BioCraft Pet Nutrition, the first biotech company to develop cultivated meat, has announced plans to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to reduce production costs, accelerate cell growth, and improve the nutritional value of the startup's cultivated meat pet food products.
"The main costs and time sinks on the way to commercialization are R&D-related, and our AI has substantially streamlined this process, accelerated our progress, and reduced costs. In this application, AI can surpass the human brain for speed and efficiency and help us derive more complex conclusions by making more connections between more facts." - Dr. Shannon Falconer, BioCraft founder and CEO.
BioCraft's proprietary tool collects and processes information from publicly available databases and scientific literature, synthesizing and analyzing the data to identify potential nutrient inputs that can elicit or enhance cell growth, nutrient biosynthesis, or other biological processes that are key to cultivated meat production. This process is similar to platforms used by pharmaceutical companies for nearly a decade to help identify new drug targets and predict previously unknown metabolic effects.
As a result of this technology, BioCraft, formerly Because, Animals, can engage in fewer, more targeted experiments. The company works directly with pet food manufacturers interested in transitioning their conventional meat ingredients to supply-chain stable, sustainable, safe, humane cultured meat.
"The demand for pet foods, specifically meat-based pet food, is on the rise, but the supply chain for meat is increasingly precarious, both in terms of price volatility and stockouts. Pet food manufacturers are desperate for a more stable alternative, so with increasing infrastructure to produce cultured meat for pet food, the sky's the limit in this industry." - Falconer.
Image Credit: BioCraft Pet Nutrition