Are fresh produce and AI a perfect match? It’s complicated, experts say

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Mention artificial intelligence in a crowded room and witness a wide-ranging flash of emotions cross everyone’s face. While AI is a part of the cultural zeitgeist, not even the fresh produce industry is immune to its mixed reception.

The cases for and against embracing AI tools were top of mind for leaders at the International Fresh Produce Association's 2023 Global Produce and Floral Show in late October. Even if you weren’t looking for it, there was no escaping the buzzy tech topic.

AI was name-dropped on a multiple panels and keynotes, in booth discussions, and over coffee and beer alike. What AI is, what it represents, its opportunities, benefits and potential threats were on the mind of leaders spanning the fresh produce supply chain.  

“While it is a bit early to paint AI as a villain, the reality is that businesses may struggle with its implementation and implications, especially since some work functions will likely evolve. Activities that absorb 60 to 70% of employees’ time today could be automated,” IFPA CEO Cathy Burns said during the State of the Industry address during the event.

Whether AI is a force for good or not depends on who you ask, but according to Elliott Grant, it helps if you think of AI as “more like an Iron Man suit and less like the Terminator.”

“What I mean by that,” Grant continued in a executive panel discussion, “is that you're going to get superpowers that will help you do tasks completely differently. It will radically transform the way we work, not just what we do.”

Grant, CEO of Alphabet-owned Mineral, a company setting out to make the world’s food systems “more productive and more sustainable,” has been considering the “problem of AI and agriculture” for the last six years.

“It will change the way we work,” Grant told The Packer. “AI will help us release the constraints that we have.”

The four ways Grant sees AI supporting human-powered problem solving in fresh produce is through improving inspections, knowledge creation, accessing databases, and radically rethinking how work is done.

Whether it's improving quality assurance inspections, scanning a treasure trove of seed bank data or targeting precision applications of inputs on farms, according to Grant, AI has the power to completely alter how the approach to the wide range of opportunities and challenges faced in growing food.

Once innovators have rethought one major challenge — such as improving quality-assurance inspections — the industry can apply the new thinking to other processes, Grant said. The only difference is the information itself being analyzed.  

“The data is the special sauce,” he added.

Human powered and tech enabled 

“If you haven't been paying attention, the improvement in AI over the last year is absolutely mind boggling,” Grant said in the panel discussion. “I am very sure that within 10 years we'll be able to perform human tasks of perception, reasoning, knowledge basically at or above human-level performance on many tasks. It will replace many tasks that we take for granted.”

The key to success, Grant said, is marrying human and AI capabilities. Andrea Albright, executive vice president of sourcing for Walmart, agreed that humans and technology are more powerful together than apart.

“When you think about technology, we think about it being human powered and tech enabled,” Albright said in the discussion. “We still believe that humans are going to be at the core of a lot of the work that we're doing. [We’ll ask,] ‘How do they help anticipate things that tech can anticipate?’ Or, ‘[How can we] do work that's more creative than we have technical ability?’”

While the possibilities of what AI could do to support and evolve the fresh produce supply chain are endless, AI will most likely impact sales and marketing, software engineering and supply chain logistics, according to recent McKinsey data.

“Yes, jobs are going to change, but it’s going to create new opportunities,” Albright said.

Apple Computer co-founder and technology wunderkind Steve Wozniak believes society has a responsibility to give new technology guardrails through thoughtful regulation.

“We when you have new technology, you have a responsibility to make sure that it's regulated. This regulation doesn't stop you from doing business, it means you won't do certain bad things. You can still do all the good,” Wozniak said in a keynote talk.  

While AI can come up with data and stories, according to Wozniak, he believes there’s should be a requirement for AI to cite its sources with common tools such as footnotes.

“AI can be a reporter, but it should have a human editor,” Wozniak said.