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What you need to know about AI in the agrifood sector

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The world is becoming increasingly digital, and Canada’s plant-based food, feed and ingredients sector is no exception.

As companies across the country look to improve their products, while keeping their work both efficient and sustainable, many are looking toward how they could incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into their business plans. It may seem daunting at first; how does one take work seen as hands-on—including anything from recipe development to delivering product to market—and trust it to technology?

The answer, according to Mai Mavinkurve, an AI and data innovator, is all in the data a company possesses.

“Without sufficient clean data, it is virtually impossible to build meaningful AI to serve a specific purpose,” she explained. “This is a game-changer for you to leapfrog the competition if you can crack this early.”

While building AI into day-to-day business operations is still a new idea for many in the sector, Mavinkurve expects it to become as common a tool as spreadsheets or databases. Reaching this point, however, will take some work.

Most notably, she said, companies will need to shift their hiring focus.

“Most of the work to commercialize AI is not AI work. It’s cumbersome work to build the process and pipeline for data operations,” she said. “Think about this when you are hiring and building your team. You don’t need an army of AI engineers. You need lots more data engineers.”

With both the proper staff and a robust plan in place, a plant-based food or ingredient company can start down the path of incorporating AI into its work—if it has a sufficient amount of clean data to build a meaningful AI platform. This takes both time and knowledge.

The best way to handle the time factor is to get a plan in place and start as soon as possible. In regards to knowledge, however, Mavinkurve recommends balancing that plan with strategic hiring, as well as online resources.

Some of her favourites include:

With the right staff, plan, data and knowledge in place—and enough time to collect and build everything out—companies across Canada’s plant-based food, feed and ingredients sector can strategically incorporate AI into their businesses, helping make them more efficient and sustainable.

Protein Industries Canada has launched a new program to support Canada’s plant-based companies in accessing and utilizing artificial intelligence technology. To learn how your company can take part, visit our Artificial Intelligence Program page.