Artificial intelligence is an area that has seen rapid growth across a variety of industries in recent years – not least among food manufacturing companies.

Figures show that the number of new artificial intelligence roles being advertised for these companies has increased in recent months, ith firms across the industry looking to expand their capabilities.

The number of newly advertised roles stood at 217 in the first quarter of 2021. That’s up from 165 in the final three months of 2020 and up from 200 in the third quarter of last year.

The figures are compiled by GlobalData, which tracks the number of new job postings from key companies in various sectors over time. Using textual analysis, these job advertisements are then classified thematically.

GlobalData's thematic approach to sector activity seeks to group key company information by topic to see which companies are best placed to weather the disruptions coming to their industries.

These key themes, which include artificial intelligence, are chosen to cover "any issue that keeps a CEO awake at night".

Tracking them across job advertisements allows us to see which companies are leading the way on specific issues and which are dragging their heels – and importantly where the market is expanding and contracting.

So, where are companies hiring for artificial intelligence careers in food?

Looking across key food manufacturing companies tracked by GlobalData, the US is currently seeing the largest number of artificial intelligence job advertisements. Last quarter, the country saw 100 ads – compared to 57 in the fourth quarter of 2020 and 73 in the third quarter.

On a city level, Springdale in the US state of Arkansas had the most newly advertised artificial intelligence roles in the first quarter of this year with 14, followed by Plano in Texas with 12 and 11 in the Romanian capital of Bucharest.

And where is most growth for artificial intelligence roles in food?

The biggest growth area has been in the US, where, according to our data, there were 78 job adverts for artificial intelligence in the last three months of 2020 but rising to 100 in Q1 2021.