Medissolla Wins SIAL Innovation Special Award for Transforming Food Development with AI

Selected for a special award from approximately 2,500 entries; outstanding finalists judged separately by a global B2B influencer panel
Reduces repeated development and refines nutritional design... connecting everything from design to sensory evaluation and accredited testing analysis

Medisola's AI-based nutrition design technology, "Recipe Design," which won the Special Award at the SIAL Innovation "Influence Favourite Award." AI-generated image (provided by Medisola)

Medissolla (Co-CEOs Lee Seungyeon and Lee Dongu) announced that its AI-based recipe design technology, Recipe Design (RD), was selected for the Influence Favourite Award, a special award in the innovation program at 2026 SIAL Paris, held in Paris, France. The award is international recognition of the innovation behind shifting food recipe development from reliance on expert experience to a data-driven approach.

Marking its 30th anniversary this year, SIAL Innovation received approximately 2,500 entries, of which 560 were selected for the Innovation Selection. In addition to its main awards, SIAL presents three Favourite Awards—Jury, Press, and Influence—to recognize outstanding finalists. The Influence Favourite Award is determined by a separate panel of French and international food industry influencers, who vote among candidates that received particularly high marks from the SIAL Innovation selection committee but did not win the Grand Award. RD was selected as the winner of the Influence Favourite Award in this final round.

In its official announcement, SIAL described RD as an "evidence-based AI engine that designs and transforms recipes according to defined nutritional standards." In particular, it highlighted the underlying technology for product development rather than the finished products themselves. SIAL recognized as a key innovation the way RD structures and digitizes a recipe development process that has relied heavily on the experience of nutrition professionals, and redesigns how recipes are created by using AI and nutritional data.

Medissolla's Recipe Design (RD) is an AI-based nutritional design technology that translates clinical and nutritional evidence into food recipes that can be manufactured in practice. It converts nutritional standards (Nutri-Standard) developed by doctors and clinical nutrition experts into machine-readable conditions, while its core engine, Elite Recipe, adjusts the proportions of each ingredient while preserving the ingredient composition specified by the developer. Using genetic algorithm-based exploration, it generates candidate recipes that simultaneously meet multiple nutritional requirements, including calories, carbohydrate-protein-fat ratios, omega-3, and sodium.

RD uses more than 100,000 nutritional data records, cross-validated against information from South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Canada's national nutrient database, and Medissolla's accredited testing results, as well as more than 200 standardized ingredient records. Designed recipes are validated through actual prototype production, sensory evaluations, and analysis by accredited testing institutions. Differences between predicted and measured values are then added to the data, helping improve the accuracy of future designs.

According to Medissolla, developing existing nutrition-tailored products took an average of 6 to 8 months, but the time has been reduced to 2 to 3 months since RD was introduced. Repeated trial and error has also been reduced by up to 80%. RD is currently used in practical nutrition-tailored solutions, including Medissolla's foods for special medical purposes for diabetes, kidney disease, dialysis, and cancer.

RD was developed as Medissolla converted the clinical nutrition research and food development experience it had accumulated since the early days of its business into a digital system. The company views RD not simply as a nutritional calculation tool, but as a core technology that connects clinical evidence, nutritional standards, ingredient data, product development, sensory evaluations, and analysis results in a single workflow. The company said this enables it to build development processes that once depended on individual experts' experience into organizational data assets and to implement AI Transformation (AX) throughout product development.

Moving beyond simply creating flavor, the approach of digitizing recipes and "designing" them based on medical and nutritional evidence is expected to play an important role in breaking down the boundaries between healthcare and the food industry.

Following its selection this year for Scale-up TIPS (Ministry of SMEs and Startups) and the AI Rapid Commercialization Support Program (Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs), Medissolla plans to advance the commercialization of the RD algorithm and its integration with actual food manufacturing. In particular, it plans to expand its product design capabilities to meet the food cultures and nutritional standards of different countries, drawing on the clinical nutrition research and food development data accumulated in South Korea. It also intends to broaden its business through technology partnerships with global food companies and institutions.

Medissolla is also stepping up its global expansion. On April 18, 2026, the company officially launched in Hong Kong, introducing its products at a total of 59 offline stores, including 33 Watsons stores and 26 PARKnSHOP stores. This entry into the market marks a starting point for expanding overseas the evidence-based nutritional design and product development capabilities Medissolla has built in South Korea. The company expects it to lay the groundwork for developing products tailored to individual countries using RD and expanding its global business.

Medissolla said it plans to make RD available not only as an internal technology for developing its own products, but also as a B2B nutritional design service that food companies and medical and health-related institutions can use according to their own nutritional standards and product development goals.

Medissolla is scheduled to receive the Influence Favourite Award trophy at the official award ceremony for 2026 SIAL Paris, which opens on October 17. Recipe Design will be featured in the SIAL Innovation special exhibition area and at the Medissolla booth (Hall 7, K331) during the exhibition.

Visitors will be able to see how RD works and explore Medissolla products developed using the technology. Medissolla plans to use the award to actively promote RD's technological competitiveness in global markets.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.