Lawson sells three new foods made from AI ideas

Lawson, a Japanese company with thousands of stores, is selling three new foods from Tuesday, September 29. The ideas for the foods came from AI^*1. Lawson announced the news on September 16.

First, Lawson used AI to think of ideas for new foods. Then the people who make Lawson's food used these ideas as a starting point. They made test versions and checked them many times until the foods were ready. This is the first time Lawson has sold foods made with AI in a big way.

The first food is a lemon tart^*2 with a pickle^*3 flavor. It costs 270 yen^*4, including tax^*5. The second is a bread with sweet red bean paste^*6, butter, and yogurt. It is made with sake^*7 yeast^*8 and costs 181 yen. These two foods are sold at about 4,700 stores. The stores are in parts of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Niigata, Yamanashi, and Nagano. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, and the other names are prefectures^*9 in Japan.

The third food is a Japanese-style parfait^*10 salad with rice noodles. People mix it before they eat it. It costs 475 yen and is sold at about 3,800 stores. These stores are in the same area, but not in Niigata, Yamanashi, or Nagano.

Lawson says it did this to look for new ways to make foods. The AI gives free ideas, and then people make the taste and quality^*11 better.

1. *1 AI: a computer program that can think and make new ideas by itself
2. *2 tart: a small open pie with a sweet filling
3. *3 pickle: a vegetable kept in salt water or vinegar, with a sour taste
4. *4 yen: the money used in Japan
5. *5 tax: money that people pay to the government when they buy things
6. *6 red bean paste: a soft sweet food made from cooked red beans, used in Japanese sweets
7. *7 sake: a Japanese drink made from rice
8. *8 yeast: a tiny living thing that makes bread rise
9. *9 prefectures: the large areas that Japan is divided into, like states
10. *10 parfait: a dessert made of layers of fruit, cream, and other things in a tall glass
11. *11 quality: how good something is