Supermarket Perimeter - October 2024 - 62

Technology: AI
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From decades to two years
By Donna Berry
WHAT FORMERLY TOOK DECADES or even
longer can be shortened to about two years
with help from artificial intelligence (AI),
according to Nora Khaldi, chief executive
officer, Nuritas, Dublin, Ireland. The " what "
is new food ingredients, and AI is the tool to
create healthier, safer and more sustainable
food systems.
Khaldi was part of a panel discussion on AI at
IFT FIRST, the annual event of the Institute
of Food Technologists. She explained how
the current way of producing food needs to
be updated, and quickly, in order to save the
planet and feed the growing population.
" The modern food system is unhealthy
and old, " Khaldi said. " It's because of the
ingredients being used in these foods. These
foods were built for taste and cost, they
weren't built for nutrition. "
She said that over the past few years, she
observed how the food industry is stuck.
That's because, in order to develop new
ingredients that are cost-effective, tasteneutral
and healthy, it is expensive and can
take decades. With AI, it can be less than
two years, and that two years includes
developing and commercializing the
ingredient, along with clinical studies and
regulatory requirements.
62 - OCTOBER 2024
" We use it [AI] to discover new ingredients
for the food space in a fraction of the time, "
Khaldi said. " Both discriminative AI, which
is being able to recognize a molecule from
another one or a function from another, as
well as generative AI. These are the types of
ingredients that the industry likes, how can
we create something that's better but like it.
It's all about creating new ingredients with
old information that AI has been given.
" You have to teach the AI with data, " she
said. " Then the AI becomes independent and
can generate. "
To create new ingredients, one must
understand human biology, Khaldi said. AI
speeds that process up and helps humans
better understand ingredients and the foods
they are in, and subsequently, the effect
they have on the body.
Using AI, Nuritas was able to launch
PeptiStrong, which is a peptide designed to
promote muscle health.
" It's an ingredient that would have taken 30
million years to discover through traditional
ways, " said Khaldi. " Through AI, we can
shorten that down to two years. "
supermarketperimeter.com
Asch Harwood, vice president, data
and Insights, ReFED, Long Island, N.Y.,
moderated the panel. He explained that,
" AI will help make best use of the foods we
produce. " But he cautioned that AI should
not be just about doing AI. It should actually
address why and what you're trying to
achieve. It's important to have a goal.
You need to know what business problem
you are solving, said Ramesh Kollepara, vice
president and global chief technology officer,
Kellanova, Chicago. To use AI effectively,
you need lots of data, but it also has to be
good data, and AI is only as useful as the
information it is fed.
" Be obsessive with the quality of the data, "
Kollepara said. " AI and generative AI are
going to really amplify any quality issues
within the data you have.
" Because Artificial Intelligence can almost
mimic a human, it can actually bring bias, "
Kollepara said. " We need to be conscious of
the bias, and we need to monitor and tune
generative AI differently. "
Justin Honaman, head, worldwide retail and
consumer goods go-to-market at Amazon,
Atlanta, said, " The technology is moving
faster than people can keep up with. "
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