Final Report Summary - TOXDTECT (Innovative Packaging for the Detection of Fresh Meat Quality and Prediction of Shelf-Life)
Executive Summary:
PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY
In the last 10 years, EU beef production has declined nearly 15% due to decreased consumer demand because of animal disease issues. As the concern about food poisoning is growing among consumers and Food Standard and safety agencies, the food industry is called to bring in changes. On the other hand, current food labelling systems are ambiguous and fail to deliver accurate information concerning food quality and expiration dates. The ambiguity and diversity of traditional labels creates confusion between consumers (40% founds labels difficult to understand), often bringing them trusting more their eyes than the information reported in the label. In highly perishable products as fresh meat, the red colour is often used as the primary indicator of freshness and quality, ignoring the expiry date. This situation leads to:
-Generation of high amounts of food waste (89M tonnes/year in the EU). Meat accounts for the 25% of total waste in the food industry. The 20% is due to misinterpreting of expiry dates.
-Safety risks for improper storage of perishable food (more than 23M people/year fall ill from unsafe food in Europe).
-Emission of 170M tonnes of CO2 and consume of 261M tonnes of resources.
The aim of TOXDTECT project is to develop an Intelligent Packaging solution for fresh bovine meat products. The technology is based on the identification of specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced inside the packaging during microorganisms’ growth. These compounds accumulate in the headspace and are detected by VOCs-sensitive sensors printed on the inside of the packaging film. The signal coming from the sensors can be related to the presence/concentration of the specific analytes. The sensing platform is formed by an array of three screen-printed electrodes modified with conductive polymer inks. The signal coming from the interaction between VOCs and polymer inks is recorded by an external device where data are processed. A suitable predictive software based on data mining algorithms finally correlates the sensors signal with the remaining shelf-life of meat (i.e. number of days during which meat is still safe to be consumed).
Compared to existing test methods like sensory and microbiological analysis which are costly and destructive, our solution offers a non-destructive, accurate and cost-effective method to determine the integrity of packed meat and predict its real freshness.
By providing a reliable method for the determination of beef quality and shelf-life directly from the product we will be able to:
-Provide to consumers a clear labelling system. They will no longer be confused with ‘best before’ and ‘consume by’ dates since the information they get is provided in real time from the real product they are purchasing.
-Follow-up the quality status of single packages through a non-destructive technique.
-Inform consumers about the freshness of packaged meat, since the signal coming from the sensors will be affected by any fluctuation of the cold supply chain (satisfying the need of a “real date label”).
-Reduce food waste at grocery stores and in consumers’ homes.
-Reduce food poisoning cases caused by defective packaging or incorrect manipulation in the distribution chain.
TOXDTECT proposal has been promoted by 4 Industrial Associations of SMEs, ASINCAR, Asociación de Industrias Cárnicas de Asturias (ES), PAFA, Packaging and Films Association (UK), UECBV, European Livestock and Meat TradeS Union (BE) and ARC, Asociatia Romana a Carnii (RO), along with 3 industrial SMEs, LINCIS, Soluções Integradas para Sistemas de Informação, Lda (PT), EST, Electrochemical Sensor technology Ltd. (UK) and CALON, Industrias Cárnicas Alonso (ES) acting as end users, and 3 Research Centers, CTIC-CITA, Centro Tecnológico de la Industria Cárnica de la Rioja (ES), Osterreichisches Forschunginstitut fur Chemie und Technik, OFI (AT) and Tecnologías Avanzadas Inspiralia S.L. (ES).
