Why AI is the Future of the Food Industry

AI has become increasingly trendy in many walks of life. This is no exception for foodservice and restaurants. But what is AI, and how is it playing a pivotal role in this industry? As it continues to gain popularity, these questions will be important to know the answer to. Especially if your hope is to incorporate this trend into a commercial kitchen. Understanding the pros and cons of AI is vital to ensure you can utilize it to your establishment’s advantage. 

How Can AI Be Used in the Food Industry?

AI stands for artificial intelligence. It is capable of doing incredible things at your command to make operations more efficient and provide you with the information you seek. How does this work in foodservice, though? The following are just some of the possibilities of how AI can provide for your business:

• Identify food trends – Doing research on trends can be a time-consuming task. Rather than spend hours searching for food and flavor trends, AI can do the research  and supply a list to help you come up with new menu ideas.

• Inventory management – AI is capable of automating inventory management, so you don’t have to sit down and pour over spreadsheets yourself. 

• Chatbots – If your website offers a chat for customer support, then AI could definitely be the resource you need. AI is able to hold conversations with users and fulfill the role of a chatbot.

• Taking orders – Since AI can be conversational, it can also handle collecting orders from customers. Even via the drive-thru. This feature can help with efficiency by letting staff stay focused on fulfilling the orders while AI handles the collection of them. 

• Equipment improvements – Commercial kitchen equipment can also benefit deeply from AI features. The National Restaurant Association show in 2023 showcased many units with such features for their kitchen innovation award winners. One such unit included the Convosense ConvoTherm, which uses AI to fully automate combi oven cooking. This is only a scratch of the surface of what AI can do for equipment. 

• Content planning – Having social media for your restaurant or other foodservice business is vital to growing your customer base. AI is able to help you plan topics for blogs, videos and social posts.

• Safety management – Tracking everything from expiration dates, inspection notes and more can become overwhelming. Thankfully, AI can also take over that for a foodservice business. 

AI Benefits in Commercial Kitchen Equipment

We mentioned that the Convosense ConvoTherm is only a scratch of the surface for equipment AI features. Artificial intelligence can be incorporated into kitchen equipment in many ways, though. The following are just a few more AI features that currently have been explored:

• Autonomous merchandisers – With labor shortages and more, finding someone to man a cash register has become very difficult. Merchandisers can, thankfully, be completely unmanned thanks to AI. It provides automation to let customers make purchases for merchandisers without staff having to be there to ring them up. 

• Cooking automation – Everything from sensing the loaded product and  starting the best cooking program to frying food without the need for human intervention, AI is making cooking a breeze so staff can stay focused on the customers instead. 

• Quality assurance – Human error is a common occurrence. However, AI can monitor product to ensure quality and consistency every time. 

What are the Risks of AI in the Food Industry?

AI isn’t always perfect. As a new emerging trend, it, of course, has growing pains that must be worked out. Thankfully, they can be avoided with proper QAing by humans to prevent errors. AI cannot completely eliminate the need for human staff. However, there are many who fear jobs could be taken due to AI advancements. 

There is also a major concern for security and even copyright with AI. Open AI is able to pour through pages of the internet to collect data. This means published materials can be copied and, without proper review from a human, can be stolen without credit to the original source. Thus, the emphasized need for  human intervention.

As for security concerns, AI can gather and store sensitive information. It’s vital to have proper security measures in place and avoid feeding such software proprietary information to fight against data breaches. 

All in all, AI is incredibly trendy, even in the foodservice industry. It can help fight against labor shortages, improve business efficiency and provide groundbreaking features to commercial kitchen equipment. However, it doesn’t come without risks that need to be fully assessed.