Food group Splendid Foods, whose core business is making cured cold cuts, has partnered the Eurecat technology centre on a project which taps artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics for better cold cut curing. It results have been showcased this week at the Mobile World Congress.

The project “has designed and deployed a monitoring system equipped with IoT devices which gathers data from the curing procedure for processing and analysis,” says Xavier Domingo, director of the Applied Artificial Intelligence Unit at Eurecat. It features algorithms which “identify potential anomalies in the process.”

“Today’s technologies and the right technological partners enable us to unlock opportunities for analysing and understanding technical industrial aspects we haven’t been able to address until now,” points out David Garcia-Gassull, CEO of Splendid Foods. “We couldn’t handle such a large amount of data which meant not all the information was available.”

The company can draw on the information gathered to “better manage the curing process and, for example, shorten the time taken while keeping the same product quality which makes them more competitive,” adds Josep Pijuan, a researcher at Eurecat’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Unit.

“Advanced data analytics and smart decision support systems in the production process enable food industry companies to make more informed decisions tailored to their needs,” argues Ignasi Papell, Eurecat’s head of Food Industry Business, in which they tap Industry 4.0 and regardless of their size.

The meat industry is the main agri-food sector in Catalonia. Figures provided by Prodeca, the state-owned company run by the Catalan Government’s Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, show it has turnover coming to €7.03 billion and accounts for over 31 percent of the agri-food sector’s business.

The initiative comes under the Embot-ITs project led by Splendid Foods in partnership with the Eurecat technology centre, the INNOVACC cluster, Delsys, the software and technology consultancy specialising in industrial process management, and food industry firm Patel. It is backed by funding from the Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda’s Operational Groups call.