Project Context and Objectives:
Background
In the last 10 years, EU beef production has declined nearly 15% due to decreased consumer demand because of animal disease issues. As the concern about food poisoning is growing among consumers and Food Standard and safety agencies, the food industry is called to bring in changes. On the other hand, current food labelling systems are ambiguous and fail to deliver accurate information concerning food quality and expiration dates. The ambiguity and diversity of traditional labels creates confusion between consumers (40% founds labels difficult to understand), often bringing them trusting more their eyes than the information reported in the label. In highly perishable products as fresh meat, the red colour is often used as the primary indicator of freshness and quality, ignoring the expiry date. This situation leads to:
à Generation of high amounts of food waste (89M tonnes/year in the EU). Meat accounts for the 25% of total waste in the food industry. The 20% is due to misinterpreting of expiry dates.
à Safety risks for improper storage of perishable food (more than 23M people/year fall ill from unsafe food in Europe).
à Emission of 170M tonnes of CO2 and consume of 261M tonnes of resources.
The aim of TOXDTECT project is to develop an Intelligent Packaging solution for fresh bovine meat products. The technology is based on the identification of specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced inside the packaging during microorganisms’ growth. These compounds accumulate in the headspace and are detected by VOCs-sensitive sensors printed on the inside of the packaging film. The signal coming from the sensors can be related to the presence/concentration of the specific analytes. The sensing platform is formed by an array of three screen-printed electrodes modified with conductive polymer inks. The signal coming from the interaction between VOCs and polymer inks is recorded by an external device where data are processed. A suitable predictive software based on data mining algorithms finally correlates the sensors signal with the remaining shelf-life of meat (i.e. number of days during which meat is still safe to be consumed).
Compared to existing test methods like sensory and microbiological analysis which are costly and destructive, our solution offers a non-destructive, accurate and cost-effective method to determine the integrity of packed meat and predict its real freshness.
By providing a reliable method for the determination of beef quality and shelf-life directly from the product we will be able to:
à Provide to consumers a clear labelling system. They will no longer be confused with ‘best before’ and ‘consume by’ dates since the information they get is provided in real time from the real product they are purchasing.
à Follow-up the quality status of single packages through a non-destructive technique.
à Inform consumers about the freshness of packaged meat, since the signal coming from the sensors will be affected by any fluctuation of the cold supply chain (satisfying the need of a “real date label”).
à Reduce food waste at grocery stores and in consumers’ homes.
à Reduce food poisoning cases caused by defective packaging or incorrect manipulation in the distribution chain.
Project Objectives
The objectives of TOXDTECT project are:
à Identification of volatile metabolites representative of beef meat spoilage and indicators of meat quality.
à Low cost printing fabrication of sensors easily embedded within the meat package.
à Study and development of a cost-effective production technology for flexible packaging multilayer film.
à Development of a suitable external reading device able to receive data from the sensors.
à Development of a decision making system (software) for meat quality assessment based on predictive algorithms
Project Results:
Achievements
TOXDTECT project was officially started on the 1st of November 2013. The project is structured into 8 work packages and the planned duration is 36 months. The main results achieved during this time can be summarized as follows:
à We started analysing the VOCs produced by red meat under specific conditions (fixed temperature, MAP, etc.), during a defined time window (14 days from packaging). Between all VOCs identified, 3 of them were selected thanks to their higher correlation to microorganisms’ growth.
à We evaluate different analytical protocols and sensing strategies compatible with the objectives of the project and we select the most suitable one.
à Several water-based conductive polymer inks were formulated and tested in presence of the pre-selected VOCs. The most sensitive and selective inks were used to modify arrays of interdigitated electrodes directly printed on flexible substrates.
à The optimal components of the multilayer film were selected after an extensive testing of their permeability and migration performances. The film structure is based on an outer high-barrier layer, where the array and sensors were embedded, and an inner layer permeable to the 3 selected VOCs.
à The arrays were integrated with the multilayer film by screen printing technology, modified with the polymer inks and sealed to meat trays. Small scale batches were used to check the robustness and general applicability of the system.
à Preliminary hardware electronic studies were done for the development of the external reading device that includes the interface with the package sensors, the conditioning electronics of the sensors, the microcontroller running the decision software, the display, the control software of the device and the user interface of the application. All these elements were already integrated into a small portable device and the entire electronic reading system was validated and integrated with the rest of the sensing system.
