Technological innovation is strategic in the development of new foods and ingredients in the food industry that contribute to the well-being of different population groups, where nutrition and health, robotics, digitalisation and sustainability will be the main pillars.
These are solutions that open the doors to ‘an important hybridisation of digital and industrial technologies, ranging from artificial intelligence, industrial and agricultural robotics, big data and the Internet of Things to multispectral imaging, and that are an opportunity for innovation so that companies can face their challenges’, explains Ignasi Papell, the head of the Eurecat technology centre’s Food Industry Business, on the occasion of the Food4Future World Summit held in Bilbao.
In the words of Clara Rafel, from Eurecat’s Food Industry Business development team, at Food4Future, ‘we presented various projects and advanced demo equipment, as well as new opportunities opened up by alternative protein sources and the products designed to respond to new consumer habits’.
Eurecat organised two sessions during the congress, where the project Misiones ALIMENTE 21 – Smart food industry for the 21st century was presented at the session on technology. The aim of this project is to increase the availability and efficiency of food industry resources, both industrial as well as raw materials, improve the industry’s production processes and ensure its safety. The presentation featured the participation of some of the participating companies that highlighted their R&D strategies, especially efficient production, artificial intelligence and sustainability.
Raventós Codorníu, which leads the consortium, uses technologies such as artificial intelligence to innovate in its products, gain efficiency and competitiveness, optimising processes and improving decision-making, as well as to be more sustainable with the reduction of energy and water consumption. Faccsa-Prolongo explained that it will put in place a set of artificial intelligence technologies to increase its process productivity and sustainability and also to ramp up food safety in its operations. Mapex, on the other hand, will investigate in the context of the project the harnessing and exploitation of information, one of the most complex challenges facing the food industry of the future.
In the session on novel foods, a platform designed by Eurecat was presented, consisting of a method to obtain new foods, nutraceuticals and new ingredients through methodologies that are sustainable and scalable in industrial processes. ‘We demonstrate that agri-food industry by-products can be reused with a yield close to 100 per cent through sustainable processes to generate new foods and ingredients with health benefits’, indicates Josep Maria del Bas, the director of Eurecat’s Nutrition and Health Unit, ‘to offer companies in the value chain a fast and low-risk decision support system for the recovery of by-products and new foods in the field of healthy nutrition’.
Agricultural and industrial robotics
In the technology field, Eurecat presented robotics solutions applied to the agricultural and industrial sectors, such as the autonomous robot developed in the GRAPE project, which can be equipped, for example, with a mobile operator used to automatically distribute pheromone dispensers for the biocontrol of insect plagues in vineyards.
A system with hyperspectral imaging and artificial intelligence was also presented, used for the detection of extraneous objects and quality control, making it possible to obtain safer food products.
The food of the future
The innovations presented at the Food4Future fair included the DANTIAN project, promoted by a consortium of 8 companies led by Acolact, with technical coordination from Eurecat. This project studies new foods and bioactive ingredients that encourage the mental well-being of consumers through the understanding of the mechanism at cognitive level and the relationship with the microbiota and intestinal health.
According to the director of Eurecat’s Nutrition and Health Unit, who is also the project’s technological coordinator, DANTIAN ‘is based on the concept of the gut-brain axis, and it translates the knowledge generated in recent years about the relationship between food and mental health into concrete suggestions of foods and ingredients that may help to maintain our mental well-being when integrated into our diets’.
Artificial intelligence in food production
The technology centre has presented the project Misiones ALIMENTE 21 at Food4Future. Raventós Codorníu leads the project, with Eurecat responsible for the technical coordination and participation from Prolongo, Mapex, Aldelís, Omron Iberia, Cibernos and Agropixel, kicking off an ambitious plan to apply artificial intelligence to food industry production processes to increase the efficiency of the industrial management in the sector, ensure its quality and safety and reduce its environmental impact.
Moreover, together with the food group Splendid Foods, whose core business is the production of hard sausages, Eurecat has carried out a project which incorporates artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics to optimise the sausage curing process.
