AI is one of the three accelerator technologies driving the future of food. One of the new applications is Digital Twin of a Consumer technology by Foodpairing® to predict how much consumers will like flavour combinations they’ve never tasted before. If it can be successful then it’s a breakthrough in food product development. Far too many products fail in market despite often rigorous research.
According to Foodpairing it’s 90% of new food products that fail in their first year. Imagine the time, money and effort that goes into these failed products! Improving the success rate of new product introductions would not only help manufacturers but save consumers lost time and money.
According to Pairwise CEO Johan Langenbick, a big advantage of this DToC apparoach is that, “in a real world, you can maybe do one or two consumer tests, using the digital twin we can search the complete flavour space for the most liked products. This search can come up with very surprising flavour combinations.” Consumers can then benefit from novel flavour combinations. Chocolate and chicken anyone? (Apparently “a classic combo in Mexico”) Another unusual combo developed by the company was a strawberry bell pepper and chocolate drink for 7-Eleven.
How could this be applied to develop novel plantbased flavours and products? It’s time plantbased products became a category in their own right, not merely “mimics”.
Ai is entering the Food industry in an enormous number of ways, rapidly accelerating the Future of Food.