ITHACA, N.Y. — It began as a Cornell classroom project and has blossomed into student startup company. Now, the National Science Foundation has awarded a nearly $1 million small-business grant to Antithesis Foods for its novel invention to make healthy snack foods and crunchy ingredients from chickpeas and other legumes – all low-calorie, high-fiber and high-protein.
The funding advances a nutrient-dense, crunchy ingredient to get healthier snacks such as graham crackers, cereals, chips, granola and cookies on supermarket shelves.
Founded by Ashton Yoon, MPS ’17, M.S. ’19 and Jason Goodman, Ph.D. ’21, the funding allows Antithesis Foods – supported by Cornell’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement programs and mentors – to continue scaling its legume-based dough innovation.
The company is rooted in a Cornell food science class, “Concepts of Food Product Development,” then taught by Ali Abbaspourrad, the Youngkeun Joh Assistant Professor of Food Chemistry and Ingredient Technology in the College of Agriculture and Life Science, who assigned the students to form groups and create a product based on a current food trend.
This team developed a chocolate-covered treat – very similar to malt balls – from chickpeas, which later became Grabanzos, the company’s first product.
Once the recipe was improved, Antithesis Foods joined eLab, Cornell’s student business accelerator, to explore the market and create a business plan, and earned an NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award.
During the Phase I project, Antithesis developed their technology into a legume ingredient platform. Their second consumer product, Protos, was developed from this research and launched in January 2022.
This recent $1 million NSF SBIR Phase II award, given in March, will help the company expand.
“As a startup, it’s difficult to take on too much risk, as you don’t get the luxury of failing too many times,” Yoon said. “This NSF award gives us the latitude to take on the high-risk process of expanding our production capacity to levels needed to get our healthier ingredients into the market in a big way.”
On the NSF Phase II grant, the Cornell food science faculty members advising Antithesis Foods are Olga Padilla-Zakour, professor of food processing, who now teaches the product development class; Syed Rizvi, professor of food engineering; and Abbaspourrad.
–Cornell Chronicle