November 26, 2024

The Queens County Citizen

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Artificial intelligence to save food waste

Artificial intelligence to save food waste

These services are still in their infancy. AI is advancing at breakneck speed every day. The start of a small revolution, envisions Guillaume Mathieu, a strategist managing agri-food brands with a keen interest in artificial intelligence.

ChatGPT came into our lives last November, asserted the expert. People used it and saw what an endless world of possibilities it had.

Like Google, it’s possible to request recipe ideas from ChatGPT. But the chatbot does not link to the list of well-recommended websites. It generates its own response.

It examines all the information fed and it gives you an answer, explains Guillaume Mathieu. In the case of the Osso Buco recipe, he looks at all the recipes available online and comes up with his own recipe that, according to him, can be optimized..

Good to know

As ChatGPT uses data older than 2021 it is not possible to examine recent circulars. According to our tests, the paid version of ChatGPT (US$20/month), connected to the web, cannot find grocery discounts. Hence it is still necessary to consult the good old circulars.

A waste prevention robot

We proposed to Bobby Gregoire, Chief Consultant at Sustainable Food, to test ChatGPT. He asked to submit a recipe with various ingredients of life: fiddle heads, avocado, cherry tomatoes and cucumber, adding a difficulty: coconut. As a result, ChatGPT simply presented a salad made of all these ingredients. In short, a simple Alki.

While ChatGipt has some notions of passion, it seems clear that there is no clear understanding of what goes together, what constitutes an agreement. »

A quote from Bobby Gregoire, Chef Consultant in Sustainable Food

For his part, strategist Guillaume Mathieu, who also tested ChatGPIT in the kitchen, points out. Right now the best use is more for inspiration base than anything else.

The advantage of ChatGPT is that it works in conversational mode. Therefore, we can ask him to improve a dish, rather than imposing a new one on us with ingredients we don’t have on hand.

Sometimes ChatGPT is wrong. We asked him how to grow avocados quickly. He suggests wrapping it in aluminum foil and placing it in the oven at 350°F for 15 minutes. The result: complete failure.

Friendly chef Tauski

Inspired by the development of ChatGPT, Dave Tremblay, an entrepreneur from Val-d’Or, Abitibi, founded ChefTouski, a platform aimed at fighting food waste.

Its virtual chef is based on ChatGPT. The only thing is that we are only related to the kitchen. If your question is not related to the kitchen, he will not answer us. He is truly a chef in his own rightMr. Tremblay explains, noting that his conversational robot is programmed to avoid waste.

ChefTouski’s fridge freezer makes cooking leftovers easy.

Photo: Radio-Canada

To this, he added another service, freeing up the fridge: all you have to do is select the ingredients and their quantities to create an AI recipe. A tool praised by our chief consultant, Bobby Gregoire.

I am happy to use this tool, very friendly, easy to use. It also has a creativity index for the different dishes or recipes it offers. The more conservative we are, the more likely we are to have simple recipes that already work, as we find on the Savor, Mordu or Ricardo sites.

In the free version of ChefTouski, you can use the virtual chef ten times a month and the empty fridge in an unlimited manner.

Let us cook inflation at your service

Winnipeg’s Skip delivery service asked Dentsu Creations to develop a website that would help customers optimize their purchases based on food prices.

Thus was born Cuisine L’Inflation, a service that, each week, lists foods whose prices are falling and others rising for a given province. Artificial intelligence is responsible for creating seven recipes based on the most frugal foods of the moment.

Screenshot of Cooking Inflation website

Recipes and photos for Cooking Inflation are generated by artificial intelligence.

Photo: Radio-Canada

From budget and family size, we use ChatGPT to generate revenueRafik Belmesk, Chief Strategic Officer at Dentsu Creation explained.

The greatest benefit of using AI is speed, as we still produce seven recipes per basket per week. »

A quote from Rafik Belmesk, Chief Strategic Officer, Dentsu Creations

But proof that AI isn’t perfect, Cuisinons l’inflation also relies on kitchen experts. We have a chef and nutritionists, explained Rafik Belmesk. Recipe photos are also AI-generated.

Cooking Inflation allows you to shop for and deliver food for sale Skip the express lane. The service is offered in certain areas of some fifteen Canadian cities, but not yet in Quebec.

However, strategist Guillaume Mathieu has some reservations. It is an interesting tool from the point of view that it tells us which product is cheaper than the previous week. On the other hand, they direct us to a single source of purchase. What’s really interesting with a tool like this is that it gives us access to all grocery chain promotions available.

Guillaume Mathieu concludes: When artificial intelligence connects to our fridges, our pantries, and they see in real time the products we have left behind, it becomes an extraordinary tool because they automatically provide us with meals and solutions to avoid wasting food.

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