Cargill invests in Singapore start-up ProfilePrint whose AI tech grades food ingredients quickly and cheaply

US food major Cargill has invested in Singapore start-up ProfilePrint, which grades food ingredients using artificial intelligence (AI) technology, increasing efficiency and reducing wastage along the supply chain.

ProfilePrint’s patented technology provides a “digital fingerprint” that shows the quality and profile of food ingredients, such as coffee beans, cocoa and rice, in a matter of seconds, according to its CEO and founder Alan Lai.

The foodtech firm’s grading process for food ingredients is at least 10 times faster and five times cheaper than conventional testing, which is made possible through the use of its portable analysers and cloud-based platform, Lai said in an interview.

“Typically what big companies will do is they will collect the beans, send it to a lab, and it takes weeks for them to assess whether they are good enough,” he said. “By the time you go through your lab test, ProfilePrint has already made the assessment on the spot.”

Apart from the latest funding round from Minnesota-based Cargill, the five-year-old start-up has received millions of dollars in investment from strategic investors including Netherland-based Louis Dreyfus Company, Singapore-headquartered Olam International, Swiss coffee merchant Sucafina and Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas.

Over the past six months, Cargill has completed pilots with ProfilePrint to validate the application of the technology across its portfolio of ingredients such as cocoa and chocolate.