Dr. Riza Batista Navarro and her team have developed a cutting edge AI powered carbon analysis algorithm, Forkprint, to reveal the climate impact of food choices. With TerraCipher, they transformed their prototype into a hosted, market-ready API in just two weeks — accelerating commercial readiness and real-world sustainability impact.
When Dr Riza Batista-Navarro and her team at the University of Manchester set out to create Carbon Forkprint, their goal was simple but ambitious: help people understand the carbon impact of the food they eat. Their algorithm could calculate the footprint of a recipe in seconds — identifying which ingredients drove the most emissions, and how to swap them for better alternatives.
But like many research teams, they faced a familiar challenge: how do you take a promising research model and turn it into something people can actually use?
The team had a powerful prototype — a Chrome extension, mobile app, and a working algorithm — but limited time and resources to figure out the commercial pathway. Was the opportunity in consumer sustainability apps? Food-service analytics? Ingredient-sourcing platforms? And how could their code be shared securely with others without needing to build and maintain infrastructure?
That’s where TerraCipher stepped in.
Together, we worked with Dr Batista-Navarro’s team to test their assumptions, validate demand across potential market segments, and identify who valued Carbon Forkprint the most. Through structured interviews, market mapping, and rapid customer discovery, the team uncovered a clear opportunity: business-to-business sustainability analytics, where companies were already looking for precise, accessible carbon-impact data on ingredients and recipes.
Once the pathway was clear, the next step was getting the technology into the hands of potential partners. Using TerraCipher’s ShaipUp hosting platform, the Carbon Forkprint algorithm was fully containerised, secured, and deployed within two weeks — transforming it from a research prototype into a live, discoverable API. The listing went live on the TerraCipher Marketplace, making it instantly accessible to industry collaborators and data partners for integration and testing.
Today, Carbon Forkprint stands as a model for how research can make real-world impact:
For the team, the project proved that research doesn’t have to end at publication. With the right digital infrastructure and guidance, it can become something that scales — informing the choices of businesses, policymakers, and everyday eaters who want to make more sustainable decisions.
Carbon Forkprint is now live on the TerraCipher Marketplace — helping others measure, compare, and improve the sustainability of what’s on their plate.