Trendspotting: Kerry-IBM artificial intelligence tool “detects food trends at their genesis”

20 Nov 2019 --- Kerry Group and IBM recently launched a predictive artificial intelligence (AI) tool to forecast future trends in food and beverage and guide the development of winning consumer-preferred products. Kerry Trendspotter taps into large scale unstructured data to understand consumer behavior and anticipate future consumer needs. The tool enables real-time analysis of food-related social media content by digesting vast amounts of textual data quickly and securely. Then by extracting food items and cataloging food-related combinations, it can predict the trending food, ingredient and flavor candidates likely to go mainstream in the near future.

Built with a proprietary algorithm designed by industry experts and in partnership with IBM Watson, this pioneering AI tool is designed to reduce the risk of costly failures and increase the probability of success.

Built on the IBM public cloud, it analyses food-related social media content in real-time and digests vast amounts of textual data quickly. IBM Cloud infrastructure powers the processing, automatically reading and processing millions of consumer-generated posts on social media.

By identifying and detecting food trends at their genesis, Kerry’s chefs, food scientists and flavor experts can collaborate with key customers to craft differentiated yet relevant solutions as well as launch first-to-market products with less lead time, capitalizing on trends before their competitors via Kerry’s integrated sourcing and development capabilities, notes Kerry.

“Through the Kerry Trendspotter tool, our objective is to support our APMEA customers with a platform designed to read and analyze millions of data points in order to extract and surface food and beverage items that resonate with consumers and are likely to become breakout trends,” says Avinash Lal, Market Research & Insights Director, Kerry APMEA.

“The tool uses custom AI and Natural Language Processing in combination with predictive algorithms to generate results which are more accurate and remove subjectivity from decision making. All this is in a fraction of the time it would take to do primary research, thus reducing customers’ product development time.”

All this is in a fraction of the time it would take to do primary research, thus reducing customers product development time,” he adds.

Kerry’s key objective is to help its customer focus on those emerging trends which have the greater chance of success in the market that they operate, notes Parth Patel, Vice President, Marketing and Strategic Planning, Kerry APMEA.

“Delay in innovation or speed to market can be the difference between winning big and losing market share. IBM Watson’s ability to analyze data from Kerry’s various sources and predict the consumer trends to increase profitability while reducing wastage is a huge differentiator for food and beverage brands as well as the whole food industry, he says. 

Social media has become a powerful asset to marketing within the food industry. As sharing food through social media becomes increasingly important, particularly for millennials, standout food concepts are thriving. The concept of “Instagrammable” food is food that either looks great or stands out in some way – color, texture, ingredients. The concept expands beyond just the Instagram platform into other social media outlets and is gaining traction as a key feature for food and beverage companies looking for stand-out products. 

Edited by Gaynor Selby