Imagine growing the best parts of a plant in a giant steel tank instead of a field. It's like brewing beer, but instead of alcohol, you're making rare cocoa ingredients without needing hectares of land. An AI acts as a master chef, constantly tweaking the recipe to make the process faster and cheaper.
Companies rely on unstable and unsustainable imports of plant-based natural products. Current lab-grown alternatives are too expensive and slow to develop for mass market use.
An AI-optimised plant cell culture platform, 6 metabolite formulations, 2 prototype chocolate bars, and open-source AI tools.
If you are a chocolate manufacturer dealing with fragile cocoa imports and unstable supply chains — this project developed a plant cell culture platform that produces cocoa secondary metabolites at a 10,000L scale. This allows for consistent ingredient sourcing without relying on terrestrial farming.
If you are a skincare brand dealing with the high cost of rare plant extracts — this project developed AI-optimised culture conditions that reduce development costs. You can produce high-value secondary metabolites in a controlled environment.
If you are a chemical producer dealing with slow R&D cycles for bio-based products — this project developed open-source AI tools and validated SOPs. This accelerates the transition from lab to industrial production for various plant species.
The project aims to scale production from the laboratory level up to 10,000L bioreactors.
The integration of an AI agent across the bioproduction workflow is designed to predict optimised conditions, thereby reducing development costs.
The project will generate open-source AI tools and publicly accessible datasets to lower entry barriers for SMEs.
The project includes regulatory and consumer studies to guide a safe and sustainable market introduction.
The project period runs from 2026-05-01 to 2030-04-30.
The consortium is highly commercially oriented with a 44% industry ratio, comprising 4 industrial partners and 5 SMEs. With 9 partners across 7 countries, the group combines the applied research power of Fraunhofer with international expertise from Canada, Israel, South Korea, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and the UK, ensuring a strong path toward market adoption.
Contact Fraunhofer Gesellschaft for details on the AI-optimised platform
Contact us to identify licensing opportunities for the open-source AI tools.
