A food or drinks brand writes the same things over and over: the sell sheet, the tasting notes, the pairing, the reply to the review. That is where AI earns its keep. The label is where it does not.
Where does AI help a food or beverage brand first?
In the writing and reading that eat the sales and marketing team's week.
- Sell sheets for distributors and retailers. One product fact file, turned into the sell sheet for each distributor, the buyer email for each chain, and the shelf talker. A person checks every number before it goes out.
- Recipe and pairing content. Cocktail recipes for a spirit, food pairings for a beer or wine, recipe cards for a sauce. The tool drafts; your brewer, distiller, or chef tastes and corrects.
- Reviews read in bulk. Pull every review from the store pages, the beer apps, and Google, and have the tool sort them into what people love, what they complain about, and which store keeps getting the stale product.
- The inbox. Replies to the same distributor questions, event inquiries, and taproom booking requests, drafted for a person to send.
What should stay with a person?
Label copy and anything a regulator reviews. For alcohol that means the federal label rules (the TTB) and your state; for food it means the nutrition panel, allergens, and claims. A tool can draft the romance copy on the back of the can, but the required statements, the claims, and the final label go through your own compliance person or a label consultant who knows TTB or food labeling rules. I do not give legal or regulatory advice, and a tool should not either.
Keep a person on the relationships too: the call with the distributor rep, the thank-you to the bar that put you on draft.
How do we get named when people ask ChatGPT where to buy or what to pair?
Give the assistants plain pages to quote. A where-to-buy page that lists real stores by town, a pairing page for each product, tasting notes written as plain sentences, and a Google Business Profile with the right hours. People now ask "what bourbon goes with smoked brisket" or "where can I buy [your brand] near me," and the assistants answer from pages like those. An AI search check-up is $150 and shows where you are named today and where you are missing.
What does it cost to start?
A 90-minute session for $450 covers the AI tools you already pay for and finds the first two or three jobs to hand them. A half-day workshop for $1,500 maps the sales and marketing work with your team and ends with a list of what to fix first. See workshops, and the small business starting point if you want the general version first.
Have you worked with food and drink brands?
Yes. I ran deep content strategy studies for Woodford Reserve and Herradura on how and why people approach different information on a liquor website. At Olson I worked on the Phillips UV vodka site, a One Show Interactive Merit (the case), and on Old Dutch and Schell's.
Answered by Jared Lukes, Minneapolis. Twenty-five years in brand, UX, and technology, currently holding fractional AI and technology seats at three companies. About Jared.