How Shiru Uses AI & Biotechnology for Sustainable Food Innovation | Jasmin Hume

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin interviews Jasmin Hume, CEO and founder of Shiru, a startup revolutionizing the food and personal care industries through biotechnology, AI, and precision fermentation.

Jasmin highlights Shiru’s rapid, nature-inspired process of producing innovative products like OleoPro, and discusses partnerships with major food and ingredient companies, regulatory challenges, and addressing skepticism. Jasmin envisions a future where natural, affordable, and tailored products dominate, driven by consumer demand and regulatory shifts. And shares her entrepreneurial lessons.

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Takeaways

* Shiru uses biotechnology, AI, and precision fermentation to develop sustainable, scalable food and personal care ingredients, addressing environmental challenges while maintaining high performance.

* The company starts with a database of 33 million natural protein sequences, leveraging nature’s diversity (e.g., 50,000 edible plant species) to create ingredients that are nature-identical, avoiding synthetic alternatives.

* Shiru’s AI-driven process cuts ingredient discovery from years to just 3-4 months, screening millions of proteins digitally and hundreds physically, reducing R&D costs and time significantly.

* Ingredients like OleoPro use sustainable oils (e.g., sunflower) and proteins (e.g., potato) to replace environmentally damaging fats, providing healthier, unsaturated fat options with minimal ecological footprint.

* Shiru partners with large food and ingredient companies, offering tailored co-development to meet specific needs, acting as an outsourced innovation engine with a focus on performance and scalability.

* Ingredients undergo rigorous FDA’s GRAS approval (12-24 months), ensuring safety through detailed testing, composition analysis, and historical consumption data.

* Jasmin emphasizes that “engineered” food isn’t new - humans have modified crops for millennia - and Shiru’s natural, tech-enhanced solutions aim to meet consumer demands for tasty, safe, affordable products.

* Jasmin predicts a shift toward natural, healthy, affordable ingredients driven by technology, consumer demand, and regulatory changes (e.g., recent FDA bans on artificial additives), with AI enabling highly customizable products.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to Shiru and Food Innovation

03:09 Identifying Problems in the Food Industry

05:47 Leveraging AI and Biotechnology for Ingredient Discovery

08:30 Accelerating Ingredient Development Processes

10:10 Showcasing Shiru's Innovative Ingredients

12:37 Comparing New Ingredients to Traditional Ones

15:22 Exploring Versatility Across Food Categories

17:04 The Complexity of Taste and Texture

19:24 Food Products That Contain Shiru’s Ingredients

20:21 How Ingredients are Labeled on Food Packages?

22:07 What is OleoPro Product?

23:00 Addressing Skepticism Around Lab-Grown Ingredients

27:07 Navigating Regulatory Challenges in Food Innovation

30:22 Addressing Misconceptions in Food Innovation

31:58 Customizing B2B Partnerships in Food Development

35:11 Expanding Beyond Food: New Applications for Ingredients

38:58 The Competitive Edge of Innovative Ingredient Solutions

43:08 Leveraging AI for Rapid Product Development

48:25 The Future of Natural Ingredients and Technology

50:26 Personal Growth and Lessons in Entrepreneurship

51:56 Advice to Scientists Who Want to Commercialize Their Ideas

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