ENTREVISTA: NotCo

Good, good. Congratulations again because the World Economic Forum has also highlighted you as one of the 100 most innovative startups in the world. This isn't just an application; you also have a particularity. Well, you have to do it all, we could say. There are many, many things related to research, ranging from molecular and chemical to technology, and also the traditional part, which is contacting potential buyers, as you are doing during this pandemic. To start, Matías...

Look, I think the pandemic has been difficult in many dimensions, but for us particularly, with all this, our habits are starting to change, especially food habits. We are more exposed than ever to consumer products, we read the label more, we know more about the products, we have to cook what we cooked before. So, the pandemic hasn't hit us relatively badly because there is an increase in home consumption and also a positive consideration for products that have a more sustainable consideration, that are more efficient in the use of resources. And NotCo, as has always been our idea, to bring products to the industry as well. So I think we are achieving it in terms of work, which is difficult, obviously. We are working 100% remotely. There are some, since we are a food center, there is still part of the operations team that has to go to the office or to the production plant to work, and obviously we are going with all possible precautions. But you miss many things, but at the same time, you also realize that remote work works. And here, the truth is, we've never had so much energy and engagement and commitment to the company at the level of the people in Chile, Brazil, and Argentina working. It was a big, big surprise. And congratulations again for all this recognition, also on the cover of the financial newspaper this week and in other media. Tell us a little about how you do it. I know a couple of your products, for example, the mayonnaise. I have a vegan daughter and she told me, 'Look, try this and see if you like it,' and indeed, it changed me. So, how do you do it? How do you get there? How much do you investigate? What is it about? There is also artificial intelligence involved. Tell us a little for the people who don't know us much yet but know you are in supermarket aisles, for example.

Sure, sure. Look, I think one of the main things we want to do is remove the animal from the equation, and that has certain characteristics. We want to replicate the foods that are generated based on animals—meat, cheese, milk, and everything in between—to do exactly the same in terms of color, flavor, and texture, but coming from plants. And there we would be solving a lot of problems in the food industry, which, as you would say, is the main factor of climate change in terms of CO2 pollution. So we said, well, how do we change? And the only way to really change something is to understand it first. That has always been our theory: to know what a hamburger really is. We understand why it tastes good in the oven, on the grill, which is different from the pan. We are never going to be able to replicate it from plants if we don't understand it. So for us, the first thing was to understand the foods we eat. It's not the same as milk; milk isn't just a glass of milk with one ingredient in your kitchen. It's the foam, cutting it with coffee, etc. All interactions explain what the product is. So we said, well, how do we understand the different dimensions that describe a traditional product like milk or cheese? We said, if this is milk, how can I replicate it with everything that exists in the plant kingdom? The plant kingdom has more than 400,000 species of plants, and traditionally, the industry has only managed less than 0.1%. There is still a lot to discover. So we said, who is going to be the one to discover how to combine or what to combine to recreate the flavor and smell of milk? We realized it wasn't going to be a human or a group of humans, but an artificial intelligence algorithm. And you saw a little bit of how this algorithm works. We created an algorithm with Karim Pichara, one of the co-founders and a doctor of computer science, also Chilean. What it does is generate a software that predicts what combinations of plant ingredients and how we have to combine them to arrive at a product that is sensorially equal or a replica of milk, but in this case coming from plants. So that's the logic behind this software, these algorithms that we created, which allowed us to make the mayonnaise, as you mentioned, but now it's not written, it's not on the side. And now the hamburger, which we are about to release, many are waiting for it and will give their verdict.

Obviously, our objective has always been to convince those who don't want to be vegan necessarily, but who have certain considerations about how good or bad meat is for us and what environmental impact each of the things they eat has. So flavor is always going to be the last thing. We have the confidence to sell the product and move forward, sure that more than one will be impressed. And it's really impressive what you tell us about how you got here, because you don't imagine that someone with a very good palate goes testing and testing. There is a truly surprising technological development. Tell us, Matías, we are talking with Matías Muchnick, CEO and co-founder of NotCo. What other projects do you have in the pipeline? What's coming?

Of course, it's important that as a company, we never stop surprising. I think what the pandemic has also connected a bit with our first topic has to do with the fact that today there are a lot of restrictions on what could be the laboratory. For example, we used to have 25 people working, and now there are shifts with a maximum of 6 people, so everything advances a bit slower. So instead of doing many things, we decided to do very few but very well. So what we are going to do, the surprises that are coming, have to do a bit with the products we already have, the 2.0 versions of the mayonnaise, 2.0 of the milk, 2.0 of the mayonnaise, and it could be hamburgers, and it could be... I don't like to promise because then you get charged a lot for it. It's an additional product that will be out by the end of this year. So that's a bit of what's in the pipeline for 2020. Now for 2021, we have more products that we are already developing, prototyping, and seeing how to roll out in Argentina, in Brazil, and also in Chile.

Thank you very much.