The Eurecat technology centre is the technical coordinator of a consortium of seven companies led by Raventós Codorníu which has kicked off an ambitious project to apply artificial intelligence to production processes in the food industry. It is called ALIMENTE 21 – Smart food industry for the 21st century, and its main goal is to enhance industrial management efficiency in the food industry, step up its quality and safety and lessen its environmental impact (energy and water usage) by investing in new technologies, mainly artificial intelligence.
ALIMENTE 21 has a €5,116,810 budget and a €3,097,895 grant. It is funded by the CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology) with the backing of the Ministry of Science and Innovation and co-financed by Next Generation EU funds. It is the only food project to have been approved in the 2021 call run by the Spanish ‘Missions, Science and Innovation’ programme.
The project has just started out and ends in 2024. It is being run by a consortium made up of three food industry firms (Codorníu and meat processors Aldelís and Prolongo) and four engineering firms or technology providers: Mapex, Omron Iberia, Cibernos and Agropixel. The Eurecat technology centre is providing technical support and coordination.
Specifically, Eurecat is to work with the businesses in researching and developing cutting-edge solutions leveraging technologies including artificial intelligence, big data, edge computing and digital twins. The idea is to shift the food industry towards a management model that is predictive (it anticipates what will happen), prescriptive (it suggests what needs to be done), smart and with less environmental impact, mainly in terms of water and energy usage.
Shifting towards Industry 4.0
Codorníu, which is supported in this project by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia’s technology centre, has been working for years towards Industry 4.0 which harnesses technologies such as artificial intelligence to gain efficiency and competitiveness. Its goals include streamlining all processes (from the vineyard to shipping the bottle), improving decision-making (as a result of vineyard and production line monitoring), cutting energy and water usage to be more sustainable and further enhancing innovation in its cavas. Together with Eurecat, it has already been involved in other innovation projects such as ADVANCEWINE, which taps technologies including big data and artificial intelligence to better manage the biological process of the grape (variability and seasonality) and its impact on each stage of the production cycle. In conjunction with the technology centre, it has also backed the IGNITE project, an IoT (Internet of Things) platform for centralised management of all the equipment, systems and sensors involved in industrial production processes by equipping machines with intelligence so they can respond automatically to pre-defined events. It has additionally partnered Eurecat in the CONOCE project, which unlocks disruptive technologies in neuroscience to better understand consumers and develop innovative products tailored to their needs and preferences.
Grupo Cibernos has been committed to AI as a transformative technology for years, especially in the development of predictive scenarios applicable to Smart Cities, Industry 4.0, Healthcare and Smart Agro. Grupo Cibernos is bringing its AI experience and expertise to this innovative project by designing and developing Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning models for predicting demand for raw materials. Data from other systems and IoT sensors will be used to develop predictive and prescriptive scenarios geared towards more sustainable production in the agri-food industry.
Meanwhile, Aldelís will be supported by the Eurecat and AINIA technology centres to achieve the targets set in the project, namely cutting energy and water usage in its production operations by streamlining its process parameters. ALIMENTE 21 further cements Aldelís’s digitalisation and Industry 4.0 strategy (Connected Industry 4.0 Award from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, 2020). In short, this project coupled with others recently approved under the Green Deal bolsters and deepens the company’s commitment to sustainability and the SDGs.
In turn, Omron is to design and implement the artificial intelligence-based solutions in association with Eurecat and the University of Alcalá de Henares. These technologies are intended to enhance quality in the food market, reduce packaging and food waste, cut water usage and improve the efficiency and availability of the production lines where these solutions will be rolled out. Omron has extensive experience in operational excellence and is ranked as one of the world’s 100 most innovative companies by Clarivate Analytics due to the development of these technologies which are to be researched and deployed during the ALIMENTE 21 project.
Similarly, Prolongo is involved in the ALIMENTE 21 project with the goal of putting in place a suite of artificial intelligence technologies to increase its process productivity and sustainability while also ramping up food safety in its operations. Together with Eurecat and Omron, these technologies will be implemented in integrated logistics management, improved production component availability and greater food safety.
Mapex is to research the most complex challenges facing the food industry of the future in terms of capturing and using information. The firm will harness cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data to provide manufacturers with predictability and foresight in their production processes by fitting their Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) with advanced capabilities. Mapex’s goal in this project is to furnish businesses with the tools they need to analyse data intelligently by recognising patterns and using them to develop predictive capabilities and meet new challenges in fields such as product quality, asset availability and/or process optimisation.
Agropíxel is a Raventós Codorníu group tech spin-off which delivers technology services for wineries rooted in precision agriculture techniques, advanced sensors and artificial intelligence. Its role in ALIMENTE 21 will be to gather full data on grape delivery to the winery and assist with setting up advanced sensors and drawing on artificial intelligence to cut energy and water usage.