à Pre-processing and predictive algorithms based on soft computing and data mining techniques have been designed and developed to get a good accuracy when predicting meat quality. The data mining models and the whole intelligent software were validated using the real dataset formed by a set of 8 different pieces of meat and during a time window of 14 days of data collection.
à Validation of the whole system will be done for different batches of beef meat in order to demonstrate that the output of the system (sensors signal) is reporting the same quality state and shelf life of meat as conventional analyses (gas chromatography).
Potential Impact:
Through the new developed multilayer film with an array of sensors embed and the reading device formulations the European meat producers and packaging professionals will benefit of affordable new intelligent packaging that will provide a reliable method for the determination of beef quality and shelf-life directly from the product we will be able to:
• Provide to consumers a clear labelling system. They will no longer be confused with ‘best before’ and ‘consume by’ dates since the information they get is provided in real time from the real product they are purchasing. Also, the end-users will be able to follow-up the quality status of single packages through a non-destructive technique.
• The new packaging system will inform consumers about the freshness of packaged meat, since the signal coming from the sensors will be affected by any fluctuation of the cold supply chain (satisfying the need of a “real date label”), reduce food waste at grocery stores and in consumers’ homes and reduce food poisoning cases caused by defective packaging or incorrect manipulation in the distribution chain.
It has been agreed by the consortium that the Industrial Association ASINCAR will share ownership of project results and IPR generated with ARC, UECBV and PAFA and will ensure the exploitation of the new knowledge. ASINCAR has been appointed as Exploitation Manager given their expertise in exploitation matter. ASINCAR will draw upon Exploitation Plan from the 6th month of the project, although the following pre-agreement has been set and agreed by the Consortium members:
• Three SME-AGs of TOXDTECT consortium (ASINCAR, PAFA and UECBV) will own the shared IPR of the final product as they together represent the largest global SME community within the European sectors of Meat Productions and Food Packaging Manufacture. ARC as an SME-AG participant will enjoy free licence of use, however, since its economic activity is limited to small lab tests, will not be sharing the patent of the results.
• The participating RTDs (CTIC, OFI and INSP) will not own any of the resulting IPR from the project. IPRs will not be shared with the RTD performers; therefore the SME-AGs keep full ownership and reimburse at a 100% the invoices for the R&I and DEMO subcontracted to the RTD performers. RTD performers are free to use the results for further research (non commercial exploitation) if those results are not identified as confidential. Besides the RTD performers can publish the results after obtaining the agreement of the SME-AGs The participating OTH-SMEs EST will receive royalty-free non-exclusive rights to manufacture and sell the developed technology for an initial agreed period of 3 years. CALON as end user will have rights to use the intelligent package developed free of royalties for an agreed period of 3 years. After those 3 years, the licencing conditions will be revised and negotiated. An extension period of royalty free licenses may be given if these OTH participants have not recovered their initial investment in the TOXDTECT project. These licence agreements will also depend on the strategic role of these SMEs for the manufacturing and commercialization of the technology and on the revenues generated.
As described in the exploitation plan, B2B and B2C commercialization business models were considered for the marketing of TOXDTECT products. Within the consortium there are two kinds of SME-AGs, one representing the packaging sector (PAFA) and the others the meat processing industries (ASINCAR, UECBV and ARC). The latter will have access directly to end-users of our technology and therefore will favour the implementation of a B2C model. On the other hand, PAFA will have easier to apply a B2B mode. Moreover, super- and hypermarkets, target clients for the marketing of external reader, are also associates of some of the project partners, as ASINCAR, that will facilitate the entrance of the reader in the retail sector. Therefore we could conclude that consortium has a good representation of main target technology consumers.
