AI-Powered Chilean Startup The Live Green Co Launches Plant-Based Ice Cream With 90-Day R&D

Chilean food tech The Live Green Co has expanded its plant-based portfolio, adding vegan-friendly clean-label ice creams to its line-up. The new plant-based ice creams have been developed using the firm’s AI-powered technology, which dramatically shortened the R&D process to just 90 days. 

Two-year-old Chilean startup The Live Green Co has added dairy-free ice creams to its offerings, made with 100% plant-based natural ingredients like bananas, avocados and sunflower seeds. It is developed using the company’s AI recommendation engine dubbed Charaka, which uses machine learning and data on plant nutrition, biochemistry and biotechnology to suggest natural plant alternatives to meat, dairy and synthetic ingredients like emulsifiers, food stabilisers and anti-freezing agents. 

Thanks to its AI-powered technology, The Live Green Co says that the entire R&D process took just 90 days – a much shorter period compared to conventional processes that can take around one year. The Santiago-based startup says that its entire line-up of ice creams are not only 100% vegan-friendly and clean-labelled, but are also gluten-free, soy-free and lactose-free.

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Slated to launch across Jumbo, Chile’s largest supermarket chain, the firm’s new ice creams will come in three flavours, including chocolate chip, chocolate almond, and berries. True to the startup’s environmental mission to develop sustainable alternatives to animal-based foods, the dairy-free ice creams will also be packaged in 100% compostable and biodegradable containers to minimise its waste footprint. 

[It] goes beyond just eliminating animals from the equation but also replacing synthetic additives and highly processed ingredients with the cleanest and most sustainable ingredients that nature has to offer.

The Live Green Co

The Live Green Co founder Priyanka Srinivas believes that its AI-driven approach to plant-based alternatives will be key to transforming the broken food system. Currently, there are over 450,000 available plant species, 10 million compounds and more than one billion data points that can be mapped to come up with the “next generation of plant-based foods” – a huge opportunity for innovation, Srinivas says. 

“[It] goes beyond just eliminating animals from the equation but also replacing synthetic additives and highly processed ingredients with the cleanest and most sustainable ingredients that nature has to offer,” said The Live Green Co in a press statement. 

Other products the startup has developed include plant-based burger and pancake mixes, made from whole plant ingredients like lentils, peas, mung beans, mushrooms, ginger, cilantro, bell peppers, just to name a few. 

Looking ahead, The Live Green Co has set its sights on not just launching more plant-based products developed with its Charaka technology, but to further disrupt the food industry by partnering with corporations in the next few years.

Other startups have also been using digital tech-forward approaches to develop plant-based products that deliver on taste, nutrition and functionality, most notably fellow Chilean food tech NotCo, who makes their portfolio of plant-based milk, mayonnaise, ice cream and burgers using its proprietary AI system called Giuseppe. 

Already backed by Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, NotCo has launched its products to huge fanfare, especially their unique line of plant milks made from peas, chicory, pineapple and cabbage, which have since their debut landed on U.S. retail shelves. 

All images courtesy of The Live Green Co.