Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FreshIndex (Trust and Transparency for The Food Supply Chain)

Teaser

Most foods can be consumed for much longer than the expiration date stated on the label. Even though most people have heard this, only 20 % of EU citizens act accordingly. The consequences are that the expiration date leads to good food being thrown away and wasted...

Summary

Most foods can be consumed for much longer than the expiration date stated on the label. Even though most people have heard this, only 20 % of EU citizens act accordingly. The consequences are that the expiration date leads to good food being thrown away and wasted unnecessarily: according to the European Commission up to 10% of the 88 million tons of food waste generated annually in the EU are linked to misinterpretation of “Best Before” and “Use by” dates. The FreshIndex aims at reducing this waste and the resulting costs by combining state-of-the-art IoT technology with the latest results in digital food modelling. 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. 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. Our solution allows 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 enhance the current sub-optimal solution and contribute to reduction of costs and food waste.

Work performed

During the SME Instrument feasibility study on the technical side, we have closed the proof-of-concept successfully for pork meat and validated a product development road map of future products. On the commercial side, we have investigated the serviceable addressable market as well as the serviceable obtainable market (SOM) and found considerable interest in the section for our supply chain monitoring and supply chain analytics from Food retailer and producers. We developed an AaaS (Analytics as a Service) model where the players along the supply chain pay to get access to the data and summarized it in the section business plan below. Finally, we investigated how our intellectual property can be protected by EU law.

Final results

With the closing of the SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study the FreshIndex has passed from TRL 6 to TRL 7 and has qualified for commercial product development and for real-life field operation. Backed by this positive results of the Phase 1 feasibility study, tsenso GmbH has stared to rise funds for the future product development. A first public validation trail will be performed in collaboration with METRO cash & carry Germany in July and August 2019 for the pork supply chain in Germany.

Website & more info

More info: https://tsenso.com/de/.