Two main objectives will drive initially the commercialization plan and marketing strategy: i) expand client database and demand generation; ii) reduce the sales cycle. For increasing the number of customers it will be essential to implement efficient off-line marketing campaigns and pre-sales activities. This will be based mainly in a continuous identification and vigilance of potential clients as well as in door-to-door presentation of the packaging and devices. Also a fluent communication and outreach with distributors and retails in the targeted countries is needed to identify potential for sales partnerships, define distributor cost margin and logistics for stocking. Moreover, advantage of having packaging, as PAFA, and meat industry associations, as ASINCAR or UECBV, in the consortium will be taken and outreach marketing will be performed within SME-AG members. Also, partners will be present in the main tradeshows related with food packaging as EMPACK, Meat-Tech, IPACK-IMA, Meat Expo 2018 for increasing the dissemination and commercialization possibilities. Finally, specific advertisement of the products in newsletters and journals is also considered as well as target massive mailing.
For sales cycle reduction, the possibility of having a temporal free sample as well as a good number of use case demonstrations will facilitate the popularity of the tool through the different target sectors.
PAFA has lead the Final Plan for the use and Dissemination of Knowledge in close cooperation with staff from ASINCAR. All Associations (ASINCAR, PAFA, UECBV and ARC) and SMEs (LINCIS, CALON) have actively participated in the dissemination and communication of the project.
In addition to the dissemination activities already reported in RP1, in this second period many other dissemination activities took also place. Between them we highlighted the TOXDTECT workshop organised in Brussels the 15th September, 2016 in front of potential customers of the technology, as well as the demo and dissemination video created for TOXDTECT showing main objectives and results. Following a brief description of each dissemination element for RP2:
1. TOXDTECT workshop organized by UECBV on September 2016 where the general and technical results that was achieved on the project have been presented by Silvia Garcia (ASINCAR) and Dulce Muñoz (INSPIRALIA). Attending the workshop were several important industrial representatives from the meat sector as well as Mrs. An De Schryver, Production coordinator at European Commission and Mrs. Annette Dresling from the Danish Agriculture & Food Council.
2. A video of the project was created (D7.6) and for wide dissemination it was uploaded to YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUj_-XftCE
3. Project website. TOXDTECT website (www.toxdtect.eu) went online on February 2013 (Deliverable 7.2) and has been updated frequently during this three years with recent news and publications
4. Release of articles. Different channels have been used for reaching the different communities. So, for reaching general public main publications corresponded to press releases, radio interviews as well as TV news. For keeping informed partner ecosystem own resources, as webpage, newsletter and social media has been used during this RP2. Moreover different publications have been published in scientific, technological and innovation magazines to reach this three communities. Specific publications are included in the D7.7.
5. Conferences and Events. RTD partners have participated in conferences and packaging exhibitions to present the ideas and results of TOXDTECT, and to extract ideas for the project development. Also specific events are included in D7.7
6. Promotional documentation (brochures, leaflets, etc.) were delivered in several of the events organised by TOXDTECT
7. Contacts with potential customers, through the SME-AGs networking as well for example in the TOXDTECT workshop mentioned before
8. Other dissemination tasks: dissemination at internal meetings of Associations, and networking with other projects.
ASINCAR jointly with PAFA has led the development of the Final plan for the use and dissemination of knowledge. In it apart from the specific dissemination activities mentioned in the previous task a final exploitation plan was included. Additional explanations are given in D7.7.
After the deep analysis of the different elements that constitute the exploitation plan, its implementation timing was discussed. For this purpose the initial step was identifying and considering the main barriers that partners will face after the completion of the project as well as measures for its contingency.
We estimate that the final industrialization of the prototype and the time needed to overtake the technical and legal (awarded of EFSA certificates will take time) obstacles mentioned in the table will be around 1-1.5 year. In parallel, additional marketing and commercialization activities will also be deployed and we estimate that this part could be prolonged 1 year after the end of the technical part. Considering that, we estimate that the entrance in the market could be something like end 2018 starting 2019. New funding opportunities will be searched for this final development and market introduction.
