AI has been proven to be helpful in many industries. Previously, the technology has introduced some creativity into food, in addition to fashion, art, cocktails, and dance.
"The computer doesn’t have some of the same biases we have," said Richard Goodwin, Principal Researcher and Manager of IBM's Computational Creativity Research Group.
And here, McCormick, the American food company that manufactures, markets, and distributes spices, seasoning mixes, condiments, and other flavoring products, started working with IBM Research to create new spices using artificial intelligence.
Among its early concoctions, include the Recipe Mix flavors, Tuscan Chicken, Bourbon Pork Tenderloin, New Orleans Sausage, and Cumin Pizza.
The AI learns from decades’ worth of data on spices provided by McCormick (around 5,000 different ingredients) to identify a base formula for a flavor category.
It also learns from marketing data and trend forecasts, including regions and customer demographics. This way Kosher, Halal, vegan or low sodium versions of products will taste similar o the originals.
The AI relies on a 5-step Stage Gate system to create flavor profiles for its various products: ideation, development, testing, scale up, commercialization and maintenance.
The IBM's algorithm drastically reduces ingredient testing time by two-thirds.
"A person just can’t deal with that," said Goodwin.
It began in October 2018, when IBM Research introduced a version of this technology, called the Philyra AI.
The technology was meant to accelerate the creation of new and novel scents for the fragrance industry.
"It is a system that uses new and advanced machine learning algorithms to sift through hundreds of thousands of formulas and thousands of raw materials," explained Goodwin at the time, "helping identify patterns and novel combinations."
It was first put into use when helping Symrise company to produce a pair of new perfumes for O Boticário, a global beauty company.
With McCormick having interest in the project, IBM repurposed the Philyra AI for spices.
When the news came out, the technology and the ingredients were still early in their testing phase. McCormick said that its products developed with this AI technology are aimed to hit the market by mid-2019.
