HOW TO CATCH THE AI FAST TRAIN TO THE FUTURE
November, 2025 - by Trish Harty
AI is changing the way we work at lightning speed. According to Forbes Magazine, the use of AI in foodtech is set to grow at 34.5% each year over the next decade, so we’d better buckle up for the ride.
We’ve often heard school teachers say they are educating today’s kids for jobs that don’t even exist yet, but where does that leave managers who need to train up an existing workforce?
Here examples that give a glimpse of where AI is already changing the landscape and is set to do so even more in the years ahead.
Food distribution: A US startup called Choco has launched AI tool for food distribution called Autopilot, which reviews incoming orders and checks for accuracy, flagging any that need a human eye. As workers no longer need to input orders manually, they are freed up for other tasks.
Quality control and food safety: AI is transforming food inspection and quality assurance, by detecting contamination, ensuring compliance and product consistency, and predicting shelf life more accurately. Nestlé is already using AI-powered visual inspection systems and Coca-Cola invested in AI startup Agnext to improve quality checks for beverages.
Food sustainability: Unilever has adopted Google’s Tracemark platform to improve supply chain transparency and combat deforestation, while Spanish AI-driven fermentation startup, MOA Foodtech, turns waste into functional foods. In fact the EU is surging ahead in this space, by funding AI-driven solutions for sustainability in food production.
Energy consumption: AI is used to enhance energy use in food processing like drying, refrigeration, and packaging. Australia’s own Retragreen offers sensors to measure environmental factors inside facilities to help companies optimise their energy consumption to reduce waste and costs.
Marketing: Speedy analysis of data to provide information is a key strength of AI. Circana’s Liquid AI tool can crunch the numbers in just minutes instead of weeks and days, transforming data into clear, consumable insights.
Rather than being concerned that bots will replace people, we can find ways to harness AI and free up our teams for tasks that require creativity, strategic thinking and other processes that only humans can do, which in turn will drive more growth and innovation.