PIPA launches Digital Extruder platform to connect formulation and production in food manufacturing

Davis, California-based artificial intelligence company PIPA has announced the launch of its Digital Extruder platform, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution designed to help food manufacturers optimize product development by linking formulation, processing, and product outcomes more effectively.

The platform is part of the company’s broader PIPA Operating System (OS), a suite of tools intended to accelerate product innovation in the food and nutrition sector. The Digital Extruder combines artificial intelligence, food science, and simulation tools to model the impact of various ingredients and processing conditions on key attributes such as taste, texture, and nutritional quality.

According to PIPA, the tool was developed to bridge traditionally siloed disciplines – formulation, manufacturing processes, and consumer experience – by providing food scientists and manufacturers with a digital twin of extrusion-based processing. The system simulates a wide range of processing scenarios using models built from computational fluid dynamics, food chemistry, and machine learning.

“PIPA OS is a step towards a paradigm shift in food product development,” said Chris Stamelos, Chief Technology Officer at PIPA. “By testing thousands of scenarios in seconds, we enable our partners to rapidly innovate and co-create products that drive consumer liking, focused on affordability, palatability, and health. In today’s volatile market, agility is key, and the PIPA OS provides the tools to achieve that.”

The platform is currently focused on applications in snacks, confectionery, and pet food, with extrusion as the initial processing area. The extrusion process – used to create a wide range of shelf-stable products – presents complex interactions between ingredient functionality, heat, pressure, and shear. By simulating these interactions, Digital Extruder is intended to reduce reliance on costly trial-and-error processes typically used in new product development.

The tool allows product developers to visualize the relationship between input variables and final product attributes. These include not only nutritional outcomes but also factors such as moisture retention, crispness, and shelf stability. With this data, companies can refine their formulations and processing conditions before physical prototyping.

Dimitris Sfondilis, who served as Technical Lead for the project, emphasized the importance of incorporating core food science principles into the artificial intelligence models. “Applied cutting-edge AI is not sufficient when it comes to a complex system such as food manufacturing,” he said. “By embedding core food science knowledge into agentic AI, we have created a platform that helps product development in a way that is faster, better, and cheaper than before.”

Early versions of the platform have already been deployed in collaboration with several consumer packaged goods companies, according to PIPA. These partners are using the system to support R&D initiatives, particularly for extruded snack products. Early adopters have reported a reduction in the time required for R&D cycles, improved sustainability due to more efficient use of ingredients, and less batch-to-batch variability through better control of process parameters.

PIPA has positioned the Digital Extruder as part of a broader strategy to offer what it calls 'Enterprise Intelligence' – the integration of AI and scientific modeling with business workflows in the food and nutrition sectors. The company states that it is continuing to expand the platform’s capabilities to cover other types of food processing such as baking and fermentation, with future applications under development.