ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it would start to provide personalized food recommendation function (or personalized optimization) based on the taste preference research developed by Taste & Aroma Strategic Research Institute Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Michihiro Koyanagi, President; hereinafter the "Taste & Aroma Strategic Research Institute") engaging in the digital food solution business backed by kansei (taste) engineering data such as taste sense data.

Recently, people are more inclined to rely on generative AI when searching for integrated information consisting of multiple kinds of data, in addition to searching using their smartphones and social media. There is the tendency toward food personalization, or personalized optimization, due to the further acceleration of the diversification of consumers' food preferences. To respond to this consumer trend, food manufacturers and retail companies releasing new products or renewal products more often. This makes it more difficult for consumers to find products to their taste preferences. In these circumstances, the personalized recommendation area has been drawing attention in markets, analyzing consumers' behaviors and preferences and giving tailored recommendations to each individual.

Having independently developed a preference testing system based on a taste sense database containing over 120,000 pieces of data, the Taste & Aroma Strategic Research Institute enables the quick and easy collection of data regarding individual preferences via smartphones and offers preference data as a new indicator for understanding consumers.
Utilizing this preference data, ITOCHU and the Taste & Aroma Strategic Research Institute have begun providing personalized food recommendation function aimed at creating encounters with products based on consumers' their taste preferences. If the retail companies and food manufacturers with many product families and points of direct contact with consumers incorporate this function into their e-commerce websites and apps, they will be able to recommend optimal products to each individual based on the consumer's preference data.

The provision of the function is grounded in the cooperation between ITOCHU's digital businesses (multiple companies with a broad range of features related to digital transformation) including GI Cloud, Inc., a team of engineers specialized in Google Cloud with strengths in big data analysis and AI, and ITOCHU INTERACTIVE CORP., a company performing digital marketing such as user interface (UI) design and creative production. The offering also includes the provision of high value-added products and services based on the discovery of potential customer needs.

ITOCHU supports the effective use of data in food companies' product planning and development processes, having started to provide the FOODATA* database connecting product taste sense information with customer purchase data including age and gender in July 2021. Proactively using five senses’ data such as taste sense information, ITOCHU will build optimal relationships between client enterprises and consumers and serve as a partner to expand businesses together with clients.