A 135-Year-Old Flavor Company Is Rebuilding Its Supply Chain With AI

McCormick & Company built its business on a global sourcing network that stretches from smallholder farmers in Asia and Africa to manufacturing plants in North America, Europe, and Australia.

The company sells spices, seasonings, and flavor solutions in more than 150 countries. In recent years, that footprint has become harder to manage. Volatile crop yields, freight disruptions, cost inflation, and uneven regional demand have stressed McCormick’s supply chain and pressured margins.

The company has begun replacing its planning infrastructure with AI-driven systems. The shift is part of a broad digital transformation that McCormick’s leadership has been outlining since 2023, moving from using AI for product innovation to embedding it in the core operations that run the business.

AI Enters Day-to-Day Operations

McCormick’s first public use of AI dates back to its 2019 collaboration with IBM Research. The company said the project applied machine learning to decades of sensory and consumer data to accelerate flavor development. IBM described the system as a model that could “predict new flavor combinations” and cut development cycles for seasoning blends. McCormick released its first AI-generated consumer product line (ONE Seasoning Mixes) later that year.