NotCo Expands Beyond Plant-Based With Magnum Ice Cream Partnership

As consumer interest in better-for-you ingredients deepens alongside the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and supply chains continue to be upended by trade wars and climate-related challenges – the ice cream sector is the latest to embrace AI to mitigate the business impact.

Today, Unilever spinoff The Magnum Ice Cream Company (TMICC) announced a new partnership with AI-driven food innovation company NotCo. The news marks the Chile-headquartered NotCo’s first branded venture beyond its plant-based roots, broadening the visibility of its platform’s applications for all flavors of innovation.

“Today’s consumers are looking for indulgent products that also balance evolving priorities around portion sizes, nutrition, sustainability, flavor, format and ingredients,” said Zbigniew Lewicki, chief research, design and innovation officer at TMICC, in a statement. “From calorie efficiency to plant-based innovation and navigating rising commodity costs, there are complex challenges that require new tools.”

The new partnership with TMICC will encompass both all aspects of innovation from “nutrition, sustainability, flavor, format, and ingredients” while developing “new product formats and nutritional profiles,” NotCo said. TMICC is composed of brands such as Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s, Wall’s and Cornetto and generated €7.9 billion (USD$9.3 billion) in 2024 revenue, offering a substantial opportunity for NotCo to broaden the scale of its technology.

The news comes just months after the indulgent frozen treat entity was officially spun off amid Unilever’s demerger; TMICC’s brands bring a nearly 160-year old combined legacy to the newly-formed unit, which began operating as a standalone business in July and is expected to be listed as a public company in November.

NotCo was founded in 2015 as a plant-based food and beverage innovation platform, beginning with prototypes of its own branded products, such as NotMilk, before going deep on a partnership model. NotCo co-founder and CEO Matias Muchnick previously told Nosh the company aims to operate like Coca-Cola, licensing its tech to CPG companies that then create co-branded products in a structure similar to the soda giant’s bottling and manufacturing model.

In 2022, NotCo launched a joint venture with The Kraft Heinz Company, producing a slate of plant-based iterations of the company’s leading products like NotKraft Mac & Cheese and NotMayo. It has since expanded its partnership portfolio to include other large conglomerates such as Ferrero, Coca-Cola, Mondelez, Grupo Bimbo and PepsiCo.

“We are excited for this next chapter with TMICC to overcome their most complex growth and innovation challenges,” the food tech company told Nosh via email. “At NotCo, the focus has shifted to providing its AI capabilities to help companies solve a wider variety of complex challenges, not just those related to plant-based alternatives.”

NotCo’s tech has broadened its reach at a time large conglomerates are under intense pressure to revisit formulations. The company claims its platform has already spanned a wide range of applications, from creating egg-free custards for Shake Shack, to innovating cocoa-free chocolate and finding alternative fruit flavors for chewing gum.

Muchnick told Reuters its AI platform, known as Guiseppe, can help companies replace artificial dyes, cut sugar content and quickly innovate against the next viral flavor. NotCo also claims it can develop products in a fraction of the time that is standard in the industry, cutting the process which has previously ranged from six months to multiple years down, to only a month or two on average.

“Our partnership with NotCo is helping us explore how AI can accelerate our ability to respond to these shifts, unlocking smarter ways to innovate without compromising the quality and experience people expect from our ice cream brands, as well as expanding beyond traditional boundaries of ice cream,” Lewicki said.