Food security is a current worldwide challenge faced by the uncertainty of meeting future food demand for the ever-increasing population. Simply increasing food production is challenging due to land and climate constraints, and reports have revealed that reducing food waste has the potential to address the food security challenges. It is believed that about 30 to 50% of the food produced in the world never reaches the consumer. A key cause of commercial food waste is under-addressed supply chain issues. In the case of fresh fruit and vegetables, almost 50% of produce are lost due to temperature related spoilage.
Freshproof is an innovative systems approach aiming to address the existing food supply chain losses/waste and the overall shortcomings in food safety, integrity, and traceability. Current commercial product waste reducing strategies have many limitations (the interlinked complexity of qualitative and nutritive aspects of food is ignored, constant postharvest environmental conditions are assumed, and pre-harvest environment is completely disregarded). Current commercial systems offer fragmented solutions and lack the capability to apply a holistic perspective to supply chain integrity.
Freshproof aims to address these issues and provide a system capable of predicting the remaining shelf-life of products as they progress through a full supply chain. It will be based on First Expired First Out strategy (FEFO), incorporate pre- and postharvest conditions, and exploit novel data capture sensor units combined with advanced modelling algorithms.
The main objective of this project is to develop a cloud based forecast decision support system to deliver real-time food product shelf-life prediction along the farm-consumer supply chain. Initially FreshProof was developed for strawberries due to their highly perishable nature; forming an ideal product to evaluate system robustness and integrity. However, the functionality of FreshProof, once demonstrated, can be applied across a wide range of agri-food products and related supply chains.
The results of Freshproof highlighted the importance of supply chain monitoring and individually determined the impact each step can have on product quality and shelf-life. Critical factors (pre- and post-harvest) were identified, analysed, and used in prediction models, generating system critical knowledge for supply chain design. This has resulted in a non-destructive system to predict shelf-life of strawberries along the supply chain with the potential to be used in real-time allowing stakeholders to make informed decisions and take required actions to prevent product, quality, and monetary losses.
The main findings of Freshproof support the development of a decision support system and a pathway for the digitisation of global food supply chains promoting positive change across the European food industry. A system such as FreshProof will advance protection of the environment through promoting sustainability and increased efficiency in food distribution chains; strengthen food security by reducing existing waste and losses through the supply chain; and enable sustainable food systems through digitization of the supply chain. The consumer will also be positively impacted through the development of safe, secure, responsive global food systems.
