Giving Compass' Take:

• Riana Lynn’s company, Journey Foods, is using artificial intelligence and other tech software to help make food manufacturing processes more sustainable. 

• How can donors support sustainability in food manufacturing? 

• Learn why women are key to a more sustainable food system. 

Riana Lynn’s company, Journey Foods, is dragging the packaged food business into the 21st century.

"Food manufacturing has really only scaled up in the last 60 years," she said. "And that means we’re also working on very antiquated methods."

Her company’s software uses machine learning, artificial intelligence, data scraping and cohort analysis to recommend the most nutritious and more sustainable ingredients for food companies, such as its partners Ingredion and Unilever.

In 2018, the global packaged food industry generated $2.77 trillion, an amount expected to reach almost $5 trillion by 2027. With veganism surging, many of those trillions of dollars will be spent on plant-based products that companies will need to redevelop to appease shoppers.

According to Lynn, when a food company wants to move to a gluten-free or plant-based version of one of its core products, that process takes a lot of trial and error. JourneyAI, the software from Journey Foods, is designed to recommend the most suitable almond flour or vegan butter alternative, helping the business save time, money and resources in the formulating or reformulating process.

"We’re making sure that the cost and sustainability and nutrition match for that product," Lynn said. "We can make sure that the cost is right and availability of alternatives are right, so the customer can buy an improved product without a lot of waste."

Journey Bites, the company’s limited direct-to-consumer fruit snack offering, was a proof-of-concept product meant to model and prove out the software’s data methodology and problem-solving features. The small cubes come in two flavor varieties: mango and cayenne spice and strawberry and chia. The products are packed with nutritional benefits such as healthy vitamins, fiber and naturally occurring antioxidants such as polyphenols.

While improved nutrition was Lynn’s first goal with Journey Foods, she said there was a natural evolution into thinking more about sustainability.

Read the full article about sustainability in food manufacturing by Jesse Klein at GreenBiz.