The buzz around artificial intelligence (AI) has reached fever pitch of late, with bakers keen to learn how machine learning models can transform their business operations.
The potential is great. “For bakers, AI offers remarkable opportunities to innovate and optimise every stage of the process – from ideation to delivery,” comments Hugo Walker, head of marketing at food manufacturing tech provider Mezze Software.
AI can help with a multitude of tasks ranging from planning inventory, streamlining production, and maintaining quality to forecasting sales, handling compliancy admin, and optimising logistics. What makes it so exciting right now is that the tech is available to any size of firm.
“You’ll find forward-thinking artisanal bakeries and larger chains adopting AI alike,” notes Kevin Smith, lead industrial digital technology advisor at Made Smarter North West.
So how is AI shaping up the baking industry in 2025, and which businesses are making the most of it?
Controlling quality
Bakery automation is being taken to an “entirely new level” by AI contends Ian Hodgson, systems general manager at equipment supplier Ishida Europe. Among its many uses in production are on monitoring how the machinery acts when working well, checking bulk ingredients are being inputted at the right ratio, reporting back on the speed of production (and if there are differences across shifts), and ultimately, scrutinising how good the end product is.
“If there are any changes, AI will immediately spot it,” comments Hodgson, noting that catching issues early allows them to be rectified with minimal wastage. This hyper-focussed attention to finding irregularities is particularly beneficial to bakeries that manufacture tens of thousands of the same product over multiple shifts each day. Machinery fixes can even be resolved via an AI-driven chatbot rather than waiting for specialist servicing engineers to attend the site in person.
However, many firms don’t know where to start when it comes to installing AI into production lines. “There is a common misconception that to implement AI, bespoke systems will need to be developed, customised, and installed, with a steep learning curve involved. This often puts manufacturers off from starting, believing it will cause disruption to the daily operation,” says Hodgson.
Thankfully, there are now several off-the-shelf options available that can work with most production lines, avoiding the need to create an entirely new system from scratch.
Baking a difference
It’s not just large-scale production lines where AI can bake a difference. Unox came out with its X-Generation range of combi ovens in 2023, which includes BakerTop-X models for bakeries and ChefTop-X models for foodservice businesses. These feature an add-on accessory called Optic.Cooking, which allows operators to simply place a tray into the chamber and have it scanned by an optical sensor, with AI able to identify the products and queue up the appropriate baking programme.
Unox combi ovens can also have artificial intelligence figure out a most environmentally friendly way of cleaning. Gail’s has installed BakerTop-X ovens at its bakeries across the country featuring built-in Sense.Klean capabilities. “The oven senses exactly how dirty the chamber is and advises which washing program is best to clean it to reduce water wastage. This feeds into our sustainability mission,” comments Gail’s head baker Felix Carvisiglia.
Smart supply solutions
AI is only as good as the information you feed it, reminds Smith at Made Smarter. Luckily, there’s plenty of reliable data to be obtained from a bakery’s supply chain.
TraceGains warmly embraces machine learning to turbocharge the capabilities of its global ingredients marketplace. Its ‘Gather’ platform, for example, leverages AI to build predictive models around supply chain performance. Additionally, the technology also allows real time data from around the world to be mapped to the unique supply chain of a manufacturer, which gets automatically alerted should any ingredients, formulas, or specifications need attention.
Time-consuming admin work for the supply chain, such as reading and analysing documents, can be taken care of by AI too. Bal Chand, European marketing manager at TraceGains, notes that a big part of compliance for food manufacturers is the need to effectively manage the flow of documents and data between suppliers, brands, co-manufacturers, packaging converters, and others. “The ability to increasingly automate those processes in ways that both reduce costs and improve the accuracy of outcomes is impactful,” he says.
Chand points to Bimbo International, the world’s largest bakery businesses and owner of brands including St Pierre and New York Bakery Co., which has been using the TraceGains’ Supplier Compliance product for a number of years. This sees AI-assisted optical character recognition (OCR) helping to automate the comparison of specification certificates, flagging any issues for analysis and refusing potentially bad shipments.
Supporting sustainability
Mezze Software’s Walker observes that smart solutions like AI can recommend more sustainable sourcing options, enabling manufacturers to “align with ethical and environmental standards while appealing to increasingly eco-conscious consumers”.
The opposite end of the supply chain is open to tech enhancements as well. Algorithms can optimise packaging dimensions to ensure products fit snugly without too much excess material, while AI-powered vision systems can detect defects at high speed, helping reduce the risk of product recalls.
It can even assist with monitoring temperature and humidity during transit so that goods containing heat-sensitive ingredients like cream or chocolate remain within safe conditions. The most fuel-efficient routes can also be calculated by AI, thus cutting carbon emissions.
