By Laura Everly, Account Supervisor and Stephanie O’Brien, Account Director
AI is no longer simply a future-facing concept for foodservice, it’s a reality. It’s become a practical growth capability that can help teams move faster, reduce uncertainty and spot opportunities before they’re obvious to everyone else. At this year’s Tastewise Growth Summit, one message came through clearly. The next wave of AI in foodservice is not about replacing people—it’s about helping them make better decisions with more speed, confidence and evidence. It’s one of the most important competitive advantages for everyone, from foodservice marketers and operators to manufacturers and distributors.
Here are the top five insights from the event as observed by Esrock’s own Laura Everly and Stephanie O’Brien.
1. Thinking Beyond Automation and Embracing Collaboration
AI is no longer just a utility tool used to summarize meetings or draft emails—it’s becoming an active partner in planning, innovation and decision-making. Shifting perceptions of AI from passive automation to collaborative partner can add measurable value. It can help companies:
- Make faster decisions
- Reduce manual work
- Identify opportunities sooner
- Improve strategic planning
The opportunity: In foodservice, AI should not sit in a silo as a technological experiment. It should be embedded into the everyday work where decisions are being made: product development, menu strategy, sales planning, customer targeting, operations and innovation.
2. Strategizing Speed for Growth
One of AI’s clearest advantages is its ability to reduce the “dead space” in the workday — the time spent gathering information, sorting inputs, chasing reports or manually connecting dots. This can free up much-needed time that employees spend on admin tasks so they can focus on high-value strategic work. Consider implementing AI to:
- Help accelerate innovation cycles
- Improve decision-making processes
- Identify industry trends early
- Scale insights across teams
The opportunity: The advantage is not just doing the same work faster. It’s allowing teams to spend more time on the work that creates value: understanding customers, developing stronger concepts, strengthening operator relationships and making strategic decisions with greater confidence.
3. Moving from Trend Chasing to Whitespace Discovery
This is especially notable for foodservice companies, since they’ve historically reacted to trends only once they’re already visible in the market. AI can help your teams get ahead of innovations before trend saturation:
- Detecting early consumer signals
- Monitoring trend velocity
- Validating opportunities with data
- Making evidence-based decisions
The opportunity: AI can ensure brands stop asking, “What trend are we behind on?” and instead, start asking, “What opportunity is forming before the market fully sees it?”
4. Reducing Innovation Risk
Kim Setter of Post Consumer Brands shared thoughtful ways to make AI opportunities tangible. For example, with approximately 80% of new CPG products failing within six months (and traditional product development cycles taking up to 12-15 months), Post uses AI-enabled insights to:
- Help shorten timelines
- Monitor consumer conversations in real time
- Measure trend velocity
- Equip sales teams with consumer-backed insights
The opportunity: For foodservice and CPG brands, AI can help innovation move from intuition-led to evidence-led. While this does not eliminate risk, it can help teams place smarter bets, pressure-test ideas earlier and bring sales teams stronger stories.
5. Prioritizing Trust, Literacy and Infrastructure
The summit made clear that AI success is not just about choosing the right platform. As the saying goes, there’s no time like the present — and with key priorities, brands can utilize AI more productively. The right implementation requires organizations to tap into the following:
- AI education
- Governance
- Clear ownership
- Data foundations
- Cross-functional support
The opportunity: Companies that wait for perfect conditions will fall behind, and those that rush in without foundations may struggle to scale. The winning path is practical: start with focused use cases, then build confidence, prove value, and expand from there.
Building What’s Next
Ultimately, the real opportunity is not simply adding AI to the business — it’s building a smarter, faster and more connected way of working. One that helps teams spend less time chasing answers and more time creating growth.
For foodservice leaders, the question is no longer whether AI will shape the industry. It’s where to put it to work first.
Courtesy of Esrock Partners, a food marketing agency located near Chicago, Illinois, that specializes in the food, beverage and foodservice industries and their current market trends. For a close-up of our capabilities, see our services.