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Natural ingredient producer Kalsec and biotechnology startup 2nd Nature have entered into an exploratory collaboration to assess opportunities in naturally sourced ingredient discovery and sourcing for the food and beverage industry.
The partnership combines 2nd Nature’s proprietary AgWastePortal artificial intelligence (AI) platform with Kalsec’s technical applications expertise and global commercial knowledge across natural colours, flavours, and food protection solutions. The companies will initially evaluate how their joint capabilities can support the identification, screening, and development of novel natural ingredients extracted from agricultural side streams that present functional and commercial potential.
The initiative addresses ongoing technical challenges across food and beverage formulation, where manufacturers are seeking to replace synthetic additives and stabilisers with natural, clean-label alternatives without compromising on functionality, consistency of supply, or commercial cost-in-use.
"We are continually looking at new ways to expand our understanding of naturally sourced ingredients and the opportunities they may create for our customers," said Dr Roger Nahas, Executive Vice President of Global R&D and Chief Innovation Officer at Kalsec.
"2nd Nature brings an interesting discovery platform and perspective. We look forward to exploring where our capabilities may align and what we can learn together."
AI and Platform Capabilities
The technical foundation of the collaboration centres on 2nd Nature's AgWastePortal, a predictive software system engineered to analyse the chemistry of unutilised agricultural biomass and industrial food processing by-products:
🌾 Agricultural Material Mapping: Scans and indexes complex agricultural streams to uncover underutilised botanical compounds and functional molecules.
🔬 Functional Property Prediction: Uses predictive machine-learning models to determine the technical performance of candidate molecules, screening for flavour modulation, natural pigmentation, or oxidative food protection qualities.
⚙️ Process and Economic Assessment: Evaluates prospective production routes, assessing extraction feasibility, supply chain requirements, and production economics to estimate whether a compound can be scaled cost-effectively.
Effendi Leonard, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of 2nd Nature, noted that Kalsec's market and technical expertise could complement the company's ingredient discovery capabilities, allowing both organisations to evaluate targeted applications and determine priorities for downstream development.
Natural Food Protection and Flavour
Founded in 1958 and headquartered in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Kalsec has supplied plant-based extracts, colours, and shelf-life stabilisation ingredients to industrial food processors for more than six decades.
By applying predictive data models to agricultural side streams, the exploratory partnership aims to tackle core hurdles that often hinder natural ingredient commercialisation, including raw-material availability, batch-to-batch variation, formulation stability, and scaling costs.
The collaboration will provide an operational framework for both businesses to evaluate potential commercial use cases, assessing whether specific side-stream-derived compounds warrant advanced laboratory validation, pilot extraction, and subsequent regulatory review.
