ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot, can add value to food businesses across innovation, branding, web, and digital.
Here, and in the previous post, I’ve explored some day-to-day work scenarios faced by food innovators. I then imagined examples of the needs 🤔 a food developer may have in each scenario. And, I then devised example ChatGPT 🗣️ prompts for each need.*
I've used the Act as a hack that commands ChatGPT to act as an expert on a particular topic. I find this provides a richer conversation and a more focused outcome.
So, let’s get to the scenarios, needs, and prompts:
Scenario 1: you want insights around an aspect of food itself – recipes, ingredients, methods, flavours, history, cuisines, and cultures.
🤔 To explore the ingredients and recipes associated with a health-related trend, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a researcher and write an article about the principles of longer, healthier living in the Blue Zones, the foods that the people eat in the Blue Zones, and their lifestyles.
🤔 To explore an aspect of flavour, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food scientist researching the flavour 'bitter' that is associated with many healthier foods, and write a short article about bitterness in food.
🤔 To explore the best pairings of two ingredients, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food flavorist, and give me the top 10 fruit pairings with almonds.
🤔 To explore Turkey’s amazing street food culture and its most popular dishes, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food explorer and write me an article about street food in Turkey, include a paragraph about the history of its development, and include Turkey's top 5 street food dishes.
Scenario 2: you want insights from the marketplace – industry, technology, consumers, influencers, trends, online search data, and futurology.
🤔 To learn more about novel fermentation technologies in both technical and layman's terms, use a prompt like:
🗣️ As a food scientist, write a technical article about the novel food fermentation methods and how they may help feed the growing population, and have a positive effect on sustainability.
🗣️ And now write this article in a non-technical way.
🤔 To learn more about consumer attitudes towards lab-grown meat; use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food market researcher and tell me what consumers think about cultured meat, also known as cultivated or lab-grown meat.
🤔 To target your product development at an older audience, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a market researcher and tell me how the eating habits of the older Generation X are changing?
🤔 To investigate what people search for online about a particular food, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a search data specialist and write a list of 20 popular questions people ask about keto foods when they search online.
🤔 To explore consumer profiles for a range of ferments, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food research specialist and tell me who are the target consumers for fermented/cultured foods, and give me three customer personas for my range of kimchi and sauerkraut products.
Scenario 3: You want to analyse a category and competitive products to see if gaps exist for new products.
🤔 To look at the attributes and benefits of your competitors, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food analyst and tell me the product attributes and consumer benefits of these different tomato ketchup products: Brand A, Brand B, and Brand C.
🤔 And to look at the similarities and differences between your competitors, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food analyst and tell me the similarities and differences of these different tomato ketchup products: Brand A, Brand B, and Brand C.
🤔 Then, to continue the chat and identify market gaps and ideas for possible new products; use a prompt like:
🗣️ Using these similarities and differences between Brand A, Brand B, and Brand C, act like a food product developer and identify three market gaps and ideas for possible new products to fill the gaps.
🤔 And, to double-down on the product ideation, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food product developer and give me ten unusual flavours for tomato ketchup products.
🤔 And then, to look at ketchup differently to target those who are intolerant to tomatoes (a nightshade), use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food product developer and give me ten unusual flavours for ketchup products that don't contain tomatoes.
Scenario 4: You are working on your products to optimise their appeal and audience fit.
🤔 To explore how well your range of falafels [insert your product name] is suited to Generations Z and X, use a prompt like:
🗣️ These are my falafel products: (insert website link) Act like an analyst and tell me how well you think they are suited to the eating habits of Generation Z [X].
And continue with the prompt:
🗣️ And, acting like a food product developer, how do you think they could be improved for Generation Z [X]?
🤔 To do the same if you were working on a chocolate caramel bar, use a prompt like:
🗣️ These are my chocolate caramel bars: (insert website link) Act like an analyst and tell me how well you think they are suited to the eating habits of Generation Z [X].
And continue with the prompt:
🗣️ And, acting like a food product developer, how do you think they could be improved for Generation Z [X]?
🤔 Or you could add the ingredients to the prompt to explore this another way, by using a prompt like:
🗣️ These are the ingredients in my chocolate caramel bars. Act like an analyst and tell me how well you think they are suited to the eating habits of Generation Z [X]: (insert ingredient list).
🗣️ And, acting like a food product developer, how do you think they could be improved for Generation Z [X]?
Scenario 5: You're working on the ideation of new and extension products for portfolio value growth.
🤔 You might want to continue the chats you started above, using a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food product developer and give me ideas for a few food products that would make a Blue Zone product range.
Or, a prompt like:
🗣️ Acting like a food product developer, give me ideas for a few food products that would highlight the flavour bitter.
Or, a prompt like:
🗣️ Acting like a food product developer, give me ideas for a few unusual food products that would make a Turkish product range.
🤔 To look at ancient grains and how they could be used in products, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food product developer, and give me ideas for ten food products that contain sorghum.
🤔 To create a range of drink products that address specific health concerns or wellness goals, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a product developer, and give me flavours and ingredients for a range of drink products that offer health benefits for immunity, energy, or digestion.
🤔 Given how busy the functional drinks category is, to niche-down to more unusual flavours, continue with a prompt like:
🗣️ And now give me three unconventional flavours, one for each health aspect.
Scenario 6: You want to research, ideate, and produce recipes and menus for your products or business.
🤔 To explore unusual ways your product could be used to appeal to the TikTok generation, use a prompt like:
🗣️ I make a chocolate spread product, act like a TikTok influencer, and give me some crazy combinations for chocolate spread with other foods.
🤔 To encourage older people to eat more tofu with recipes, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food recipe developer or chef, and give me 10 recipe ideas using tofu that would appeal more to the older generations.
🤔 And, continuing that chat, to get drafts of recipes themselves, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food recipe developer or chef, and give me the full recipe for [recipe idea].
🤔 Or, to promote tofu to the TikTok generation, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a TikTok influencer, and give me 10 clever food hacks for tofu.
🤔 And finally, in these examples, to broaden the use of your drinks products by exploring how they could be used in food dishes, use a prompt like:
🗣️ Act like a food recipe developer or chef, and give me ten recipes for food dishes that use kefir.
The take-away
I’ve found ChatGPT adds great value to my innovation project workflows.
After running the prompts in the follow-on post, I found ChatGPT to be brilliant for gaining a focused understanding of a topic, adding ideas and possibilities, and giving inspiration. And it’s also of great value to interact with ideas that are different from my own.
Of course, I've run all these prompts in ChatGPT, if you want to see the chat transcripts, just drop me a message here
The post previous to this one can be read here.
Post production
This post was produced as follows:
➡️ Research using ChatGPT-4.
➡️ Drafting by a human, me, using Google Docs assisted by an AI-enabled writing app.
➡️ Additional topic research by a human, using ChatGPT and Google search.
➡️ Editing by a human.
➡️ Content refinement by ChatGPT-4.
➡️ Final edit by a human.
➡️ Image creation, for the previous post, by AI with Midjourney – a whole other story!
➡️ Text and image exports/imports into Webflow (currently being optimised by AI) by a human, me.
*Important
OpenAI and ChatGPT have opened a can of legal worms, particularly in Copyright and Data Protection. Before you use these tools, please ensure you have assessed your use case with a legal professional.