Generating new bakes
When coming up with ideas for new baked goods, its useful to analyse consumer trends – even up to a global scale. This is a massive and complex task, but again one where AI can thrive.
Kate Ancketill, CEO of business futurist consultancy GDR, highlights New York-based software company Gastrograph, which claims to have the world’s largest sensory database. “Gastrograph uses AI to identify local preferences for different flavours, aromas, and textures across various demographics worldwide, aiding food companies to match supply to demand,” she says.
“The plan isn’t for it to replace our bakers and their creative brains but simply to help them expand their horizons”
AI can also take these preferences and dream up brand new recipes. Sweet bakery supplier Mademoiselle Desserts did just this last year, partnering with generative AI specialist Tastewise last week to create colourful cakes for the autumn and winter season.
The project, which ultimately led to the launch of a new Blackberry & Mascarpone Cake, wasn’t without its virtual hiccups though. “Before we narrowed things down using more specific and precise prompts, AI did what it does best… it got very, very creative,” explains product development controller Melissa Shaw. “We didn’t think consumers are ready for caramelised onion brownies just yet,” she adds, revealing they had also passed on the likes of jalapeno plum cakes.
Going forward, the firm expresses intent to use the technology more, including as part of its NPD process, and is investing accordingly. However, the share of its range generated by AI will remain secondary, confirms Anthony Saison, head of category insights & customer marketing for Mademoiselle Desserts. “The plan isn’t for it to replace our bakers and their creative brains but simply to help them expand their horizons while saving some of their precious time and creating some interesting marketing opportunities along the way,” he notes.
It’s not just new flavour combinations that our binary brained buddies can have a think about – generative AI can also be applied to bakery visuals.
Kharkiv native Dinara Kasko, who was forced to close her pastry studio and flee to the UK during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, uses online text-to-image tools like Midjourney and DALL·E to develop unique and stunning cake designs. These are then converted into real-life silicon moulds created by 3D printers to make mousse cakes out of.
Healthier outlook
AI’s power can extend from analysing consumer preferences to actually helping shape them. This is evidenced in the Taste Tomorrow 2025 research report published by ingredients supplier Puratos UK, which found that 45% of the consumers surveyed globally believed AI will help them make better food choices in the future.
Ancketill at GDR warns that the “bakery as a category is particularly exposed to burgeoning AI-assisted wellness trend”, where consumers quickly check the healthiness of products just by taking snaps on their smartphones. Apps available now include January AI, which predicts how different foods will impact an individual’s blood sugar levels; and SnapCalorie and CalorieLens, which estimate calorie count and nutritional content.
“Greater customer knowledge is likely to impact their choices in the bakery sector in particular, and should be factored into recipe planning, as should the impact of GLP-1 receptor agonists (like Ozempic) in future customer preferences,” Ancketill adds.
Customer service updates
If consumers are comfortable with taking advice from AI, they’ll likely be fine with bakeries using it to enhance their shopping experiences. Online retailers can get AI to tailor recommendations for each customer based on previous purchases. There’s also AI-powered chatbots on websites, which provide live answers to simple customer queries but in a conversational fashion instead of a formal and static FAQ.
Chatbots can also interact with prospective candidates on your behalf to ease the burden of recruitment – Gail’s Bakery recently adopted the Inploi platform to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its talent attraction process.
A warm and personable in-store experience can be a major factor why customers visit bakery shops in the first place, with many retail bakeries less than eager to replace front-of-house staff with virtual assistants. But this changes when customers are still sat inside their own machines (ie. at a drive-thru). Last year saw Popeyes become the first fast-food brand in the UK to have AI-driven chatbots taking orders at drive-thru locations. Chains with similar tech-led approaches to customer service, such as Greggs and Costa, look set to follow suit with their own drive-thrus.
There are similar smart tech applications available for bakery manufacturers. “By analysing past order patterns, an ordering platform with built-in AI can automatically remind customers to place orders or suggest restocking at optimal intervals,” says Walker at Mezze Software. “This innovation massively reduces waste, but it also boosts order consistency, improving sustainability and driving revenue growth for bakers.”
Machine learning models can also be prompted to consider factors like weather, season, location, and trends too, helping more accurately anticipate production demand and thus reduce waste at the ingredients stage.
A revolution is coming in how manufacturers interact with customers, predicts Walker. Integration of natural language processing into commonly used messaging apps like WhatsApp will allow product information to be shared and orders to be placed via some quick text chats. “The AI-powered system understands and processes these requests in real time, providing instant confirmations and updates,” notes Walker.
With AI finding more and more ways into a bakery, should humans harbour concerns about job security? Made Smarter’s Smith doesn’t believe so. “These tools free up skilled bakers to focus on creativity and taste, rather than constant troubleshooting,” he asserts.
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