Challenge

While so many Americans struggle with hunger today, 40% of the food produced in the U.S. is thrown away and households waste more than $1,300 in unused food each year.

Using the power of visual AI, 360i and Kroger created Chefbot to reduce food waste by helping people make the most of the food they have on hand, during a time when home cooking is on the rise.

Solution

Chefbot is a first-of-its-kind AI-powered tool that helps people make the most of the ingredients they already have through mealtime inspiration and personalized suggestions for fresh, home cooked meals.

For users, it’s as easy as snapping a photo of the ingredients, tweeting the photo to @KrogerChefbot on Twitter, and within seconds Chefbot responds with a list of personalized recipe recommendations based on the ingredients.

For Kroger, it meant teaching visual artificial intelligence to recognize 2000 ingredients, from millions of photos, that unlock 20,000 recipes, all within a single, e-commerce-integrated social platform.

That’s no small task, but we have help from our loyal customers. As more people use Chefbot, its intelligence grows, creating not only a better product, but new opportunities to reach new customers at massive scale.

To generate awareness for Chefbot, 360i also created a full marketing ecosystem, including how-to videos, social content and influencer partnerships with famous foodies and novice cooks to show how easy Chefbot is to use and reinforce the message of using the ingredients you have on hand to reduce food waste.

Results

Chefbot is providing a much-needed utility that will reduce food waste, save people money, teach folks new recipes, and support Kroger’s commitment to “Fresh for Everyone”.