In the world of big food, artificial intelligence is nothing new.
McCormick , which owns brands including Frank's RedHot, Cholula and Old Bay, has been using AI in flavor development for nearly a decade, with the company saying its development timelines have been cut by 20% to 25%, on average, by identifying promising flavor combinations and narrowing down which ideas are worth testing in physical prototypes.
It's a similar story at Unilever , where AI is deeply embedded across food research & development, with systems able to test thousands of recipes digitally in seconds and get to viable concepts with fewer physical trials. Unilever's Knorr Fast & Flavourful Paste, as an example, was developed in roughly half the usual time. On the packaging side of the business, AI modeled how formulations behave in Hellmann's Easy-Out squeeze bottle — which the company says saved months of physical lab work.
All the way back in 2017, a team from Google Brain (which is now part of DeepMind) used AI to help create a recipe for the "perfect" chocolate chip cookie.
But even as AI is increasingly shaping how food companies decide what ends up on grocery store shelves, the food companies are quick to stress that AI is not taking over the kitchen.
"Human creativity and judgment lead the way, and AI is a tool to help us amplify our impact," said Annemarie Elberse, head of ecosystems, digital and data for foods R&D at Unilever.
"These tools help inspire our flavor scientists' creativity," Anju Rao, McCormick's chief science officer, told CNBC. Rao emphasized that AI functions as a co-creation tool, not a replacement for human expertise. "Our greatest asset will always be our people who bring global perspectives, flavor expertise and human creativity to the table," she said.
As a growing ecosystem of startups position AI as a way to approximate and predict sensory outcomes using large datasets to model how consumers might respond to new food products before they are physically tested, it's not clear how successful their efforts will be in cracking the code in the test kitchen. Companies including Zucca, Journey Foods, NielsenIQ, and AKA Foods market their platforms as "virtual sensory" or AI-powered systems designed to digitally screen recipes, suggest formulation changes, and predict consumer liking before physical prototypes are made.
These companies are promising much of what the food giants say they've been doing already: creating systems that can reduce the size of traditional taste panels, lower the risk of failed launches and compress product development cycles by identifying promising concepts earlier in the process. Industry analysts estimate the global market for artificial intelligence in food and beverages will grow from roughly $10 billion in 2025 to more than $50 billion by 2030, driven by rising investment in data-driven product development, automation, and personalization.
But some early food AI pioneers have already moved on. McCormick's early AI work was developed in partnership with IBM, which previously explored AI-driven food projects such as Chef Watson. An IBM spokesman said in a statement the company is "not actively focused in this area anymore."
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