Sucafina invests in food fingerprint platform

Growing interest in ProfilePrint’s patented food ingredient AI fingerprint solution has been driven by strong demand for specialty and traceable ingredients, globally.

The company has recently closed its Series A funding round, which received backing from some of the world’s largest food ingredient conglomerates, namely Louis Dreyfus Company (Netherlands), Olam Food Ingredients (ofi – an operating group of Olam International Limited, Singapore), Sucafina (Switzerland), a Southeast Asian agrifood conglomerate (Indonesia), as well as international venture capital funds Greenwillow Capital Management (Singapore) and Real Tech Global Fund (Japan).

ProfilePrint is a food ingredient search engine platform, powered by a patented AI fingerprint technology, which is designed to predict the quality and profile of a food sample within seconds.

The solution can assist sellers and buyers to objectively ascertain the agreed quality of a food ingredient in an online transaction, which can help to save the time of sending samples for physical checks.

In June 2021 at the Singapore Coffee Association auction, ProfilePrint was commissioned as the neutral technology partner to predict the Q-grading score, taste parameters as well as key attributes such as moisture and density for all the auctioned coffee beans. As the auction was being held online due to the pandemic, the technology allowed buyers to be more assured of a coffee lot’s quality and profile beyond the scores provided by sellers.

Vivek Verma, CEO of the coffee business at Olam Food Ingredients (ofi), said: “We are encouraged by the results from trials we’ve carried out in both green and soluble coffee using ProfilePrint. The technology could significantly expedite the quality assessment process to benefit the entire value chain — from farmers to roasters. We also see the potential of deploying this solution beyond coffee and into other differentiated food ingredients of cocoa, nuts, spices and dairy.”

Nicolas A Tamari, CEO of Sucafina, commented: “Sucafina has completed a pilot with ProfilePrint with positive results in Rwanda and Hong Kong, and we are honoured to have the opportunity to play a part in ProfilePrint’s mission to redefine the coffee industry, which benefits both producers and end consumers.”

With this funding round completed, the company plans to use the proceeds to expand the team, invest in R&D to meet the growing demand for its services and ramp up its international expansion. It also has a vision to develop as a digital standard for food ingredients globally.