Molinos Río de la Plata to Acquire NotCo’s Plant-Based Business in Argentina & Uruguay
Molinos Río de la Plata, Argentina’s largest branded food company, has agreed to purchase 100% of Chilean AI-led plant-based food firm NotCo’s operations in Argentina and Uruguay.
NotCo’s transition from a CPG-focused plant-based innovator to an AI-led product development enabler has accelerated with a new acquisition deal.
The Chilean food tech unicorn has agreed to sell its entire business in Argentina and Uruguay to Buenos Aires-based Molinos Río de la Plata for an undisclosed sum.
Owned by the Perez Companc Group, Molinos is Argentina’s largest branded food company and dates back nearly 125 years. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals, but is an extension of the food processor’s strategy to diversify into new categories to win over younger consumers.
NotCo, best known for its NotMilk line of dairy-free alternatives and a joint venture with The Kraft Heinz Company, has been divesting its consumer-facing business to instead double down on its B2B tech licensing platform.
“With the help of Molinos, NotCo begins a new stage to continue with the legacy and enhance everything built in these years, go further and continue improving people’s lives through food,” the firm said in a LinkedIn post.
How NotCo leveraged AI to become a food tech unicorn
NotCo originated in Chile in 2015 with a plant-based milk that promised to close the taste gap with dairy using ingredients like pea protein, coconut oil, and cabbage and pineapple concentrates.
The product was built on its proprietary AI platform, titled Giuseppe, which analysed the molecular structure of animal proteins to identify the most suitable combination of plant-based ingredients that could replicate their flavour, texture, and functionality.
It’s designed to complement the work of food scientists, chefs, and product developers, from concept creation all the way to the final version of the formula.
“[Ingredient] combinations are almost infinite, right? So you need an AI that guides you through the process of creating the prototype of the formula,” co-founder and CTO Karim Pichara told Green Queen last year.
The AI system enabled NotCo to dramatically slash product development timelines and costs, with the firm unveiling a wide suite of plant-based alternatives in markets across the Americas, including burgers, breaded chicken, chorizo, protein bars, cheese, mayo, ice creams, and even a GLP-1 booster.
Its strong technology base garnered the attention of investors like Jeff Bezos, with the company raising more than $400M over the years and crossing a $1B valuation to achieve unicorn status.
NotCo divests from CPG to dig deep into tech licensing platform
As adoption of plant-based food slowed and investment in AI skyrocketed, NotCo has been pivoting to firmly position itself as a tech company.
It had formed a joint venture with Kraft Heinz in the US and Canada, producing animal-free alternatives to classics like the blue-box mac and cheese, and Oscar Mayer hot dogs. It has since handed over its business in the two countries to the CPG giant.
Recently, NotCo appears to have shut its original website, too, replacing it with one for its NotCo AI division. It has been working with some of the world’s largest food companies – think Nestlé, Barry Callebaut, PepsiCo, Mars, and Mondelēz International, among others.
Now, the company is accelerating its strategic shift with the Molinos deal. “For NotCo, this is tremendous proof that the path was, and more than ever is, the right one,” co-founder and CEO Matias Muchnick said in a LinkedIn post.
For Molinos, the acquisition represents a move into new territories at a time when meat consumption is on the decline in countries like Argentina, with beef intake alone at an all-time low. And despite low awareness, there’s a strong willingness among these consumers to adopt plant-based meat.
The deal will help Molinos boost its presence in the plant-based food and functional nutrition category, and complement its frozen food business. NotCo’s suite of products, meanwhile, will benefit from the Perez Companc Group-owned company’s vast and well-established manufacturing and distribution network.
“The addition of NotCo Foods represents an opportunity to further strengthen our innovation capacity and keep pace with evolving consumer preferences,” said Molinos CEO Agustín Llanos.
The transaction is part of a larger consolidation trend in the alternative protein industry. Since September 2024, over 70 companies in the space have been acquired or bought out, merged, fallen into insolvency, or shut down altogether.
The development comes a month after Chile’s Supreme Court ended a five-year legal battle between NotCo and the local dairy industry, allowing the former to keep using the name ‘NotMilk’ but instructing it to remove the word ‘milk’ and any related imagery from its packaging.