List of Websites:
Web: http://www.toxdtect.eu
Final video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUj_-XftCE
PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY
In the last 10 years, EU beef production has declined nearly 15% due to decreased consumer demand because of animal disease issues. As the concern about food poisoning is growing among consumers and Food Standard and safety agencies, the food industry is called to bring in changes. On the other hand, current food labelling systems are ambiguous and fail to deliver accurate information concerning food quality and expiration dates. The ambiguity and diversity of traditional labels creates confusion between consumers (40% founds labels difficult to understand), often bringing them trusting more their eyes than the information reported in the label. In highly perishable products as fresh meat, the red colour is often used as the primary indicator of freshness and quality, ignoring the expiry date. This situation leads to:
-Generation of high amounts of food waste (89M tonnes/year in the EU). Meat accounts for the 25% of total waste in the food industry. The 20% is due to misinterpreting of expiry dates.
-Safety risks for improper storage of perishable food (more than 23M people/year fall ill from unsafe food in Europe).
-Emission of 170M tonnes of CO2 and consume of 261M tonnes of resources.
The aim of TOXDTECT project is to develop an Intelligent Packaging solution for fresh bovine meat products. The technology is based on the identification of specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced inside the packaging during microorganisms’ growth. These compounds accumulate in the headspace and are detected by VOCs-sensitive sensors printed on the inside of the packaging film. The signal coming from the sensors can be related to the presence/concentration of the specific analytes. The sensing platform is formed by an array of three screen-printed electrodes modified with conductive polymer inks. The signal coming from the interaction between VOCs and polymer inks is recorded by an external device where data are processed. A suitable predictive software based on data mining algorithms finally correlates the sensors signal with the remaining shelf-life of meat (i.e. number of days during which meat is still safe to be consumed).
Compared to existing test methods like sensory and microbiological analysis which are costly and destructive, our solution offers a non-destructive, accurate and cost-effective method to determine the integrity of packed meat and predict its real freshness.
By providing a reliable method for the determination of beef quality and shelf-life directly from the product we will be able to:
-Provide to consumers a clear labelling system. They will no longer be confused with ‘best before’ and ‘consume by’ dates since the information they get is provided in real time from the real product they are purchasing.
-Follow-up the quality status of single packages through a non-destructive technique.
-Inform consumers about the freshness of packaged meat, since the signal coming from the sensors will be affected by any fluctuation of the cold supply chain (satisfying the need of a “real date label”).
-Reduce food waste at grocery stores and in consumers’ homes.
-Reduce food poisoning cases caused by defective packaging or incorrect manipulation in the distribution chain.
TOXDTECT proposal has been promoted by 4 Industrial Associations of SMEs, ASINCAR, Asociación de Industrias Cárnicas de Asturias (ES), PAFA, Packaging and Films Association (UK), UECBV, European Livestock and Meat TradeS Union (BE) and ARC, Asociatia Romana a Carnii (RO), along with 3 industrial SMEs, LINCIS, Soluções Integradas para Sistemas de Informação, Lda (PT), EST, Electrochemical Sensor technology Ltd. (UK) and CALON, Industrias Cárnicas Alonso (ES) acting as end users, and 3 Research Centers, CTIC-CITA, Centro Tecnológico de la Industria Cárnica de la Rioja (ES), Osterreichisches Forschunginstitut fur Chemie und Technik, OFI (AT) and Tecnologías Avanzadas Inspiralia S.L. (ES).
Project Context and Objectives:
Background
In the last 10 years, EU beef production has declined nearly 15% due to decreased consumer demand because of animal disease issues. As the concern about food poisoning is growing among consumers and Food Standard and safety agencies, the food industry is called to bring in changes. On the other hand, current food labelling systems are ambiguous and fail to deliver accurate information concerning food quality and expiration dates. The ambiguity and diversity of traditional labels creates confusion between consumers (40% founds labels difficult to understand), often bringing them trusting more their eyes than the information reported in the label. In highly perishable products as fresh meat, the red colour is often used as the primary indicator of freshness and quality, ignoring the expiry date. This situation leads to:
à Generation of high amounts of food waste (89M tonnes/year in the EU). Meat accounts for the 25% of total waste in the food industry. The 20% is due to misinterpreting of expiry dates.
