Using AI in the Food and Beverage Industry

Increasingly, stakeholders in the food and beverage industry are embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning  to excel in an increasingly competitive marketplace. AI enables a computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with human beings. Whether it’s the demand planning insights that AI can provide, or harnessing the power of AI to better understand the dynamics of flavour and taste, the food and beverage industry is leading the way. 

Food Logistics and Demand Planning

AI has lead the way in food and drinks production. From supply chain management, waste management, food safety compliance and demand planning, artificial intelligence is leading  the way. AI can be used to deliver ‘farm-to-fork’ products, driving sustainability and efficiency, whilst dramatically reducing waste. With ever increasing and demanding food regulations, supply chain management has become the leading priority for most food and beverage manufacturers. Demand planning software can monitor the whole length of the supply chain, make accurate predictions about future demand and track products from ‘farm-to-fork’; providing total transparency to all businesses who invest in the technology. 

Growing Better Food

In 2019 IBM became a surprise entrant to the food industry, when the company announced its partnership with seasonings maker McCormick to "explore flavor territories more quickly and efficiently using AI to learn and predict new flavor combinations", by collecting data from millions of data points. Today AI can work by responding to customer preferences and potentially provide improved nutrition and flavour. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have worked to illustrate how AI can ascertain the optimal growing conditions of various foods. According to Forbes, “AI could enable us to utilize vast datasets of detailed agricultural information for the improvement of our food crops, faster than ever before. Better standards and data collection are essential to enabling innovations in food”. And at the farming level, AI and machine learning can detect plant diseases and improve the health of soil. 

Furthermore, AI innovations such as virtual reality, 3D printing and robotics are being adopted by SME’s with great success. 

Helping Customers Choose

Interestingly, AI can also help food and beverage customers make better purchase decisions. In fact American multinational food manufacturing company Kellogg’s recently launched Bear Naked Custom, which allowed customers to create their own personalized granola. The system works by storing thousands of possible recipes and feeds them into an AI algorithm, which helped customers to know whether or not the ingredients will taste good together. Of course similar technology could be rolled out to any food products, in theory. 

For food and beverage stakeholders, investing in AI innovations will be the method by which they can thrive, scale and grow. Get in touch with Cashmere to learn more.