The AI Cookbook is not only the first cookbook for artificial intelligence (and humans), but also a completely new and up-to-date way of showcasing a whole range of products. A kind of techie catalogue that uses what is relevant and interesting for today's society to demonstrate that Heinz Tomatoes improve any recipe. But most importantly, the first catalogue that people want to own and download with pleasure, on their own.

The first time the words 'intelligence' and 'artificial' were combined was in the 1950s and although a lot of progress has been made since then, the real boom has arrived now. 2023 has been the year of 'everyday' AI, which still has multiple challenges: protection of minors, privacy, misinformation or biases. IA has become the word of the year 2023 according to Collins.

Although it has been used for years in voice assistants, in monitoring social networks, in navigation systems or in customer service, the true revolution of this technology has come with generative artificial intelligence (AI) models, above all ChatGPT, capable of “conversing” and creating texts, photographs, videos or music from thousands of existing data.

Less than a year ago, Heinz opened its most important ingredient to the world: its tomatoes. It did so under the concept (and philosophy) of 'Open Sauce'. The new line of Heinz Culinary Tomatoes (for cooking developers) was launched with the promise that it could improve any recipe. Yes, any recipe. Months later, it was time to put this to the test. We needed to make a product demonstration, but in a way that aligned with the tech-inspired philosophy the brand was built on.

As ridiculous as it sounds, artificial intelligence can do amazing things (so many that people even fear it will take their jobs!), but cooking is not one of them. When AI is asked to generate food images, strange things (like monstrous tomatoes) happen. That’s why, to prove that Heinz Tomatoes can improve any dish, we thought of starting by improving the ones that needed it most: the digital ones.

To help AI master cooking, we decided to create the first recipe book for artificial intelligence—and for humans, of course. We crafted the prompts AI needs to follow to generate more than 30 recipes using Heinz Tomatoes and then compiled them in a traditional recipe book that's anything but traditional.

Heinz is the #1 brand for Tomato Ketchup globally and has over 150 years of expertise in tomatoes, we know we have the best tomatoes, they’re so good we even have our own seeds.

But a picture is literally worth a thousand words. And instead of claiming we’re the best, we decided to demonstrate it. With AI we had the opportunity to demonstrate how everything (including food photos) improves with our Heinz Tomatoes.

We brought Heinz chefs together with an AI expert to create specific prompts that could help AI generate better food images, replicating the texture, consistency, and naturalness of each of the products of the new Heinz Culinary Tomatoes range, using them as prompts themselves.

We taught AI how to "cook" more than 30 recipes, which we compiled in a recipe book designed for both artificial intelligence and humans. Each recipe uses Heinz Tomatoes as a key ingredient.

Following the open-source philosophy (as we like to call it: Open Sauce), we made the book available for anyone to download for free.

We also created a special website containing the recipes (with their prompts) and the products needed to make each one, ready to buy in a click.

Even though the campaign targeted only the United Kingdom, the book was downloaded from all over the world.

- Won the 2024 Gourmand Award for Best Cookbook and Winebook of the Year.

- Improved Heinz Masterbrand key brand attributes: “is a modern brand” (+4.2pp); “makes my food more exciting” (+6.4pp); “worth paying more” (+3.4pp).

- 5000+ images were generated using the cookbook’s prompts. 

- Reached lifestyle and tech magazines, putting Heinz in the centre of cultural topics with millennials foodies.

- Paid social CTR: 6.5% vs 2-3% benchmark.