AI at the dinner table: How smart tech is reshaping the future of food

From farm to fork, the global food and beverage industry is undergoing a transformation — one that’s not being driven by chefs or marketers alone, but by AI-powered systems behind the scenes.

AI is no longer a futuristic concept for food giants. It’s already helping to forecast supply chain disruptions, design new recipes, reduce waste and improve sustainability — all while supporting personalized consumer experiences across markets. At Nestlé, we’ve seen firsthand how these technologies can deliver on both purpose and performance.

But amidst the excitement, here’s a reality check: AI isn’t magic. And for every promising application, there’s a risk of overreach — from ethical concerns in data use to the temptation of blindly automating creative decisions. For CIOs and CTOs, the challenge now is less about proving the value of AI, and more about architecting the culture, capabilities and systems that allow it to scale responsibly.

From prediction to precision

The food industry has always dealt with uncertainty: harvest yields, logistics bottlenecks, fluctuating consumer preferences. AI enables companies to transform guesswork into foresight. At Nestlé, we’re using AI to anticipate demand patterns more accurately than ever before — adjusting production and inventory dynamically in ways that weren’t possible with traditional planning tools. For instance, we use AI to estimate time of arrival to destination ports of shipping containers and ML/AI to generate statistical forecasts and improve our demand plan accuracy. 

We’re also deploying AI in formulation development, where machine learning models analyze years of R&D data to accelerate the ideation and creation of products tailored to evolving health, taste and nutrition expectations. These aren’t just experiments. They’re live pipelines that are delivering results.

But operational efficiency isn’t enough. For AI to make a real impact, it has to serve broader goals — such as sustainability.

AI for a healthier planet

Feeding the world sustainably is the food industry’s defining challenge. And while regenerative agriculture and packaging innovation play a huge role, AI can be a force multiplier.

We’re exploring how AI models can optimize carbon tracking across complex agricultural supply chains, helping us make smarter sourcing decisions and reduce emissions at scale. In manufacturing, AI-powered vision systems are minimizing waste and improving energy usage, contributing to our company-wide environmental commitments.

Yet even as we embed AI into the backbone of operations, we remain clear-eyed: no technology should replace the values that define great food. Authenticity, transparency and trust still matter. And that means AI must enhance, not erase, the craftsmanship and humanity of our industry.