AI: Why chefs are turning to artificial intelligence

Nicolas Maire is the model of a professional French chef with years of experience and 18 stars under his belt, a man who dominates his kitchen and teaches his guests how to cook.

The kitchen is buried in a corporate headquarters on the outskirts of Switzerland. Firmenich has a perfume industry history stretching back to 1895.

As the public appetite for alternatives to meat led to a scramble to put plant-based food on supermarket shelves, Firmenich's nose for a new market saw it diversify into food ingredients.

The company believes there will be a $200 billion market for plant-based meat substitute by the year 2030.

Sam, an artificial intelligence robot, is Mr Maire's new sous-chef to help perfect the flavours of these innovative foods.

Sam is part of a team of flavourists.

The sense of taste in humans is caused by multiplefferents that alert our brains to the nature of any food we encounter.

Sam has been trained on a database of ingredients that have been at the company for 60 years.

Using a technique called machine learning, it has raced through examples of flavour combinations and has learned its own definitions.

Sam had to understand what a strawberry is, or how grilled beef hits the tongue, before finding matches between tastes and plant foodstuff, because Eric Saracchi runs the digital side of Firmenich.

A piano with 5,000 keys is what the robot is called internally.

The team of human flavourists play that piano.

The master flavourists are the ones who work the most, and out of 30 in the world six work at Firmenich.

The creators of flavours are so rare that you can only enhance them.

Patrick Salord is the principal flavourist.

Being a flavourist is a combination of art and science. I earned a masters degree in chemistry. To get the flavour we want, we have to pick the best ingredients. We compare them and evaluate them.

He uses certain aromas and tastes to mask off off-notes such as acidic tastes while giving a formula the right texture. He talks about how removing one tiny ingredient can change the taste of food.

Sam takes the knowledge of flavourists and creates new formulas in minutes, a fraction of the time Mr Salord and his team use.

The advantage of an artificial intelligence robot is that it has no biases. The lack of prejudice helps Firmenich get past the biases of the flavourists.

The objectivity of Sam allows it to work at speed, and it adds value by combining the knowledge of all the other flavourists here.

The machine quickly gives an indication of how a flavour can be created and how much of an ingredient should be included. Sam can referee decisions when the flavourists view differs from that of a consumer panel.

The finished product needs more and that is what Mr Salord's team bring to the tasting party.

We try to have coffee in the morning. Your sense of taste is affected by lunch. We leave the afternoon for work on the computer.

The flavourist and robot are coming out of the frying pan in Mr Maire's kitchen. He is used to hosting business clients who are looking for a specific taste in food.

He rates the taste of UK consumers highly, even though Artificial Intelligence is a powerful, beautiful tool.

He admits that this marriage of science and gastronomy has its critics.

His retort was to brandish thick slices of a pale juicy meat that tastes like a good cut of chicken but springs from Sam's recipe for vegetable protein, resembling a paste.

Mr Maire is ready to make Christmas turkey and more from plant-based ingredients. We can make Christmas pudding flavours too.

Sausage seems to be the dominant taste in his beef burger. Sam and the flavourists have more work to do.