"A culinary innovation with AI for the preservation of sea turtles”WIRED

The endangered Green Sea Turtle population declined by 67% in 150 years due to Turtle Soup consumption. NotCo took the challenge of helping give this species a second chance by recreating its meat from plants. With no data, NotCo's AI collaborated with chefs and researchers to collect new data on the taste of Green Sea Turtles. With the newfound research, NotCo tapped their database of 300,000 plants and analyzed 260 quintillion possible combinations to create its newest product NotTurtle, a plant-based endangered animal dish that could help a species.

The Green Sea Turtle species has a long history of being hunted. It's been poached, harvested, and consumed for more than 150 years. Today, despite being a protected endangered species, almost 100,000 are consumed every year; contributing to a declining population even with efforts to restore the species from conservationists. Among its threats: Turtle Soup, a traditional stew with incredible cultural significance to native and coastal communities in China, Nigeria, Mexico, and Peru. Historically, the dish was created by fishermen hundreds of years ago and has been passed along through generations, to the detriment of the species. While alternatives to Turtle Soup have been around globally since the 18th century, the recipes focus on taste. As a result, these fall short of recreating the right mouth feel, texture, and flavor. On top of that, none are plant-based.

NotCo, a global tech brand from Latin America, believes in the power of combining human power and AI. This was the perfect opportunity to prove it by helping save Green Sea turtles, keeping these coastal culinary cultures alive with a delicious plant-based NotTurtle soup

NotCo is a global tech-food startup that utilizes a revolutionary AI named “Giuseppe,” specifically trained to be able to replace any meat or dairy recipe with an alternative plant based version. It analyzes 300,000 plants and grains in its database to replicate different dimensions, taste, texture and nutritional value, all at the molecular level.

While the plant-based market is oversaturated, NotCo’s proposition is unique because their AI allows them to create plant-based alternatives that are (scientifically) the closest to the recipe they are recreating. NotCo needed to raise awareness of Giuseppe's capabilities and position itself as an innovative food-tech brand, while also break through a very crowded plant-based alternative category.

Giuseppe had already found ways of creating plant-based versions of milk, chicken, and beef. But to make it famous, we needed it to solve something it's never done before.

NotTurtle was created to change local behavior of those who eat Turtle Soup traditionally, in hopes of also demonstrating to flexitarians the power of NotCo’s AI to recreate animal meat. With the help of world-renowned Chef Diego Oka, turtle researchers Upwell Turtles and NotCo culinary’s in-field data, NotCo trained its AI Giuseppe on something it never knew before: an endangered species meat composition, resulting in the product NotTurtle. Giuseppe required data in three key dimensions; taste, texture and nutritional value. Once the data was injected into the AI model, Giuseppe iterated the recipe during a 4 day period, analyzing 300,000 plants and 260 quintillion possible combinations to come up with the optimal combination of plant-based ingredients to get as close as possible to the original recipe. Without the need for Green Sea Turtle meat, NotCo checked off all the boxes on taste, texture and nutritional values of the original recipe.

NotCo's AI Giuseppe can replicate animal product taste and texture using plants. To tackle the lack of data on Green Sea Turtle meat, NotCo collaborated with Upwell Turtles and chef Diego Oka. The team gathered data on the taste of the meat in the Cayman Islands, where it's a traditional dish. And utilizing these findings, we fed Giuseppe data on taste, texture and viscosity. From a database of 300,000 plants and analyzing 260 quintillion possible combinations, we found the one recipe. What would normally take a human 13.2 billion years to figure out, Giuseppe did it in 4 days. To see if it was identical, we had locals from Piura, Peru taste it for themselves. The result: identical to Turtle Soup. The complex recipe was then open-sourced as part of chef masterclass that can be replicated in any kitchen around the globe.

Because NotCo's AI chef Giuseppe can't taste or cook, NotCo partnered with chef Diego Oka to bring culinary knowledge to help compile data on Turtle Soup. The way Giuseppe computes is called ""combinatorial optimization"", meaning Giuseppe uses its database of more than 300.000 plants and grains to create more than 260 quintillion combinations. With Oka and the NotCo culinary team, Giuseppe is able to narrow down combinations with Oka tracking its progress as it gets closer to the original recipe. Ultimately, it comes up with the optimal combination closest to the original-- down to taste, texture, viscosity and nutritional value. This is an exercise that would take 13.2 billion years without the computational power of AI and the research of humans. Once a combination is secured, it can then be produced on a mass scale. In the case of NotTurtle, we distributed the product as an open-source recipe to locals.

To create NotTurtle, NotCo’s AI Giuseppe had to research 300,000 plants and analyze over 260 quintillion recipe combinations to land on 1. This process would take the average human 13.2 billion years to test, Giuseppe found it in 4 days.

Global media coverage saw the potential and pathway forward for NotCo, recognizing the power of its AI to do good for the globe.

“Imagine what else we can do with this technology” FORBES.

“A culinary innovation with AI for the preservation of sea turtles” WIRED

“You'll be doing the world some good when you eat it.” YAHOO

1.3B Media impressions. NotCo’s most engaged campaign in history.

95% positive sentiment.

Featured in 190+ publications.

And NatGeo is picking up the story and journey to launch a 30-minute feature documentary. "