The Bezos Earth Fund has awarded a $2 million grant to the University of California, Davis, the American Heart Association, and their partners to advance the development of “Swap it Smart,” an AI-powered recipe formulation tool. The project is part of the Earth Fund’s AI for Climate & Nature Grand Challenge and aims to revolutionize food design by optimizing recipes for taste, nutrition, cost, and environmental impact. The funding will support research focused on reimagining food for both human and planetary health.
Swap it Smart is being developed by scientists at UC Davis in collaboration with the Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI), an entity of RF Catalytic Capital co-managed by the American Heart Association and the Alliance of Bioversity CIAT, and developed by The Rockefeller Foundation. The initiative provides standardized tools and data to analyze global food biodiversity, supporting innovations that improve nutrition and sustainability.
Researchers envision AI not only as a tool for analyzing food but for redesigning it. According to UC Davis professor and project co-lead Ilias Tagkopoulos, the team hopes to leverage AI and computational science to create foods that promote health and sustainability without compromising on flavor or affordability. Co-lead Justin Siegel emphasized that the goal is to make Swap it Smart accessible to everyone—from farmers to home cooks—enabling them to create new, nutritious, and eco-friendly foods.
The PTFI’s extensive database forms the foundation of this innovation, offering molecular data on thousands of foods. Combining this data with AI can reveal new ingredient combinations and sustainable substitutes that maintain taste and nutrition. Currently, the PTFI’s data covers over 400,000 proteins and 27,000 bioactive compounds from 500 commonly consumed foods. UC Davis, as the North American Center of Excellence for the PTFI, focuses on analyzing these molecules to understand their health and environmental effects.
The project’s multidisciplinary approach integrates five sustainability pillars—environment, nutrition, health, socioeconomic factors, and sensory quality—into a unified AI framework. Partner organizations include the USDA’s AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems, the UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health, PIPA, and Verso Biosciences. Together, they aim to create a powerful platform capable of designing healthier and more sustainable foods.
According to The Rockefeller Foundation’s John de la Parra, this collaboration bridges cutting-edge food science with real-world applications. By translating molecular food data into actionable tools, the initiative aspires to create recipes and food products that nourish people while supporting planetary well-being.
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