Commercial food companies are tapping artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly develop new products and make them available to consumers.

Oreos and Chips Ahoy cookies maker Mondelez has a customized self-learning AI tool that makes snack recipes based on the company’s parameters, including costing, environmental impact, and nutritional value, its biscuit researcher Kevin Wallenstein told The Wall Street Journal, according to New York Post (NYP).

Mondelez’s old product development process of trial and error was replaced by the AI method which can bring prototype products to “pilot or production trials four to five times faster,” NYP reports.

The tool has already been used to create 70 different products and to tweak the recipes of existing snacks.

‘When microorganisms are cultivated using the glucose as a nutrient, cellulose membranes are produced.’

Meanwhile, a new Japanese technology can make paper without using paper-making equipment, Japan News reported. It said Naotaka Tanaka, a professor at Kagawa University’s Faculty of Agriculture who specializes in applied microbiology, developed the technique and said the paper can be made into a wide range of products, like traditional “uchiwa fans.”

The main ingredient of the paper is boiled udon noodles discarded by restaurants in Kagawa Prefecture at the end of the day.

Explaining the process, Tanaka said the udon noodles and water are mixed in a blender first, then an enzyme is added to produce glucose.

“When microorganisms are cultivated using the glucose as a nutrient, cellulose membranes are produced. The membranes form paper when dried,” he explained.

The technology can produce five to 10 sheets of A4-size paper from one serving of udon. “The udon-based paper is thinner than ordinary copier paper, measuring up to 10 percent of its weight,” according to Japan News. It also “does not tear easily when pulled, is water-resistant, and can adhere to things when dampened.”