Companies across nearly every industry are exploring ways to capitalize on the evolving capabilities of artificial intelligence — even a leading grower and producer of nuts.
Desiree Champaco, the vice president of IT and Supply Chain at Diamond Foods, recently spoke with Food Manufacturing about how the company is currently using AI, and how it hopes to deploy it in the future.
FOOD MANUFACTURING: As a food company, how is Diamond using AI at present?
DESIREE CHAMPACO: At Diamond Foods, we’re currently building on years of work to improve our processes, connect systems, and strengthen data quality so employees can surface insights, create valuable automations and strengthen relationships with our vendors and customers. Today, we are using generative AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot and Claude to help employees improve productivity in their daily work, from drafting communications to creating documents and simplifying complex tasks. We are also exploring agentic AI opportunities to support workflows, manage information lifecycles, integrate systems, and help with logistics and replenishment planning, helping our teams manage increasingly complex business decisions more efficiently.
FM: What insights are you gaining from it?
DC: AI helps us better understand how our people, processes and systems work together and where we can improve efficiency. By strengthening our data foundation across systems such as JDE and Laserfiche, we are creating the foundation needed to generate better insights into inventory, customer demand, production needs, and supply chain performance. For instance, we collect data from many different sources — including insights from sales and marketing teams, POS data, inventory information, fuel costs, etc. — and that makes for a great use case for agentic AI to help move our logistics planners away from executing the tedious, manual tasks of figuring out the best possible routes between California, New York and Florida, and help orchestrate those processes.
FM: How does Diamond turn those insights into value?
DC: We turn AI-driven insights into value by reducing manual processes, improving operational efficiency, and enabling our employees to focus on higher-value activities. For example, agentic AI has the potential to help our supply chain teams analyze internal data, customer data, point-of-sale information, and external factors to improve demand planning and transportation decisions.
By automating repetitive tasks and improving access to information, AI helps us respond faster to changing market conditions, optimize resources, and continue delivering high-quality products to our customers while controlling costs.
FM: What are your priorities for AI as it becomes increasingly prominent?
DC: We want to implement AI where it can solve a clear business problem, reduce repetitive work, or provide employees with better information to make stronger decisions.
Through our work with Laserfiche, we are focused primarily in our finance department on using AI-powered document management and workflow automation to streamline business processes, reduce manual tasks, and improve access to information. We are also prioritizing responsible AI adoption by ensuring strong governance, data security, and employee understanding as these technologies continue to evolve.
FM: Conversely, what concerns do you have about AI, and are they being addressed by the industry?
DC: My main concerns are not necessarily around the technology, but rather data and process maturity. An organization’s AI readiness largely depends on a deep understanding of the complex data architecture required for business to run efficiently and securely, alongside how people are interacting with systems.
Organizations also need clear policies around approved tools, appropriate data use, access controls, and accountability for AI-assisted decisions. By working with vendors that prioritize security and information governance, organizations can mitigate risk and confidently unlock the value of their data while balancing compliance with evolving global regulations.
FM: Are there other applications where Diamond is looking to utilize AI in the future?
DC: Looking ahead, we see significant opportunities for AI across our business, particularly in supply chain planning, demand forecasting, replenishment optimization, and workflow automation. Agentic AI has the potential to help our teams manage complex processes by connecting multiple systems, analyzing large amounts of data, and recommending actions in real time.
We are especially interested in using AI to move employees away from time-consuming manual tasks and toward higher-value activities that support growth, innovation, and better customer experiences. Our goal is to continue building the data foundation, processes, and capabilities needed to responsibly scale AI across Diamond Foods.
