Ingredion has announced Ask Ingredion. Ask Ingredion is a “conversational” AI-powered ingredient assistant that helps R&D and technology teams solve formulation challenges faster and more effectively. This announcement reflects how F&B ingredient suppliers are increasingly leveraging AI to support NPD and provide insight-driven guidance beyond manual searches.
At Ask Ingredion, we present challenges to manufacturers such as texture goals, clean label requirements, and cost targets, and ask them to refine their search with contextual follow-up questions.
According to Innova Market Insights, Ingredion’s new tools come as consumers become more cautious about the role of AI in F&B innovation. Approximately 17% of global consumers say they are very satisfied with AI being used in product development.
In response, manufacturers are integrating this technology into everything from recipe creation to food safety monitoring.
Ask Ingredion, which was recently made publicly available on the company’s website, will be on display at IFT FIRST 2026 (July 12-15) in Chicago, USA.
AI tackles the complexity of ingredient selection
Chris Regan, head of Ingredion’s Digital Marketing Center of Excellence, tells Food Materials First that Ask Ingredion is designed to address various bottlenecks in research and development departments that impact formulation decisions.
“There are changing label requirements, changing regulatory landscapes, demand for different products, emerging trends, and other market trends. There is no shortage of information.”
“The challenge is understanding what sets of information to draw from, what factors should weigh in these decisions, and how to get to a point where you can test something. When can you get to a pilot more effectively? How quickly can you arrive at two parallel formulations to consider your options and see what works for your task?” he explains.
How does Ask Ingredion work?
Ask Ingredion works as a conversational AI assistant within Ingredion’s MyIngredion portal.
“Customers can interact with the website, get information from anywhere, and address issues and challenges interactively rather than filtering it themselves,” Regan explains.
This allows R&D teams to start with formulation questions such as applications, feature needs, and product goals.
“If you’re looking for a direct replacement for an existing ingredient, a manufacturer can say, ‘We’re currently using ‘X.’ Could you please suggest “Y” in this space? ” explains Regan.
The tool then asks follow-up questions about the product, processing conditions, and desired features before suggesting relevant ingredient options that users can compare side-by-side.
Users can then request samples of one or more recommended ingredients so they can test them in their formulations or speak with Ingredion’s technical experts to discuss shortlisted options.
The training and supervision behind Ask Ingredion
Ask Ingredion leverages Ingredion’s technical data sheets, product specifications, and formulation knowledge.
“We have a public version of Ask Ingredion, delivered through our website, that uses information that already exists in the public domain and supplements it with Ingredion-specific application expertise,” says Regan.
“We leverage many sources in both public and authenticated experiences to provide an additional layer of expertise.”
Ingredion ensures the accuracy of AI-generated recommendations through training, monitoring, and human oversight. “We worked with our partners to build the solution and spent a significant amount of time training the system on the nature of the response, where to draw expertise from in a given context, and how to proceed to the next stage of the question,” Regan said.
Users can give thumbs up or thumbs down feedback on recommendations, which helps Ingredion improve the model over time.
Human expertise in AI-powered research and development
As the use of AI expands into technical workflows, Ingredion claims that Ask Ingredion is designed to augment, not replace, human support.
“We want to balance both human and AI expertise, because AI alone won’t solve problems in this space. We don’t envision a scenario where AI recommends a product, and that’s the end of the story. Our timelines aren’t that fast, our processes aren’t that quick, and we always need significant expertise,” Regan says.
Regan emphasizes that Ask Ingredion is different from typical AI tools because it is built around Ingredion’s own technical expertise and product data, rather than using a typical AI agent to receive different recommendations each time.
“This isn’t just putting a large language model on top of what we already have; it’s tied to our technical experts and behind-the-scenes teams,” he says.
“Those behind the scenes will continue to provide Ask Ingredion with the necessary information and materials to provide better access to more relevant and additional information over time.”
Ingredion highlights wide range of AI tools for NPD
Future plans for Ask Ingredion include adding more AI-driven features through the MyIngredion portal, including support for standard Q&A, order management, delivery tracking, and other customer service features.
“’Ask Ingredion’ is an umbrella term to describe the advanced AI-driven solutions that Ingredion wants to offer to our customers. The days of customer portals being a single, static vehicle and customers using tools to track things themselves are not necessarily over, but they are changing,” says Regan.
The company plans to continue increasing the amount of information used to make AI-powered recommendations. This will give you more context-specific responses in subsequent conversations and help you move towards specific areas of expertise.
Ingredion at IFT FIRST 2026
At IFT FIRST 2026, Ingredion is introducing Ask Ingredion as part of the MyIngredion customer portal experience.
“There will be an Ask Ingredion demo and walkthrough, which will be used to ask and answer questions related to some of the prototypes that visitors can try out on the stand.”
“People will be able to connect the dots between the process of formulation and the final product they can eat or drink,” Regan concludes.
