This is what happens when an AI program designs snacks
The food world is all about trends. One moment everyone seems to love salt caramel, and the next they’ve moved on to elderflower. Whole industries are devoted to predicting what the hot new trends will be before they happen, and now one Japanese snack company has enlisted a computer AI program to figure out what the hottest new snack flavor of 2018 will be. The AI picked a citrus fruit from the Philippines. Will it be the big flavor of 2018? Only time will tell.
Toppo is a Japanese line of chocolate-filled pretzel snacks that are frequently described as inside-out Pocky. According to Sora News 24, this year Lotte, the snack conglomerate that owns Toppo, enlisted an AI program to try to figure out the coolest new snack flavor. The program reportedly analyzed trend data about consumer preferences and ingredients, and of all the flavors, the AI program decided that the hit new snack flavor would be calamansi.
Calamansi is a type of citrus fruit that’s very popular in Filipino cuisine. The fruits are tiny and round and look like orange lemons, and the taste is somewhere between a sour orange and a sweet lime.
Lotte has bet on the AI’s trend-predicting skills, and the new calamansi-flavored Toppo are available online now. The company packaged the new flavor of Toppo in a package with computer chip graphics and a sign indicating that the flavor was designed by an AI. Toppo is sold in groceries and convenience stores all over Japan, but the AI-designed calamansi flavor is only available on the company’s online store at a rate of about $24 for a pack of 10 boxes.
Calamansi may well be the hottest new flavor of 2018. But letting AI programs design snacks could well be one of the dumbest food trends in recent years. Only time and taste buds will tell.
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