A Food Services Experimentation Mindset is AI Food for Thought - Featuring Mark Freeman

"A Food Services Experimentation Mindset is AI Food for Thought" | Let's Gig-A-Bit Podcast What happens when you put an Ex-Microsoft food visionary, the Microsoft Garage and Hackathon innovation labs, and the age of AI in the same room? Magic — and possibly crickets on the menu. In this episode, host Todd Rawlings and co-host Mike Farabelli sit down with Mark Freeman, the pioneering food service executive who ran Microsoft's dining program for 13 years and quietly turned a corporate cost center into profit center while building a living laboratory for the future of food. Mark shares how he introduced hydroponics, vertical farming, predictive analytics, biodigesters, aquaponics, and black soldier fly composting — long before any of it was trendy — and how AI is now supercharging everything he started. In this episode: How Mark built a global network of AI-connected tower gardens managed from a Surface tablet in Redmond The 96% accurate predictive model that told chefs how many burgers to cook — before AI was even a buzzword Why Bobby Flay thinks AI's greatest food application is storytelling AR glasses for chefs, humanoid robots, and what they mean for the future of your kitchen How drone delivery, circular economy thinking, and smart greenhouses are rewriting food's supply chain Mark's AI-powered "board of directors" — and why he hired a CEO named Edna Career paths in food and farming for the AI era Whether you're a food industry professional, a tech enthusiast, or just someone who eats — this conversation will change how you think about what's on your plate and who (or what) put it there. 🌱 Subscribe to Mark's daily newsletter: https://www.grayhairwisdom.org Email: [email protected] 🎙️ Subscribe to Let's Gig-A-Bit wherever you listen to podcasts. #AI #FoodTech #Agriculture #FutureOfFood #Sustainability #Podcast #FoodInnovation #VerticalFarming #LetsGigABit #aipodcast