WHITE PLAINS, NY. — Danone North America has teamed up with biosciences company Brightseed to unlock new health benefits from plants. The partnership will see Brightseed leverage its artificial intelligence platform to profile health benefits in key plant-based ingredients, beginning with soy.

“Brightseed’s artificial intelligence technology gives us deep insight into the plant kingdom, finds nutrients that we know are important for promoting health and accelerates the validation of these findings,” said Takoua Debeche, senior vice president of research and innovation at Danone North America. “As a leader in plant-based food and beverages, Danone North America values external partnerships that can help us improve and optimize the taste, texture and nutritional aspects of our products, and contribute to our biodiversity vision.”

The partnership comes at a moment when health and wellness are at the forefront of the consumer mindset and demand for plant-based food is skyrocketing, Danone said.

Brightseed already has begun identifying new molecular connections between certain compounds present in Danone’s raw soy and newfound health benefits previously unlinked to the whole food ingredient. The company indexes phytonutrients (the small molecules produced by plants that positively impact health) using its AI platform, validates findings in clinical and biological trials and works with companies to commercialize proprietary discoveries.

Less than 1% of existing phytonutrients have been identified or studied, Brightseed said, despite their prevalence in diets and traditional usage worldwide.

“We’re at the tipping point of significantly activating food for health and wellness,” said Sofia Elizondo, cofounder and chief operating officer at Brightseed. “We’re thrilled to be working with Danone North America as they are equally committed to bringing health through food. Danone North America also believes in the important role that high quality, nutrient-rich diets play in supporting human health, while delivering across brands and products that consumers trust and love.”