Waitrose turns to AI to create recipes for successful food products

The supermarket has used data from menus, online cuisine and social media posts to shape its Japanese range

Under fake pink cherry blossom, guests sipped House of Suntory cocktails and picked at plates of chicken karaage, prawn gyoza and cauliflower tempura from a kaitenzushi-style conveyor belt ... This was the London launch of Waitrose's new Japanese range.

But without knowing it, and even if you live hundreds of miles away, your food choices may have had a hand in shaping the supermarket's 26-dish Japan Meny range. That is because it was developed with input from Tastewise, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that analyses menus, social media and online recipes to pinpoint food trends.