By Amanda Baltazar

AI is advancing fast. According to market research company Datassential, 63% of Americans use AI regularly, with higher usage among younger generations.

One area where AI can enhance c-store operations is in the kitchen. Chefs across the foodservice industry are using AI for menu development, new recipe ideation and cuisine research and inspiration. While it’s a major opportunity, introducing AI creates some tension for foodservice professionals, who are evaluating how AI can help while struggling to preserve culinary creativity, authenticity and human touches.

“We expect the most successful brands, including c-stores, to use AI as an enhancer of craft, not a replacement for it,” said Samantha Des Jardins, content marketing manager, Datassential, Chicago. For many brands, the first step toward an AI menu is using generative tools for inspiration and refinement—not automation.

AI Menus Are Gaining Traction

Datassential is seeing early but meaningful adoption of AI for menu and recipe development across foodservice, particularly among larger restaurant chains, R&D teams and operators who are already comfortable using AI for behind-the-scenes tasks. The most active users tend to be ones that already lean on AI for things like market research, menu pricing or customer feedback analysis—areas where operator comfort is noticeably higher, Des Jardins said.

However, only one in five restaurant operators are comfortable letting AI fully manage menu or recipe creation, though they are using it for assistance with certain steps, she pointed out.

Many R&D teams are embracing AI, said Mike Kostyo, vice president of foodservice consultancy Menu Matters in Arlington, Vermont. “It does such a great job of making sense of lots of data and information. A single organization is working with millions, sometimes billions, of data points, so AI can crunch the numbers and point the team in the right direction as they develop new products, for instance.”

This is increasingly important as convenience foodservice continues to grow and c-store menu development becomes more data driven.

Kostyo is seeing AI used in different ways across the foodservice sector. Chefs might use it for calculations to scale recipes or for cost analysis. Or they might use it for ideation or to tweak a concept they’ve developed. “On a larger scale, organizations are using it to make sense of their massive amounts of data,” he added, which can help when developing something new.

But it’s important that chefs retain control of the creative and authentic aspects of their jobs. “Chefs aren’t handing over the creative reins; they’re using AI to surface global inspiration, flag allergens or nutrition issues and pressure-test whether a new idea fits their brand,” Des Jardins explained.

Custom GPTs to Power AI Menu Development

AI could be a boon to convenience stores’ menu development teams. A quick look outside this industry reveals how it’s being incorporated at a foodservice management company and in teaching at one of the most renowned culinary schools.

London Baker, RD, LDN, CSSD, CPT, is the regional wellness manager in the Bay Area and Pacific Northwest for Bon Appetit foodservice management company and has developed three custom Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) for menu and recipe development and inventory auditing using ChatGPT.

A custom GPT, he explained, is a specific GPT that you program to do a task that will always be consistent.

When he stumbled into AI, he said, he started exploring the capabilities and seeing how it could address some of the more manual and time-consuming aspects of his work and reduce repetitive tasks. He experimented with automation to streamline workflow and save time for his team members.

His three GPTs, all of which will be implemented and tested in the next year by Bon Appetit, are:

1. A recipe-writing GPT: This ensures all recipes created by Bon Appetit chefs follow the same rules, that they use culturally authentic preparation methods and produce appropriate quantities.

2. A menu mix GPT: Bon Appetit chefs cook from scratch and design menus around seasonality. Menus change weekly or sometimes daily. This GPT offers chefs fresh inspiration and suggests dishes that align with what they’re looking for, be it a season, a region or a specific clientele.

3. A pantry audit GPT: This will help teams quickly identify products and categorize their ingredients, especially when it comes to allergens. “This leads to much less chance for mistakes,” said Baker. Plus, it can mitigate food waste and ensures labeling compliance across the organization.

Using these GPTs, said Baker, “helps do some of the time-consuming and manual tasks so I can spend my time doing things that require deeper thinking, more creativity and problem-solving.”

AI Will be a Vital Tool for the Next Generation of Chefs

AI is also increasingly being used in school settings. Instructors at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island are building assignments and projects for students around AI. “It’s especially relevant in our culinary development classes,” said Dr. Jason Evans, dean, college of food innovation and technology.

“Our students and faculty are using AI as a starting point for a creative process,” he said, such as creating a recipe blending Peruvian flavors with a traditional beef stew. And while guardrails have to be in place for this academic institution, he believes it’s vital that students use AI now because “they certainly will when they’re in the workplace. We want students to create something novel and useful.”

Joe Melanson, MAT, CHE, is an associate professor at the school and is one of the staff members teaching students how to use AI responsibly.

“I use it as a tool for myself when I’m stuck and that’s what I teach my students,” he said.

One student was recently developing an international brunch bowl concept and wanted to include shakshuka, but it just wasn’t working. So he turned to AI and it gave him options for the rice; breaking out the sauce ingredients for more color and visual appeal; and garnishes, which would add contrast, color, flavor and texture.

It also suggested spins on the dish, like adding Moroccan spices and different proteins. In this case, said Melanson, the student had gotten as far as he could on his own, and AI provided the next step. It can be a tool to help push students’ creativity further and find a solution.

Trust Remains a Top AI Menu Concern

Datassential’s research shows the foodservice industry’s biggest hesitation when it comes to AI is trust. More than half of operators say they’re uncomfortable letting AI autonomously manage core functions in the kitchen.

“Many chefs worry about losing creative authorship, diluting brand identity or ending up with overly generic concepts. Operators also express concerns about sharing sensitive business data to train AI models, with only about a quarter saying they’re comfortable doing so,” said Des Jardins. “There’s also a broader cultural concern: nearly three-quarters of consumers say AI-generated content adds to the challenge of knowing what’s trustworthy.”

As AI evolves, the most successful AI menus will be those that support—not replace—human creativity in the kitchen. For operators, AI offers a powerful new tool for c-store menu development, helping teams move faster, smarter and more precisely.

“You can use AI to help in the development process, cut down on laborious data-crunching or ideate against, but at the end of the day it should still be a human concept,” said Kostyo.