ProfilePrint Introduces a Mini Model for AI-Backed Coffee Analysis

A ProfilePrint Beluga and Mini Beluga on display in San Diego. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.

Ingredient tech company ProfilePrint has launched its smallest coffee analyzer yet, the Mini Beluga, alongside ProfilePrint Lite, a new tier of its cloud-based AI quality analysis platform targeting small and midsize coffee producers, exporters and roasters.

ProfilePrint showed the Mini Beluga and associated services at World of Coffee San Diego in April. (Read all of DCN’s World of Coffee San Diego coverage.)

More compact, portable and coffee-focused than ProfilePrint’s enterprise-level Beluga and Orca machines and service packages, the Mini Beluga uses sensors to collect a digital “molecular fingerprint” from an inserted sample in minutes. The data is automatically transmitted to the cloud, where ProfilePrint’s AI platform is designed to identify coffees by origin, detect defects and predict sensory and flavor attributes.

Drawing from a global database of more than 30,000 specialty coffee samples assessed by human Q Graders, ProfilePrint Lite reports include predicted SCA cupping scores, flavor notes and more.

Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.

The system also records coffee moisture content and other data over time, supporting comparisons between early samples and delivered shipments, annual lot differences and changes after storage in roasteries and warehouses, according to the company.

For producers and exporters, the system can quantify and share quality data with prospective customers while creating internal records. Roasters, meanwhile, can review digital sample data before committing to purchases. Roasters can also scan received shipments for comparison and verification, then continue scanning periodically while beans are in storage. That data can feed AI-generated suggestions for roast profile changes.

“ProfilePrint has always been focused on serving large enterprises and helping them quickly assess quality through our solution,” ProfilePrint Founder Alan Lai told Daily Coffee News. “But with the data and also the experience that we have built over the last seven to eight years, we are finally now able to not just downsize the analyzer to a size of about 1.3 kilograms, but also make it a lot more affordable with our plug-and-play models.”

Founded in Singapore in 2017, ProfilePrint offers AI-driven digital fingerprinting and analysis services for a range of food and agricultural products, with coffee among its core focuses.

Multinational agriculture trading companies including Louis Dreyfus, Ofi and Sucafina were among its early investors. Beyond coffee, tea, cocoa, grains and spices, ProfilePrint also analyzes oils, juices, dairy, sauces, pharmaceuticals and other products.

ProfilePrint’s first commercially deployed portable analyzer launched in 2019 and has since been followed by several iterations. The Beluga model, launched in 2023, is ProfilePrint’s fourth-generation enterprise machine.

In 2024, while announcing agreements with two of Brazil’s largest coffee exporters, Cooxupé and Minasul, ProfilePrint rolled out the higher-sensitivity Orca analyzer, which more than doubled Beluga’s data acquisition range. 

The Mini Beluga uses the same core molecular fingerprinting technology as the Beluga and Orca, differing mainly in form factor, price point and its paired platform. Lease pricing for the Mini Beluga and Lite platform starts at $300 per month.

ProfilePrint Co-Founder Alan Lai. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.

For customers without a device or subscription, ProfilePrint offers in-house scanning for green bean samples shipped to its Singapore headquarters or labs in China, Indonesia and Brazil. Pricing ranges from $9 to $15 per lot, depending on volume.

In May, ProfilePrint announced that it had attained ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification for its Artificial Intelligence Management System, offering independent, third-party assurance that its AI management system is governed by internationally recognized controls.

ProfilePrint plans to continue growing its scanning center network while expanding the Lite platform into new markets and product categories. The company is also developing plug-and-play analysis models based on additional assessment criteria, including the SCA Coffee Value Assessment , origin-specific grading systems and varying global market preferences.

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