TDC Adopts AKA Studio to Accelerate AI-Enabled Food Development
Multi-year agreement brings unified R&D data, faster innovation cycles and improved customer responsiveness across categories.
aka-food.com
Modernising Food R&D Through an AI-Ready Digital Platform
AKA Foods has announced a multi-year agreement with Technology Driven Concepts (TDC), one of Africa’s leading ingredient and application development companies, to implement AKA Studio, its secure AI-ready platform for food R&D. The decision marks one of the earliest global commitments to a long-term digital and AI-supported product-development strategy within the food industry.
TDC works with major consumer brands, retailers and a global quick-service restaurant chain. Its adoption of AKA Studio follows extensive collaboration, during which TDC served as an early design partner, validating how the platform unifies formulations, experiments, sensory results, costing insights and tacit product knowledge into a structured environment tailored to real food-developer workflows.
A Single Source of Truth for Faster, Smarter Innovation
The move to AKA Studio reflects a broader shift toward data-driven product development, where speed, accuracy and consolidated knowledge increasingly shape competitive advantage. By centralising years of development history, the platform enables teams to identify relevant past work instantly, reduce duplicated effort and respond to customer requests with greater confidence and precision.
The system differs from generic digital tools by recognising the full context of food creation—capturing how formulations behave, which processes impact sensory results, how cost drivers influence feasibility and how past project patterns can guide future decision-making. This structured foundation positions TDC to integrate emerging food-specific AI capabilities as they mature within the platform.
Strengthening Capability Across Categories and Customers
With its unified data model and secure, private cloud architecture, AKA Studio supports multi-category innovation while protecting sensitive intellectual property. For TDC, this means improved responsiveness across its diverse customer base and greater agility in developing solutions for both regional and international markets.
The partnership also demonstrates the growing importance of robust digital infrastructure in the food sector, particularly as companies face rising input costs, shifting consumer expectations and the need to innovate rapidly without compromising quality or confidentiality.
A Milestone for AI Adoption in Food Science and Technology
By formalising a long-term commitment to AKA Studio, TDC reinforces its position as one of Africa’s most forward-looking R&D organisations. The agreement highlights the increasing role of structured data and AI-ready systems in shaping the next decade of food innovation, while supporting South Africa’s standing as a leader in food science and technology on the continent.
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