Scientific innovation leads to new dairy alternative start-up AndFoods

20 May, 2024 - Making a palatable milk or cream from a bad-tasting bean used to be impossible.

But then the Riddet Institute Food Innovation Team put their exceptional scientific abilities to work: Four years later a new start-up called Saber was born and a new alternative dairy cream and milk are now close to commercial release. 

Now known as AndFoods, Saber Dairy Foods was launched in 2023 to cater for the plant-based milk market, a segment expected to be worth $40 billion by 2040.

Riddet Institute Director Distinguished Professor Harjinder Singh was one of the team of six scientists who invented the new technology. He says consumers were increasingly seeking sustainable, ethical and healthy alternatives to animal-based foods.  

Food Innovation Team leader Dr Arup Nag says the food scientists were observing with interest the rapid growth in plant-based dairy alternatives, and they identified an important gap in the alt-dairy offerings.

“Many of the existing plant-based products offered little in the way of nutritional benefits,” Dr Nag says. “Some contained allergens, or they had limited practical use as a food ingredient.”

The team began the search for a new alternative dairy food ingredient among plant sources. They explored multiple plants and eventually found something unique – a little-known legume that was highly nutritious, environmentally friendly and could be converted into beverages. The legume ticked nearly all the boxes: it consisted of 25 per cent protein, was rich in minerals and vitamins, low in fat and had excellent sustainability credentials.

But it did not taste good.

“This was the challenge – it was completely unpalatable,” says Dist. Prof Singh. “We needed to fix it and find out how to convert the legume into something people would like and want to consume.”

The breakthrough came with a novel fermentation technology that was able to manipulate the flavour, taste and texture. This was a turning point, and two patents were taken out on the technology and the plant material to protect the intellectual property on the invention.

From there, senior scientist and co-inventor Dr Alejandra Acevedo-Fani says, there was a lot of further lab work and analysis on the nutritional and functional profile of the product, sensory evaluations and a scale up to produce it at the Riddet Institute’s on-site pilot plant. The “milk” or “cream” could be whipped up to top the best banoffee pie, frothed for an espresso or substituted for numerous milk products, many with functional properties that went beyond their dairy lookalikes. 

The signature cream’s ability to take on air and maintain its shape has eclipsed all other plant-based creams in kitchen testing. The formulations were also stable when subjected to pasterisation and UHT processes.

The huge potential of the product was identified, and outside expertise was then engaged with Motif in Wellington to help develop a business case for investors. At the same time the Innovation Team conducted a large scale-up trial at Tetra Pak in Singapore, producing commercial prototypes to present to prospective business partners.

Dist. Prof Singh says it was immediately obvious the product had considerable commercial potential.  The team enjoyed exceptional investor engagement by demonstrating a strong intellectual property position and the high-quality prototypes. Also positive was the feedback the team received when the product was taken to the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) food Startups Pavilion in Chicago in 2023.

With the help of Massey Ventures Limited, a spin-out company was then formed, called Saber Foods Limited. Attracting $2.7million in seed funding capital from Icehouse Ventures, the company was launched in October 2023.

Dist. Prof Singh says the Saber story shows how the Riddet Institute is creating new entrepreneurial opportunities for emerging scientists in New Zealand. He was immensely proud of the results of the Riddet Institute Food Innovation Team’s hard work and dedication in creating Saber.

“We are doing amazing, innovative science, leading to start-up companies and many commercial partnerships. Our science is the catalyst for creating these opportunities for New Zealand.” 

The Riddet Institute Food Innovation team comprises six scientists, Dist. Prof Harjinder Singh, Dr Alejandra Acevedo-Fani, Dr Debashree Roy, Dist. Prof Paul Moughan, Yiran Wang and Dr Arup Nag. Saber soon rebranded as AndFoods and took on Alex Devereaux as the CEO, appointing Arup Nag as CTO. Work is now accelerating on commercialising the new products and bringing them to the market.

For more go to: https://www.andfoods.co/