Delivered
It sounds like something out of a movie, but AI-made milk is here, and it’s pretty good.
Jane de Graaf is the food editor of 9Honey.
OPINION: Would you drink plant-based milk made by artificial intelligence (AI)?
It sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, but we’re here to tell you it’s real… and it’s pretty good.
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NotMilk is the new non-dairy plant-based milk that is making a stir with its unconventional approach to creating a non-dairy milk (or mylk) that has all the taste and texture of dairy milk, without the animal content. It’s not oat milk, it’s not nut milk, it’s not milk.
not co. (makers of NotBurger and NotChicken) have launched their new NotMilks and it’s quite compelling if you’re looking for an animal-free alternative to dairy milk. Based in Chile, the company has built a reputation for disrupting mainstream food production. They’re really shaking things up by using AI technology to find plant combinations that mimic animal products, focusing not just on taste and texture, but the function of the food itself. And it’s fascinating.
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In the press release, the six-year-old company asks us to “Imagine a world where you can completely remove animals from the food production process, while making your food choices deliciously delicious (as well as sustainable) and without losing flavor, texture or cooking functionality.” But it’s the way AI technology works that has caught our attention.
NotCo has created a unique AI program (called Giuseppe) that studies the molecular structure of animal products and replicates them using plant-based alternatives – reducing the energy, water and CO2 generated by regular manufacturing processes. They call it “taking the animal out of the equation.”
The idea works on the premise that of the world’s 300,000 known plants, a typical Western diet uses only about 200 of them. The AI Giuseppe has access to extensive information about these plants and searches for combinations that people would simply never think of to mimic the taste, texture, smell and functionality of animal products as precisely as possible. It sounds terrifying at first. But the results speak for themselves.
Delivered
NotMilk is available in Australian supermarkets, with NotChicken and NotBurger to follow.
What we get is a milk alternative that has a fascinating ingredient panel and includes coconut oil, chicory fiber, pineapple juice, salt and cabbage juice. But the result es strikingly milky. The texture is perfect and – oddly enough – it’s the very soft hint of pineapple adding a light milky sweetness to the drink. It is very impressive and certainly delicious. It’s without a doubt the closest thing to milk I’ve tasted: is not based on dairy. I was amazed.
“Once you taste it, you really believe in the power a great tasting product has in consumer acceptance,” said Matias Muchnick, CEO and co-founder of NotCo.
NotMilk is now on the shelves at Woolworths in Australia and NotBurger and NotChicken will follow shortly. It is unclear if a rollout in New Zealand is planned. NotCo has been contacted for comment.
This story was published on 9Honey and republished with permission.