Heather Elliott-Whitehead, the CEO of Yummy Jamaican Ventures, LLC, has launched a new line of frozen soups – the Hearty Jamaican Frozen Soups Brand – to meet the increased demand for convenience foods with global flavors. While Elliott-Whitehead was excited about the introduction of the frozen soup line designed to provide consumers with the authentic taste of Jamaica, she noted that the most significant thing about the brand’s story is how artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the pre-planning phase and its impact on the activity.
Yummy’s CEO stated that with artificial intelligence (AI) the company was able to do in just a few months is a good example of how the industry can advance using “intelligently programmed chatbots.” Yummy used AI to source information, and it was used in every part of product development, including initial efforts in seed funding. Elliott-Whitehead added that the costs of consulting fees would have been much higher if the firm had not used AI. “This is unprecedented,” she said.
Elliott-Whitehead headed the fundraising and startup efforts for the new brand and used her knowledge of the best practices in communications and research to engage with ChatGPT in an intense manner to help source funding opportunities and best practices for a consumer packaged goods startup. She used the information to create the firm’s business plan, obtain government-provided community access programs, get information about licensing, and find a commercial kitchen facility. Then she and her team successfully used crowdfunding to obtain the total startup costs for the new frozen soup line in fewer than ten days.
“The most important thing anyone using AI needs to accept is that it is not human. Whilst AI is revolutionary and exciting in this fast paced tech era, not all human search functionalities can be replaced by AI technology and its use. This was evident in many of our interactions with the AI tools we use primarily ChatGPT. For example, we still had to ensure that the information disseminated by the chatbots were actually correct, because original sources are not listed, so there was still some amount of proofreading and fact-checking that needed to be done. I approached my research with ChatGPT like that of an aggregator. There has to be some original source for this bot to be writing me an entire 500 words essay on the food industry in under two minutes.” said Elliott-Whitehead, told the Jamaicans.com when we asked the challenges using AI in the planning. “There are some questions though sensitive or proprietary that Google may give you an entire list of answers to, but ChatGPT for example refused to respond citing its limitations or restrictions. What I can tell you and perhaps what I enjoyed the most about using the AI tools is the speed in which the information is generated and the way it is generated. Since using ChatGPT as one of my main information and innovation resources, Google now appears very discursive to me’. Having first hand experience and observing the revolution that is AI, I am a bit worried about the future of communication and learning somewhat though, because I am confident that in a few years, this thing will be the brain for everything. People won’t have to think too much anymore and that I believe will limit them, particularly students. The company currently operates under a D2C model and has limited distribution in New York State. It continues to leverage the utilization of ChatGPT and other AI resources to enhance its social media platforms and social media activities.”
Yummy’s line of frozen soups features three flavors to date: Hearty Beef, Hearty Chicken, and Hearty Red Peas. All are made using ingredients traditionally used in Jamaica and flavored with proprietary seasonings. Offered in sustainable frozen packaging, the soups can be stored for future use and consumed at any time.
