Made in Italy: Would you taste this ChatGPT-prompted ice cream?

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Milanhas hit 30C again at the turn of September, the city's inhabitants are coming back from their heat-escaping seaside holidays, and footfall at Milano Centrale, the city's main rail station, is on the up once again.

Perfectly acceptable background context to kick off an article, you'll agree. But all this information is not merely peripheral for former business consultant-turned gelato maestro Gianfranco Sampo, it is in fact all being fed directly into his computer system at Terra, his revolutionary gelato boutique.

Sampo and team have had more than a sprinkle of media interest as they ride the AI wave, and it's not surprising that much attention is paid to the ChatGPT prompts coming up with new flavours, particularly the mouth-wateringly luscious white chocolate, berries with caramelised black pepper and balsamic vinegar.

But one of Sampo's real triumphs alongside his AI partners Agile and Sibbol is the use of AI to predict just how much gelato, and which flavours, his supreme gelato chef Massimo Grosso will need to make to minimise food waste.

Each flavour has a different base composition, so the machine dispenses just the right amount of each foundational element into a container that will then be taken to the next stage where they add cow's milk, oat milk or sometimes just water. This exactitude means that each morsel is accounted for. Couple that with the AI prediction model and you not only reduce food waste, you also reduce the need for unnecessary storage of stock.

"If you need many, many spaces for stock, it becomes a problem to manage. To have a system that can predict in the right way means a big reduction of space and that is a big save of money, especially in the big cities, international big cities where the space is very, very expensive," Sampo tells Euronews Culture.

"Normally, when you sell gelato, you sell a gelato for €3.50. But €3.50 of what? Of Pistachios? Stracciatella? What? People don't know what they're selling," he adds.

"Every product, every batch, has a barcode. Every time that we move that," says Sampo, pointing to a tray of refrigerated gelato," from here to the counter, or to the other shop, we scan it so I exactly know every day what we produce."

I move towards the machine to film the process and notice that the amount of dispensed ingredient remains at zero. I wait for it to change. It doesn't. Sampo and Grosso are amused.

"It's a secret!," says Sampo.

Ah. Of course. Fair enough.

It can't be a perfect system, I suggest, because finally the scoops are measured out by the front of house team, by a human.

"Yes this is true, of course, but we also measure this. If the scanned output is a little bit lower than the day's revenue, we can tell the server to bump it up a bit, and vice versa of course," he laughs.

Out of Italy

Sampo mentions 'international cities' because his ambition stretches far beyond Milan.

Early October will see the opening of a new Terra in Rome, and he is scouting out potential locations in New York City for 2025.

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"You have more than 56,000 gelateria in Italy," says Sampo, a confident, enthusiastic man with a passing resemblance to British actor Dennis Quilley. "It's difficult to have a big increase because you have so many gelateria. So... the real opportunity is international. Not only the U.S. but also in Europe you have a big increase of artisanal businesses in comparison with the industrial. Gelato is 3 billion of euros of business, and every year, you have a big increase, especially outside of Italy. So that's the reason why we developed a new shop in Rome to show that the business model works. In another city completely different from Milan, a big city where the model is similar. But after we are looking to new countries, New York, London, Madrid, that's our plan."

The business model is flexible and because it's based on flavour, it can be adapted to the traditional tastes of the area it embraces.

"If you want to have something that is really special and at the same time local, the artificial intelligence can help us to find the right tradition of the place that gives to the people the taste of older times," says Sampo.

Perhaps that's the real secret of success, the adaptability. The McDonald's franchise have been varying their offer for decades according to local tastes. From bacon rolls in the UK to matcha red bean cakes in Hong Kong, the people's habits guide the menu. But much like you'll always find a Big Mac in any outpost, you'll always find chocolate at any Terra.

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He and Grosso have adapted a traditional Roman cake into a flavour for next month's opening, and he seems enthused by the idea of a New York cheesecake for the 2025 ambition. This, too, will be the result of AI intervention.

The team will feed local food websites and social media accounts into the AI engine to assess the greatest likelihood of success. This also shows a burgeoning trend for lower sugar and less milk which, not unlike the wine industry's gradual movement towards lower alcohol and fewer sulphites, will inform gelato-making going forward.

It's something the team has already road-tested in their other Milan store, which is situated in a neighbourhood with a comparatively high density of Chinese residents.

"We see that many of these guys want something more Chinese. They love raspberry, so, we create a new flavour for the Chinese that is black sesame and raspberry jam. That is an incredible success in the Chinese area for the Chinese people," outlines Sampo.

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Sampo will need the ingredient-controlling machine to ensure the recipes are precisely adhered to in this vision of an expansive future. "Because," grins Sampo, "how do you find another Massimo?"

Veganism for all

Trends transcend location, and Sampo has not let wider food preferences slip into the creamer. His vegan ice cream has been flying out of the tubs.

"We wanted to develop a vegan recipe that was cool and good not only for the vegan but for all the people. We are not a pharmacy, we are a gelateria. So we want to create something very good. And that was the hazelnut with caramelised peach and pieces of salted hazelnut," says Sampo. "This is done with oat milk, without classic milk." I ask if this was ChatGPT's idea. It most assuredly was.

Its other success story, the much-vaunted white chocolate and berry creation, brought the AI partnership the top accolade in the ice cream universe - the Gambero Rosso Tri Cone award. Think three cones = three Michelin stars, and you've got the level.

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Let's see if the New York Cheesecake or the Spanish bartolillos scoop the prize in the next phase.