à Safety risks for improper storage of perishable food (more than 23M people/year fall ill from unsafe food in Europe).
à Emission of 170M tonnes of CO2 and consume of 261M tonnes of resources.
The aim of TOXDTECT project is to develop an Intelligent Packaging solution for fresh bovine meat products. The technology is based on the identification of specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced inside the packaging during microorganisms’ growth. These compounds accumulate in the headspace and are detected by VOCs-sensitive sensors printed on the inside of the packaging film. The signal coming from the sensors can be related to the presence/concentration of the specific analytes. The sensing platform is formed by an array of three screen-printed electrodes modified with conductive polymer inks. The signal coming from the interaction between VOCs and polymer inks is recorded by an external device where data are processed. A suitable predictive software based on data mining algorithms finally correlates the sensors signal with the remaining shelf-life of meat (i.e. number of days during which meat is still safe to be consumed).
Compared to existing test methods like sensory and microbiological analysis which are costly and destructive, our solution offers a non-destructive, accurate and cost-effective method to determine the integrity of packed meat and predict its real freshness.
By providing a reliable method for the determination of beef quality and shelf-life directly from the product we will be able to:
à Provide to consumers a clear labelling system. They will no longer be confused with ‘best before’ and ‘consume by’ dates since the information they get is provided in real time from the real product they are purchasing.
à Follow-up the quality status of single packages through a non-destructive technique.
à Inform consumers about the freshness of packaged meat, since the signal coming from the sensors will be affected by any fluctuation of the cold supply chain (satisfying the need of a “real date label”).
à Reduce food waste at grocery stores and in consumers’ homes.
à Reduce food poisoning cases caused by defective packaging or incorrect manipulation in the distribution chain.
Project Objectives
The objectives of TOXDTECT project are:
à Identification of volatile metabolites representative of beef meat spoilage and indicators of meat quality.
à Low cost printing fabrication of sensors easily embedded within the meat package.
à Study and development of a cost-effective production technology for flexible packaging multilayer film.
à Development of a suitable external reading device able to receive data from the sensors.
à Development of a decision making system (software) for meat quality assessment based on predictive algorithms
Project Results:
Achievements
TOXDTECT project was officially started on the 1st of November 2013. The project is structured into 8 work packages and the planned duration is 36 months. The main results achieved during this time can be summarized as follows:
à We started analysing the VOCs produced by red meat under specific conditions (fixed temperature, MAP, etc.), during a defined time window (14 days from packaging). Between all VOCs identified, 3 of them were selected thanks to their higher correlation to microorganisms’ growth.
à We evaluate different analytical protocols and sensing strategies compatible with the objectives of the project and we select the most suitable one.
à Several water-based conductive polymer inks were formulated and tested in presence of the pre-selected VOCs. The most sensitive and selective inks were used to modify arrays of interdigitated electrodes directly printed on flexible substrates.
à The optimal components of the multilayer film were selected after an extensive testing of their permeability and migration performances. The film structure is based on an outer high-barrier layer, where the array and sensors were embedded, and an inner layer permeable to the 3 selected VOCs.
à The arrays were integrated with the multilayer film by screen printing technology, modified with the polymer inks and sealed to meat trays. Small scale batches were used to check the robustness and general applicability of the system.
à Preliminary hardware electronic studies were done for the development of the external reading device that includes the interface with the package sensors, the conditioning electronics of the sensors, the microcontroller running the decision software, the display, the control software of the device and the user interface of the application. All these elements were already integrated into a small portable device and the entire electronic reading system was validated and integrated with the rest of the sensing system.
