range of applications, with over 33 million molecules categorized by sequence, functional use, and successful expression.
Shiru has previously partnered with global multinationals such as Puratos and Griffith Foods to discover and scale sustainable ingredients. The company also announced last year that it had developed OleoPro, a high-performance, structured fat that replaces saturated animal fat and unsustainable tropical oils.
“Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition conducted a tremendous amount of due diligence and determined that partnering with Shiru provides them access to a landscape of protein solutions that is truly differentiated and represents the fastest way to discover and develop commercially valuable sweet proteins across their product lines,” said Shiru founder and CEO Dr. Jasmin Hume.
“At Shiru, we share Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition’s vision of eating well and living well. Together, our companies are now using artificial intelligence to supercharge this mission, which we are very excited for. We are already identifying high-value, natural, scalable proteins for Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition’s brands which we know will positively impact human and planetary health alike.”
