Through a partnership with Brightseed, food and beverage supplier Olam Food Ingredients (OFI) will work to discover bioactives in black pepper and garlic through the former company’s AI research platform, Forager.
 
Not all compounds within these two popular spices have been uncovered or explored to achieve a summation of their total health benefits, and not all varieties are equal, OFI said. Specifically, the companies will look at U.S. garlic and global black pepper varieties.
 
Forager is an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that identifies complex molecular structures and novel compounds in these spice categories, and is able to pinpoint specific mechanisms of plant bioactives that are most likely to correlate to a direct health benefit. This can decode and increase the scientific understanding of the health impact of plant-based bioactive compounds.
 
Black pepper is known for piperine, a bioactive compound and antioxidant that has been investigated to determine its capacity in tumor growth inhibition and its ability to enhance the bioavailability of other drugs and nutritional ingredients. Certain compounds in garlic, OFI said, have been linked to medical benefits in a number of pathologies (Joshua Ansary et al., Antioxidants, 2020).
 
Forager will analyze and seek to identify how different regions, cultivars, growing conditions, and processing methods impact phytochemical expression and bioactive potency across multiple areas of human health for OFI’s black pepper estates and its U.S.-based garlic sources. All of Forager’s discoveries undergo in vitro validation, enabling risk reduction in the clinical trial process.
 
“Throughout OFI’s history, we’ve invested in plant science, identifying and developing quality varieties of black pepper and garlic for our customers,” Greg Estep, managing director and CEO of OFI’s spice business. “Spices are largely valued for flavor but should also be explored for health applications. These data insights will help us unlock the health potential and differentiation in our spice supply and fuel future innovation. OFI continues to invest in its broad product portfolio through our customer solutions and ingredient excellence centers.”
 
“We are thrilled to be working with OFI to drive consumer health conversations back to nature,” Sofia Elizondo, co-founder and CEO of Brightseed. “OFI has a strong black pepper footprint which provides Forager access to a range of cultivars with a view to developing a robust comparative model of bioactive potency and density. Brightseed is seeking to build the data and validation that food and health industries need to establish a foundation on the true value of plants for human health optimization.”