Project description
Dynamic shelf-life labeling to reduce food waste
Most foods are safe to eat even after the expiration dates have passed. Expiration labels often lead to discarding food prematurely. The EU-funded FreshIndex project proposes a platform for the exchange of data on food quality and safety as well as IoT supply chain data to provide all parties with information on the exact freshness of a food product. For each product, two shelf-life dates will be available indicating (1) when the product will lose its optimal quality and (2) when it will be unsuitable for consumption. Offered as a service to numerous retail chains, consumers can scan the product barcodes with their phones and get detailed information on the product, including its remaining shelf life.
Objective
Contrary to popular opinion, most foods can be consumed for much longer than the expiration date stated on the label. These expiration dates lead to good food being thrown away and wasted unnecessarily. With the use of state-of-the-art technology, all this waste and resulting costs can be prevented.
Over the past years, the food industry has adopted the EPCIS standard that enables creating and sharing food tracking data. The state-of-the-art approaches to food safety and quality range from scanners, tests, TTIs, sensors, traceability and food chain analytics but they all require hardware and do not provide any information to consumers.
We have created FreshIndex, a platform for the exchange of data on food quality and safety, to provide all parties information on exact and true freshness of the food. This platform will be offered as a service to the numerous retail chains. It will allow consumers to use their mobile phones to scan the product barcodes and get detailed information on the product production, its path to the consumer and the remaining shelf-life. The FreshIndex is the exact expiry date which will replace the current sub-optimal solution and contribute to reduction of costs and food waste.
As our main pilot users are currently in retail, we consider European grocery retail chains as our serviceable obtainable market (SOM). We envision an AaaS (Analytics as a Service) model where the players along the supply chain pay to get access to the data. This platform gathers special technological and food safety know-how. We will create revenues by charging retailers a small annual fee, tracking food cargo and charging for large API volumes.
Matthias Brunner, our co-founder, has 10 years of experience in the development, sales and marketing of automotive sensors at Robert Bosch and holds a PhD in Statistical Physics. Rahul Tomar has extensive experience in IT project management, with focused expertise in construction engineering and software applications.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- engineering and technologyother engineering and technologiesfood technologyfood safety
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationsmobile phones
- engineering and technologycivil engineeringconstruction engineering
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
70176 STUTTGART
Germany
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.