Savor partners with Helios AI to assess climate risks in fat and oil supply chains

Savor has partnered with commodity intelligence company Helios AI to help food manufacturers assess climate risks in their fat and oil supplies and consider carbon-derived alternatives as part of their sourcing plans.

• Savor partnered with Helios AI to assess conventional fat supply risks.
• The agreement combined commodity forecasting with carbon-derived ingredients.
• The companies planned a webinar and case study.

Announced on October 27, the agreement makes Savor a customer of Helios AI, whose platform forecasts climate, price and supply disruption across more than 80 commodities in over 100 countries. Savor will use its intelligence to quantify risks in conventional fat supply chains and help customers identify where they are most exposed.

“For a long time, the cost of a chocolate bar or a croissant has depended on the weather in a handful of places most consumers will never see,” said Kathleen Alexander, Co-founder and CEO of Savor. “Helios AI gives food companies an early, specific read on that exposure and our job is to give them a supply that isn’t exposed to it in the first place.”

Savor produces fats and oils directly from carbon without conventional plant or animal agriculture. Through the partnership, it intends to combine information about the location and timing of potential supply disruption with an alternative source of ingredients that does not depend on a particular growing region.

The companies pointed to the geographic concentration of several commodities used in chocolate, baked goods, coatings and fillings. According to the announcement, two countries supply roughly 87% of the world’s traded palm oil, leaving manufacturers vulnerable when unfavorable weather affects those production areas.

Recent price movements illustrate the consequences for buyers. Helios AI data cited by Savor showed cocoa prices rising from about US$2,100 per metric ton in mid-2022 to nearly US$13,000 by the end of 2024, approximately a sixfold increase in less than two and a half years.

The same data indicated that crude palm oil prices had risen 54% since 2023, while palm kernel oil, a lauric fat used in coatings and fillings, had more than doubled.

Although cocoa prices subsequently fell about 50% from their peak and palm oil prices stabilized, the companies said the climate risks associated with the earlier increases remained. They argued that lower prices could give buyers an opportunity to review their exposure before another disruption affected supplies.

“Our work is turning climate complexity into supply chain foresight, showing food companies where the system is under strain before it reaches their shelves,” said Francisco Martin-Rayo, Co-founder & CEO of Helios AI.

“Savor is building one of the answers to that strain. Pairing our intelligence with their approach puts the risk and the response in front of buyers in one place.”

El Niño was among the risks identified in the announcement. In its October 8 assessment, the US Climate Prediction Center said the weather pattern was strengthening, with a strong to very strong event likely to continue through January to March 2027. The agency cautioned that associated weather impacts were more likely, rather than guaranteed.

Savor said the delayed response of oil palm and cocoa trees to weather conditions meant the effects could extend into the 2027 harvest. The company also identified aging trees, delayed replanting and a reduction in suitable growing areas as pressures on future supplies.

Helios AI’s forecasts, as described in the announcement, did not anticipate a return to pre-2022 prices within the period modeled. The announcement did not specify the length of that forecast period.

For manufacturers, the intended application is to examine exposure by commodity, region and timing, then use those findings to inform purchasing decisions. Savor said customers would receive an earlier indication of where their fat supplies were most vulnerable and could consider replacing some of those volumes with its carbon-derived ingredients.

The company described the economics of its alternative supply as being tied to its production process rather than weather conditions in agricultural regions. The partnership announcement did not include comparative ingredient prices or disclose supply volumes associated with the collaboration.

Helios AI said its platform combines more than 40,000 US Department of Agriculture reports, over 500 billion climate and pricing signals, and more than 80 crop-specific artificial intelligence and machine learning models.

The system is designed to forecast price movements and supply availability for procurement, sourcing and sustainability teams at food manufacturers, retailers and commodity trading companies. Its investors include W23 Global, Collide Capital and Supply Change Capital.

Savor and Helios AI plan to present further work from the partnership through a webinar and a subsequent case study. Dates and details of the applications to be covered were not included in the announcement.

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