SEATTLE — AAK, a specialty oils and fats company, and Arzeda, a protein design company, have entered into a joint development agreement to accelerate the innovation of plant-based oils for the food industry through the application of novel enzymes. The collaboration will seek to use Arzeda’s technology platform to optimize proteins to further enhance the sustainability profile of AAK’s plant-based edible oils while potentially uncovering production efficiencies.

Seattle-based Arzeda combines computational design and artificial intelligence (AI) to create novel proteins that cannot evolve within nature.

“AAK is thrilled to work with Arzeda to address one of the food industry’s most pressing issues, sustainable plant-based edible oils,” said Karsten Nielsen, chief technology officer of AAK, Malmö, Sweden. “We are confident that their full-stack technology platform, spanning AI-based design to enzyme manufacturing, can help accelerate our innovation efforts in biotechnology.