IBM has secured its position in the ingredient informatics arena, going up against a rising swarm of startups

July 31, 2019 | Case Study

As the lone large company functioning as a service provider within ingredient informatics, IBM has made headlines in 2019 by creating and deploying AI-based solutions for McCormick and Cerealto Siro Foods. IBM took different approaches in each instance. For McCormick, IBM Research developed an interactive tool for flavorists that recommended new seasoning formulas, drawing on McCormick's wealth of existing proprietary data. For Cerealto Siro Foods, IBM Services provided a trendspotting resource for new product inspiration that relied on publicly available information like social media. In both cases, IBM departed from the approach used with its since-retired Chef Watson project that built on the flavor pairing hypothesis.