à Pre-processing and predictive algorithms based on soft computing and data mining techniques have been designed and developed to get a good accuracy when predicting meat quality. The data mining models and the whole intelligent software were validated using the real dataset formed by a set of 8 different pieces of meat and during a time window of 14 days of data collection.
à Validation of the whole system will be done for different batches of beef meat in order to demonstrate that the output of the system (sensors signal) is reporting the same quality state and shelf life of meat as conventional analyses (gas chromatography).
Potential Impact:
Through the new developed multilayer film with an array of sensors embed and the reading device formulations the European meat producers and packaging professionals will benefit of affordable new intelligent packaging that will provide a reliable method for the determination of beef quality and shelf-life directly from the product we will be able to:
• Provide to consumers a clear labelling system. They will no longer be confused with ‘best before’ and ‘consume by’ dates since the information they get is provided in real time from the real product they are purchasing. Also, the end-users will be able to follow-up the quality status of single packages through a non-destructive technique.
• The new packaging system will inform consumers about the freshness of packaged meat, since the signal coming from the sensors will be affected by any fluctuation of the cold supply chain (satisfying the need of a “real date label”), reduce food waste at grocery stores and in consumers’ homes and reduce food poisoning cases caused by defective packaging or incorrect manipulation in the distribution chain.
It has been agreed by the consortium that the Industrial Association ASINCAR will share ownership of project results and IPR generated with ARC, UECBV and PAFA and will ensure the exploitation of the new knowledge. ASINCAR has been appointed as Exploitation Manager given their expertise in exploitation matter. ASINCAR will draw upon Exploitation Plan from the 6th month of the project, although the following pre-agreement has been set and agreed by the Consortium members:
• Three SME-AGs of TOXDTECT consortium (ASINCAR, PAFA and UECBV) will own the shared IPR of the final product as they together represent the largest global SME community within the European sectors of Meat Productions and Food Packaging Manufacture. ARC as an SME-AG participant will enjoy free licence of use, however, since its economic activity is limited to small lab tests, will not be sharing the patent of the results.
• The participating RTDs (CTIC, OFI and INSP) will not own any of the resulting IPR from the project. IPRs will not be shared with the RTD performers; therefore the SME-AGs keep full ownership and reimburse at a 100% the invoices for the R&I and DEMO subcontracted to the RTD performers. RTD performers are free to use the results for further research (non commercial exploitation) if those results are not identified as confidential. Besides the RTD performers can publish the results after obtaining the agreement of the SME-AGs The participating OTH-SMEs EST will receive royalty-free non-exclusive rights to manufacture and sell the developed technology for an initial agreed period of 3 years. CALON as end user will have rights to use the intelligent package developed free of royalties for an agreed period of 3 years. After those 3 years, the licencing conditions will be revised and negotiated. An extension period of royalty free licenses may be given if these OTH participants have not recovered their initial investment in the TOXDTECT project. These licence agreements will also depend on the strategic role of these SMEs for the manufacturing and commercialization of the technology and on the revenues generated.
As described in the exploitation plan, B2B and B2C commercialization business models were considered for the marketing of TOXDTECT products. Within the consortium there are two kinds of SME-AGs, one representing the packaging sector (PAFA) and the others the meat processing industries (ASINCAR, UECBV and ARC). The latter will have access directly to end-users of our technology and therefore will favour the implementation of a B2C model. On the other hand, PAFA will have easier to apply a B2B mode. Moreover, super- and hypermarkets, target clients for the marketing of external reader, are also associates of some of the project partners, as ASINCAR, that will facilitate the entrance of the reader in the retail sector. Therefore we could conclude that consortium has a good representation of main target technology consumers.
