The Natural List podcast – Generative AI and the future of food

Got (green, plant-based) milk? While generative artificial intellegence holds great promise for the future of CPG product formulation and marketing, tech-derived innovations also come with unique challenges. In this episode of The Natural List, Jessica Rubino and Adrienne Smith talk with Aadit Patel, vice president product engineering at NotCo, about finding the right balance of technology and humanity to scale high-performing plant-based products. Jessica and Adrienne also share which companies are using AI as a force for good by focusing on climate-friendly agriculture methods, novel botanical identification and next-level, plant-based product development.

In this episode:

Brands featured in this episode’s segment of The List: NotCo, Eat Just, Brightseed, Climax Foods, ClimateAi and The Future Market.

Enjoy this new episode here and wherever you listen to your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple and Google.  

Interested in being a guest on The Natural List? Email us at [email protected].

Our guest

About Aadit Patel

Vice President of Product and Engineering
NotCo

Aadit is VP, Product & Engineering at NotCo where he leads a team of 40 engineers, machine learning scientists, designers, and product managers to build the Giuseppe Platform—an AI system for plant-based product development. Giuseppe has helped create sustainable plant-based products, such as NotMilk, NotBurger, and NotChicken. Prior to NotCo, Aadit built robotics and machine learning applications across multiple domains including Aerospace, Adtech and Fintech, and also worked at NASA, Boeing, and Yahoo! among other startups. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and M.S. in Computer Science, both from UCLA.

Your hosts 

About Jessica Rubino 

Jessica Rubino is a natural products industry expert and content strategist with more than 15 years experience in media, events and natural products. As New Hope Network’s vice president of content, Jessica oversees digital and print content, conference programming and branded content for CPGs, retailers, investors and service providers. Jessica is passionate about using innovation as a force for good and leveraging content to spark the changes we want to see in the world.  

About Adrienne Smith 

Adrienne Smith is the director of content for newhope.com and the editor-in-chief of Natural Foods Merchandiser magazine where she helps ideate and produce content for natural products retailers, brands and entrepreneurs. Before coming to New Hope Network, she spent nearly two decades writing about food and beverage products and trends for the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Trade in Madrid, Spain, as well as for publications including the International Herald Tribune/New York Times and El País.

Natural Products Expo East begins Sept. 20 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. In addition to education sessions and the trade show, New Hope's Innovation Experience debuts this year. Visit ExpoEast.com for more information.