Hellmann’s Uses AI to Mark Food Waste Action Week

The UK’s leading mayonnaise brand Hellmann’s has today launched an AI-driven campaign by Ogilvy UK in collaboration with Google Cloud, using a simple fridge scan to help reduce household food waste.

‘Meal Reveal’, Hellmann’s new AI-enabled tool, allows audiences to scan the food they already have in their fridges to receive bespoke recipe ideas based on its contents. The tool utilises generative AI capabilities in Google Cloud’s Vertex platform to identify the ingredients, then the tool further matches the foods to recipes to provide tasty meal suggestions.

Hellmann’s Meal Reveal was designed in response to the common issue of ‘fridge blindness’ - when a fridge is full of ingredients, but people aren’t able to see or imagine what meals to make. The tool provides a time saving and convenient solution for consumers struggling to use up ingredients and leftovers that, with Hellmann’s mayonnaise, can be turned into something delicious.

Meal Reveal also marks the latest step in Hellmann’s long-standing mission to help people to Make Taste, Not Waste. Each year, Hellmann’s inspires more than 200 million people across the world to be more resourceful with their food. This work follows last year’s innovative ‘Smart Jar’, a specially designed jar of mayo that became a thermometer in people’s fridges, nudging them to set the right fridge temperature to keep food fresher for longer.

The tool is being unveiled during this year’s Food Waste Action Week from the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, delivered by climate action NGO WRAP, which is working to tackle the causes of the climate crisis and give the planet a sustainable future.

The Meal Reveal campaign kicks off in the UK before rolling out to other markets across social channels, YouTube placements and OOH.

Dan Fisher, global ECD, Unilever and special projects, Ogilvy UK, said, “Hellmann’s Meal Reveal inspires people to embrace their leftovers and make their food go further. Consumers have such good food intentions, but then life gets in the way. People just want to know how they can make simple but tasty meals from what’s sitting in their fridge but are unsure where to start. Meal Reveal is a straightforward and innovative tool that guarantees less food is wasted.”

Christina Bauer-Plank, Hellmann’s global VP, said, "People never set out wanting to throw food away. Food waste is an unintended consequence of our busy lives, where we look in the fridge after a long day and see disparate ingredients but nothing to eat. We saw an opportunity here to create a straightforward, easy to use tool. 

Meal Reveal is powered by the latest Google technology where a simple scan of the leftover ingredients lets you see the delicious potential in your fridge, in the palm of your hand.” 

To learn more about Meal Reveal and use the tool, visit here