The Laughing Cow embarks on the adventure of artificial intelligence. French giant Bel has partnered with Californian start-up Climax Foods, which specializes in using AI for food innovation, to develop plant-based alternatives to its famous cheese slices: its Babybel, La Laughing Cow brands , Boursin and Kiri will soon have their “100% vegetable” versions along with traditional dairy recipes. These new products should reach supermarkets by the end of 2024, first in the United States and then in Europe.
The objective is to create vegetable recipes that are difficult to differentiate from dairy recipes, says the company, which took the opportunity to enter the capital of Climax Foods. The American start-up relies on a database and artificial intelligence processes to try to reproduce the texture or flavor of the cheeses and, above all, speed up the development process. Climax Foods claims, at its own expense, several prototypes of imitation cheeses that reproduce a blue cheese such as Bleu d’Auvergne, a soft cheese such as Brie or even a goat cheese.
Milk protein without cow’s milk
In a growing market, don’t miss the cart. The Bel group, largely dominated by dairy today, wants to achieve a 50/50 balance between dairy and plant-based products in the future. In addition to the acquisition of the MOM group, owner of the Pom’Potes compotes, the company has already launched vegetable versions of its Boursin or Babybel brands in the United States and Great Britain. “Semi-vegetable” references to The Laughing Cow have also emerged, where chickpeas, lentils or red beans replace half the milk.
More recently, Bel had already partnered with another start-up, Perfect Day, to develop a spread that contains non-animal milk proteins, that is, produced without using cow’s milk through a protein synthesis similar to that of beta-lactoglobulin. serum. More specifically, it is a vegetable “creamy cheese” in which these synthesized proteins are added, in order to compensate for the lack of creaminess suffered by vegetable alternatives. This range will soon be sold in the United States under the Nurishh brand.
Source: BFM TV
