Provided by: NEC
Five types of “Koipan” are available.
Tokyo
CNN
—
What does love taste like? The answer probably depends on who you ask.
Some might say it tastes bittersweet, like dark chocolate. Some might describe it as delicious and decadent, like a sweet cupcake.
Now, one Japanese bakery chain is using technology to find the answer.
Kimuraya, the country’s oldest bakery, has partnered with Japanese electronics company NEC to produce something called “Ren AI Pan,” which means “AI romance bread.”
NEC and Kimuraya claim that the new product, which comes in five flavors, captures the essence of the emotion that many of us associate with love.
Now comes the fun part. According to a statement released by the two companies, NEC used its AI technology to analyze dialogue from reality TV dating shows and songs that include references to fruits and sweets in the lyrics.
Through this analysis, they identified five key emotions in love: first meeting, first date, jealousy, heartbreak, and mutual love. The bakery is then said to have worked its magic and transformed this sentiment into fluffy steamed breads in a variety of flavors.
Want to get your hands on a piece? It went on sale from February 1st at supermarkets in the Kanto area and Kimuraya Bakery’s online store.
As for the impetus for this unusual combination, both brands appear to have faced similar challenges. The question is how to increase the appeal of your company among Japan’s younger generation.
Through market research, Kimraya found that more young people say they are not interested in pursuing romantic relationships. Despite this trend, there was still a strong desire among young people to date, fall in love, and ultimately end up with a partner.
Recognizing this gap, the company decided to create AI Love Bread, which recreates the taste of romance and evokes the feeling of being in love when eaten. In other words, it encourages you to inject some of that feeling into your personal life.
According to NEC, two AI technologies were used in this project: “NEC Enhanced Speech,” which converts speech to text, and “NEC Data Enrichment,” which generates emotional scores from text data.
Provided by: NEC
“Tears of Broken Heart” bread is flavored with apple cider and grapes.
Using this information, the AI selected ingredients that represent emotions associated with love.
To obtain the material to use, they conducted a “conversation analysis” using 15 hours of footage extracted from the Japanese dating reality show “Today I Fell In Love.”
From there, the AI converted the conversation into text and categorized it into one of five categories: chance encounter, date, jealousy, heartbreak, and mutual love.
Next, AI extracted the lyrics of about 35,000 songs about love and food from a Japanese database. They then used AI to assign “emotion scores” to dialogue and lyrics, creating a visual map that matched different stages of love with specific foods and flavors.
The “Fateful Encounter” bread has a cotton candy flavor and expresses the sweet and light feelings of first love. “Jealousy” tastes like purple sweet potatoes, truffle oil, and raisins.
Rounding out the other breads, “First Date” has citrus flavors like lime and orange peel, and “Mutual Love” is a sweet-tart mix of honey, peach, and dragon fruit.
Although these bread concepts were created by technology, they still required human participation.
“The AI selected the ingredients, but our role was to turn them into bread,” says Kimuraya Bakery developer Yuki Kitazawa. “For Love Bread, we focused on the use of color to visually express romantic feelings, and aimed for a bright and pop appearance.”
