Problem

Food is vulnerable to a range of hazards of the food supply chain and a failure can affect the safety of products. Moreover, new hazards and risks are emerging which may be related to accidental contamination or to intentional contamination with economically or ideologically motivated adulteration in order to make more profit or to harm consumers.

Target

The main goal of the TruStFoodS project is to develop an innovative suite of Internet of Things (IoT) - enabled sensing technologies data analytics and an original integrated Decision Support System (DSS), studying all the key stakeholders from the supply chain so as to offer a multidimensional impact assessment and financial analysis investigating the sustainability and profitability of this investment.

IoT

TruStFoodS proposes an innovative DSS architecture, comprising of a novel service support platform capable of managing big volume data and processing information for the agrifood sector. An innovative feature is that the DSS will use cognitive algorithms based on machine learning to fuse the data from the supply chains to show an intuitive view for users, including end consumers. This DSS will form the basis and guarantee food safety assessment.

Analysis

The TruStFoodS project will also deliver a breakthrough multidimensional impact assessment effectively using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. The contribution is twofold because methodologically offers a research framework to quantify impacts of the adoption of the innovative “traceability system” and practically estimates the potential and pitfalls of this in order to avoid even higher future costs due to mismanagement of its implementation.

Supply Chain

The framework of the TruStFoodS project, which is based on a holistic supply chain approach combined with technological novelties and socioeconomic impact assessment tools, guarantees not only an exploration of every critical process related to food safety and consideration of all stakeholders involved, but also ensures a significant scientific impact derived from the development of an innovative “traceability system” which guarantee food safety on organic products and thus secures specific economic and societal benefits.

Benefit

TruStFoodS will serve a solution that meets the key stakeholders’ needs and has a wide socio-economic impact. An opportunity is given to increase the overall transparency including consumers’ confidence towards organic products’ safety and manufacturers’ sense of responsibility. For the agrifood companies, contributes to lower the economic impact of recalls, liability costs and business costs to comply with regulations. The adoption of the innovative “traceability system” can help reduce the food fraud incidents and have a positive social impact concerning control food security with National and Regional dimensions.