April 28-30, 2025

All Speakers

Dog and cat food research experts who will present at Petfood Forum & Petfood Essentials

Hana Bieliauskas
Senior Vice President & Partner
Inspire PR Group
Hana Bieliauskas leads Inspire’s southern office in Asheville, North Carolina, oversees the company’s digital practice and directs its marketing. With 15 years of public relations and digital marketing experience — primarily serving food, agriculture, nonprofit and pet care clients — she has worked on more than 100 digital campaigns that have won national and regional awards. Prior to joining Inspire, Bieliauskas oversaw communications at a national children’s advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, she earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism with a specialization in political science. Bieliauskas has served on the marketing committees for Susan G. Komen for the Cure of Central & SE Ohio and Girls on the Run of Central Ohio, and she served for two terms on the board of Girls on the Run of Western North Carolina.
Date/TimeTitle
Tue Apr 29
1:30 PM - 2:35 PM
Pet food technology sessions: AI focus areas
KCCC 2102A-B
  • Transformative potential for AI in pet food innovation, sales creation and sustainability — Rajan Lukose, Ph.D., chief data scientist, Cambridge Technology, explores practical applications for AI in the pet food industry, demonstrating how companies can smartly leverage these revolutionary tools to improve research and testing procedures, product development, supply chain efficiencies, revenue generation and sustainability tracking.
  • AI is transforming marketing: What are the benefits, challenges and applications for pet food? — Hana Bieliauskas, senior vice president and partner, Inspire PR Group, explains how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way food companies develop, market and sell products, connect with customers and analyze data. AI has sped up the development of new products by leveraging predictive analytics and consumer data, and it can apply algorithms to identify trends in the food sector and predict their growth. Through pet food case studies, she provides insights on using AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot to build brands, develop marketing strategies and messages, automate marketing emails, draft social media posts and target digital ads to the right people at the right times to maximize views, click-through rates and more.
  • Understanding AI to streamline pet food manufacturing — Matt Lueger, executive vice president of sales, Northwind Technical Services, and Bill Ward, founder and CEO, Northslope Technologies, discuss different artificial intelligence (AI) concepts, including machine learning, large language models and generative AI, highlighting their key differences and real-world applications for pet food production. They address concerns related to data security, discussing how cloud computing can offer secure, scalable solutions. To demonstrate how AI is being used to improve productivity and add to the bottom line, they also share case studies, including applying a generative AI tool to pet food manufacturing, inventory planning implementation and a machine learning application.