Peas, almonds, mushrooms, basil or rosemary are only some of the products that a team of young professionals are using to innovate in the market of dairy products and sausages, changing the vision of food industry, by means of eggless mayonnaise; milk, yoghurt, cheese or chocolate without animal milk or meatless sausages.

This innovation is possible thanks to an algorithm called Giuseppe that selects the information about different plants and fruits stored in its database to exactly emulate animal food.

Sergio Aguilera, a food technologist who graduated from Universidad de Santiago de Chile, works collaboratively with this system, which is the only system in the world that performs as a food scientist.

The first steps of NotCo

In January 2015, Matías Muchnick, a commercial engineer from Universidad Católica de Chile, committed himself to revolutionize food industry after positioning a soy-based mayonnaise in the market.

With the challenge of switching over from animal-based food production to plant-based food production, new members joined the research team: Dr Pablo Zamora, a biochemist from Universidad de Santiago de Chile and then, Karim Pichara, the creator of the algorithm Guiseppe, who was working at the NASA at that time.

The Not Company founders say that the startup was formed when new masterminds with different backgrounds joined the group: Sergio Aguilera (Food Scientist), graduate of Universidad de Santiago and professor at its Department of Food Engineering; Isidora Aguilera (Biochemist); and Camila Sepúlveda (Head of Sensorial Innovation).

Pablo Zamora, co-founder of the project, explains that he spent seven years in the USA, and for the past three of which, he worked for the multinational company Mars. There, he was responsible for the brands M&M, Pedigree and Whiskas. “Because of my background, Matías contacted me to start the NotCo project, that emerged as a way of giving people an intelligent and sustainable nutrition, without using animal products,” he explained.

Feeding the future

“We have had a large media exposure that we did not expect, due to an interview published by the international network Al Jazeera. They realized that we were doing something different, that we were changing the model of how to produce food. Today, we are working very hard on online sales and we want to cause a social impact with these products,” Pablo Zamora said.

Currently, the company has just finished the first investment stage to run the business operations and then, they expect to start massive production to reach supermarkets and small stores, so they are already raising funds for this purpose. In the future, they also expect to reach foreign markets. 

Meanwhile, on their web page www.thenotcompany.com, they are already selling their first commercial product: a plant-based mayonnaise, without soy or eggs or transgenic elements. It comes in three different flavors and it has the same market value as traditional mayonnaise.

 

Translated by Marcela Contreras