KANSAS CITY — Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in product development, with applications ranging from optimizing formulations to improving food production processes and enhancing the nutritional profiles of products.

Adoption of AI in business has doubled since 2017, according to a McKinsey Global Survey, with 50% to 60% of organizations reporting using it during the past few years.

Several food and beverage companies are actively using AI to develop new products, improve existing ones and optimize production processes. The integration of AI in the industry is helping companies innovate in areas such as flavor, sustainability, personalized nutrition and quality control.

AI is being used to monitor and analyze social media, online reviews and consumer feedback to predict food trends and gauge consumer sentiment. By analyzing consumer reactions, companies can identify emerging tastes, dietary preferences or food fads, and respond quickly with new products that align with the trends.

Mining billions of consumer preference data points helps food manufacturers and ingredient suppliers take trendspotting to a new level. Platforms such as Tastewise, New York, use AI to analyze consumer data and predict emerging food trends, helping food brands and restaurants innovate according to market demand. Tastewise’s TasteGPT, for example, can create surveys by scouring the internet for consumer data, providing companies with insights into whether a new product will be successful.

“(We’re) capable of doing things that we couldn’t do three years ago, we couldn’t do five years ago, because technology has moved on,” Tom Hadwen, global away from home director, Kraft Heinz, said at the Tastewise summit in London in 2023. “We can understand now what’s happening market by market. And that’s something that we started to do. We started to understand the trends (much) earlier so we can own what’s happening in the market.”

In 2022, The Kraft Heinz Co., Chicago, and food tech startup TheNotCompany, Inc. (NotCo), New York, formed a joint venture to innovate and advance toward more sustainable food production.

Source: The Kraft Heinz Company

The joint venture leverages NotCo’s AI solutions with Kraft Heinz’s portfolio to develop plant-based versions of co-branded products more rapidly than conventional product development methods.

Using its AI technology and an agile approach to innovation, NotCo made progress in addressing consumer needs to develop plant-based replacements for animal-based products. Kraft Heinz said the joint venture with NotCo was a step in the transformation of its portfolio, helping it deliver on the company’s vision to offer more clean and green products for consumers.

The collaboration led to the development of plant-based dairy alternatives Kraft NotCheese Slices and NotMac&Cheese.

“When we started NotCo, it was our goal to make our technology a catalyzer for a more sustainable food system not only for us, but for other brands and manufacturers who share the same ambition,” said Matias Muchnick, co-founder and chief executive officer of NotCo. “(This) is an exciting milestone for the plant-based industry and shows the power of technology’s role in driving mainstream adoption.”

The Campbell’s Co. also is embracing AI in food and beverage product development. The company is doing this by tracking and curating billions of data points to find inspiration, and leveraging agile design methods to accelerate the development of new products that resonate with consumers.

Health-focused innovation

AI helps food companies develop health-focused products, such as functional foods intended to enhance immunity, reduce inflammation or support gut health. By analyzing large datasets of food, health outcomes and consumer behavior, AI platforms can predict the effectiveness of certain ingredients in achieving health benefits and generate product ideas that meet growing consumer demand for functional and health-conscious food.

AI also can predict the optimal combination of ingredients for a particular health benefit, such as improving digestion or boosting brain function. The technology can analyze individual dietary preferences, genetic data, and health goals like weight loss, muscle gain or managing chronic conditions to develop personalized food products. By tailoring a formulation of foods to individual needs, AI helps create customized nutrition plans or functional foods, such as snacks, supplements or meals that meet specific health requirements.

Nestle, Vevey, Switzerland, is working with January AI’s digital twin technology as it considers AI for product innovation, such as personalized nutrition for those with special considerations such as diabetes.

The food industry has the potential to enhance the taste and texture of food, as well as its glycemic impact on the body, by using its digital twin capabilities, according to January AI, Menlo Park, Calif.

“The fastest bucket to get is really around digitizing marketing and sales,” Nestle chief financial officer Anna Manz said while speaking during a presentation at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference in September. “In the old world, we did focus groups. In the new world, we have an AI virtual consumer that we can test a lot more against, much more quickly. There’s significant efficiencies that we’re already liberating using data and AI in a very different way.”

January AI is a metabolic health platform that acquires and uses data to help consumers and food manufacturers better understand how specific foods and ingredients may impact a person’s health.

A collaboration between Mars, Inc., McLean, Va., and January AI is intended to unlock information to guide product formulation and positively affect public health at the same time. The project will use January AI’s tools and the company’s R&D capabilities to predict responses to a range of different foods and formulations, said Darren Logan, PhD, vice president of research, Mars.

For those who are prediabetic or who already have diabetes, it means being able to identify trends and patterns in the data and use them to determine healthier food options.

Consumer response

AI also may be used to analyze the sensory aspects of food, such as taste, smell, texture and appearance. Through machine learning, AI may predict how a consumer will respond to a product based on the factors, helping companies fine-tune flavors or textures to maximize consumer acceptance. AI may also simulate how different ingredients interact to create the desired sensory profile, which will accelerate product development.

French dairy company the Bel Group announced in 2023 it entered into a partnership with Climax Foods, Berkeley, Calif., an AI-driven food startup. The collaboration seeks to harness AI to develop plant-based alternatives to traditional dairy products that offer the same taste, mouthfeel and nutritional profile as their animal-based counterparts.

AI’s role in food development is expanding, from formulating new products, to optimizing production processes and creating personalized food solutions. As food innovation continues to evolve, AI helps companies meet changing consumer preferences, drive sustainability, and improve food safety and quality. Ultimately, AI is shaping a future in which food products are healthier, more sustainable and more tailored to individual needs.