Does Canoli help with AI recipe generation?

Yes. Canoli has two AI tools that can do the first draft of your recipe work for you. You tell them what you want in plain words, and they suggest the ingredients, amounts and method.

Using AI is optional. You can always build and edit recipes yourself, and the nutrition, claims and compliance checks update as you go either way.

Starting a new recipe: Canoli Assistant

Use the Assistant when you have an idea but no recipe yet.

1. From your Recipes page, open Canoli Assistant.
2. Give your recipe a name.
3. Under "What would you like to make?", describe it. For example: "a high-protein chocolate flapjack, below the HFSS mark", or "a high-protein whole milk smoothie with real banana and strawberries, with added whey protein".
4. Click Create. Canoli builds the recipe step by step: it searches the ingredient library, picks amounts, writes the method and fills in a description. You can watch each step as it happens.

When it's done, you get a new draft recipe with everything filled in: ingredients and amounts, method steps (often with handy tips), and the full nutrition panel, Nutri-Score and claims, just like a recipe you built yourself. Canoli also adds a note if any ingredient has missing data, so you know what to check.

There are still a few things to fill in yourself, like servings per pack, ingredient costs and your product specification.

Improving a recipe you already have: Reformulate

Reformulate is the same AI assistant, doing the same kind of job. The difference is where it starts. The Assistant starts from a blank page. Reformulate starts from a recipe you already have and changes it.

Use it when your recipe is nearly there but something needs to change: too much sugar, an NPM score over the HFSS mark, an ingredient that's become too expensive, or customer feedback you want to act on.

1. Open your recipe, click the three-dot menu at the top right, and choose Reformulate.
2. Under "What should change?", describe what you want. For example: "make it less sugary and lower in fat", or "cut the saturated fat so it passes HFSS, keeping the flavour close".
3. Click Run. Canoli scores your current recipe, searches the ingredient library for swaps, adjusts the amounts and rewrites any method steps that need it. You can watch each step as it happens.
4. Canoli shows you its proposal:
   • a summary of what it changed and why
   • the ingredients it added (+) and removed (−)
   • your NPM score and HFSS result, before and after
   • any method steps it changed, with a reminder to read each one
5. Click Adopt to draft to apply the changes, or Discard to keep your recipe as it was.

For example, you ask it to make your chocolate cookie less sugary and lower in fat. It might cut the brown sugar, halve the peanut butter, and add mashed banana and a little stevia to keep the sweetness and bulk. You'd see your sugar and saturated fat go down, and your NPM score drop.

If some of the sugar or fat is in a sub-recipe, like a filling, Canoli tells you. Reformulate doesn't change sub-recipes, so you'd reformulate the filling separately.

For a full walkthrough, see "What's the difference between Reformulate and Duplicate?"

You stay in control

• You review everything. The Assistant creates a draft, and Reformulate makes a proposal. Both are starting points for you to check and edit.
• Every change is tracked. Changes go into your version history, so you can see what changed and go back if you need to.
• The numbers are still traceable. Whatever the AI suggests, Canoli works out the nutrition the same way as always, from official food databases or your own supplier specs.

Always test it

AI can tell you a recipe works on paper. It can't taste it. Always make the recipe and check its taste, texture and how it behaves before you use it. Treat the figures as a guide while you develop, and confirm them before anything goes on your label.