Shiru and Ajinomoto Partner to revolutionize sweet protein discovery with AI

By Agroempresario.com

In a significant move for the food industry, Shiru, a protein discovery startup, has announced a strategic partnership with Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition Partners, a division of the renowned ingredient supplier Ajinomoto. The collaboration aims to develop and commercialize sweet proteins, natural high-intensity sweeteners that could potentially replace sugar in various products, including beverages.

Sweet proteins, found in fruits and berries near the equator, can be up to 5,000 times sweeter than sugar and do not affect blood glucose levels. While natural sweeteners like stevia and monk fruit have made notable advancements, sweet proteins offer a novel dimension to the sugar-reduction toolkit, as explained by Shiru's founder and CEO, Dr. Jasmin Hume, in an interview with AgFunderNews.

The key challenges in this venture are identifying sweet proteins with the desired sweetness profiles and developing cost-effective production methods. Shiru’s platform, Flourish, is designed to address these challenges by providing tools to discover and validate new sweet proteins and evaluate their scalability, particularly through microbial fermentation or other methods.

According to Hume, the platform’s database contains information on over a dozen known sweet proteins, but many have limitations such as delayed onset or stability issues. Shiru aims to uncover more sweet proteins that could outperform current options. The platform’s advanced tools help in predicting which proteins can be effectively expressed in microbial systems, enhancing their commercial viability.

The partnership with Ajinomoto leverages both companies’ strengths: Shiru’s innovative discovery technology and Ajinomoto’s expertise in fermentation and ingredient formulation. While Shiru cannot patent natural protein sequences, it can patent their novel applications, which will be licensed to Ajinomoto for specific fields in food and beverage.

For Shiru, this partnership not only opens avenues for immediate revenue through licensing and royalties but also represents a crucial step in monetizing its technology. The company, which faced financial challenges and layoffs in late 2023, anticipates that this collaboration will generate valuable revenue streams and pave the way for further global partnerships.

Shiru’s newly launched ProteinDiscovery.ai tool enables users to search through a database of over 33 million molecules based on various parameters such as protein sequence and functional use. This tool allows clients to find solutions for specific needs, such as stable natural emulsifiers or plant proteins mimicking animal proteins. The ‘Expressor’ feature of the platform is particularly noteworthy, as it helps identify proteins with high expression potential in microbial systems, addressing one of the major hurdles in protein production.

Overall, the collaboration between Shiru and Ajinomoto signifies a major advancement in the search for sustainable, high-intensity sweeteners and highlights the growing role of AI and precision fermentation in the food industry.