People have become picky eaters. Our ancestors ate whatever they could forage, but modern day Homo Sapiens expect gourmet meals at street food prices on demand. Consumers prefer fast, affordable, healthy,\u00a0and\u00a0delicious. To meet fickle consumer tastes, food and beverage (F&B) companies look to artificial intelligence to help them scale new products and stay profitable. Whether they are hacking logistics, human resources, compliance, or customer experience, these smart brands recognize the game-altering impact of AI on how fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) are produced, packaged, stored, distributed, marketed, and consumed.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are impacting fundamentally the consumer packaged goods (CPG)and food and beverage industries.
\nAside from the challenge of mounting consumer expectations, established food and beverage companies are also facing a shift in customer trends away from global conglomerates towards local, artisanal providers. Eaters and drinkers are demonstrating not only a willingness to shovel out more money for a \u201chandcrafted\u201d experience, they\u2019re also getting caught up in the DIY preparation trend of home cooking and craft brewing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCPG in general is facing this perfect storm where activist investors are expecting a lot in margin while consumers expect more high-quality tailored products \u2026 along with better service,\u201d explains Ben Stiller, who heads digital transformation and analytics for Deloitte\u2019s Consumer Products Business. Stiller\u2019s comment reveals why brands are intrigued by the near-magical promise of AI: \u201cPressure to do more with less.\u201d No wonder many players in the CPG (or FMCG) space are going beyond automation to the more esoteric fields of big data, machine learning, and other aspects of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
A TASTE FOR TROUBLE
\nConsumers judge food based on its impact on their palate and their wallet, but successful food brands with staying power require more than just a killer recipe. Any of the following challenges regularly plague CPG companies trying to speed up and maintain innovation:<\/p>\n
Product design and specifications (the recipe in case of food processing)
\nRaw materials (or the ingredients) to create the product
\nEquipment, tools and machinery to scale production
\nVenue (processing plant, factory floor, etc) where the product is assembled\/processed
\nSafety and quality control implementation
\nCompliance to government\/international regulatory standards (health, environmental, safety, financial, zoning, etc.)
\nProduct packaging and tracking system
\nInventory management for storage and distribution
\nLogistics and transport for distribution
\nMarketing and public relations
\nLong-term engagement with partners and intermediaries for sale
\nBack office operations
\nSales and order tracking that follows the brand\u2019s supply chain, manufacturing, and logistics processes<\/p>\n
Long list of problems, isn\u2019t it? In addition to minding all the possible points of failure mentioned above, food and beverage companies need to mitigate significant risks like contamination and spoilage control, even when the products in questions have been passed along to retainers and no longer within their control.<\/p>\n
Read the source article at Topbots.com.
\nSource: AI Trends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People have become picky eaters. Our ancestors ate whatever they could forage, but modern day Homo Sapiens expect…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[811],"tags":[812],"class_list":{"0":"post-3519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai"},"yoast_head":"\n