Two main objectives will drive initially the commercialization plan and marketing strategy: i) expand client database and demand generation; ii) reduce the sales cycle. For increasing the number of customers it will be essential to implement efficient off-line marketing campaigns and pre-sales activities. This will be based mainly in a continuous identification and vigilance of potential clients as well as in door-to-door presentation of the packaging and devices. Also a fluent communication and outreach with distributors and retails in the targeted countries is needed to identify potential for sales partnerships, define distributor cost margin and logistics for stocking. Moreover, advantage of having packaging, as PAFA, and meat industry associations, as ASINCAR or UECBV, in the consortium will be taken and outreach marketing will be performed within SME-AG members. Also, partners will be present in the main tradeshows related with food packaging as EMPACK, Meat-Tech, IPACK-IMA, Meat Expo 2018 for increasing the dissemination and commercialization possibilities. Finally, specific advertisement of the products in newsletters and journals is also considered as well as target massive mailing.
For sales cycle reduction, the possibility of having a temporal free sample as well as a good number of use case demonstrations will facilitate the popularity of the tool through the different target sectors.
PAFA has lead the Final Plan for the use and Dissemination of Knowledge in close cooperation with staff from ASINCAR. All Associations (ASINCAR, PAFA, UECBV and ARC) and SMEs (LINCIS, CALON) have actively participated in the dissemination and communication of the project.
In addition to the dissemination activities already reported in RP1, in this second period many other dissemination activities took also place. Between them we highlighted the TOXDTECT workshop organised in Brussels the 15th September, 2016 in front of potential customers of the technology, as well as the demo and dissemination video created for TOXDTECT showing main objectives and results. Following a brief description of each dissemination element for RP2:
1. TOXDTECT workshop organized by UECBV on September 2016 where the general and technical results that was achieved on the project have been presented by Silvia Garcia (ASINCAR) and Dulce Muñoz (INSPIRALIA). Attending the workshop were several important industrial representatives from the meat sector as well as Mrs. An De Schryver, Production coordinator at European Commission and Mrs. Annette Dresling from the Danish Agriculture & Food Council.
2. A video of the project was created (D7.6) and for wide dissemination it was uploaded to YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUj_-XftCE
3. Project website. TOXDTECT website (www.toxdtect.eu) went online on February 2013 (Deliverable 7.2) and has been updated frequently during this three years with recent news and publications
4. Release of articles. Different channels have been used for reaching the different communities. So, for reaching general public main publications corresponded to press releases, radio interviews as well as TV news. For keeping informed partner ecosystem own resources, as webpage, newsletter and social media has been used during this RP2. Moreover different publications have been published in scientific, technological and innovation magazines to reach this three communities. Specific publications are included in the D7.7.
5. Conferences and Events. RTD partners have participated in conferences and packaging exhibitions to present the ideas and results of TOXDTECT, and to extract ideas for the project development. Also specific events are included in D7.7
6. Promotional documentation (brochures, leaflets, etc.) were delivered in several of the events organised by TOXDTECT
7. Contacts with potential customers, through the SME-AGs networking as well for example in the TOXDTECT workshop mentioned before
8. Other dissemination tasks: dissemination at internal meetings of Associations, and networking with other projects.
ASINCAR jointly with PAFA has led the development of the Final plan for the use and dissemination of knowledge. In it apart from the specific dissemination activities mentioned in the previous task a final exploitation plan was included. Additional explanations are given in D7.7.
After the deep analysis of the different elements that constitute the exploitation plan, its implementation timing was discussed. For this purpose the initial step was identifying and considering the main barriers that partners will face after the completion of the project as well as measures for its contingency.
We estimate that the final industrialization of the prototype and the time needed to overtake the technical and legal (awarded of EFSA certificates will take time) obstacles mentioned in the table will be around 1-1.5 year. In parallel, additional marketing and commercialization activities will also be deployed and we estimate that this part could be prolonged 1 year after the end of the technical part. Considering that, we estimate that the entrance in the market could be something like end 2018 starting 2019. New funding opportunities will be searched for this final development and market introduction.
List of Websites:
Web: http://www.toxdtect.eu
Final video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUj_-XftCE
