eFoodLab managing knowledge in food research

Food companies such as Unilever, Friesland Foods, Corbion, Danone, but also other players in the domain of food and agriculture are increasingly aware of the fact that disclosing and sharing research data is a crucial element of innovation. Semantic annotation is a key technology for them. Their organisation for strategic food research TI Food & Nutrition (partner in eFoodLab) continues to develop and apply its food science platform Tiffany and associated tools Rosanne and ROC+ developed by Wageningen UR. These solutions ensure that the quality and effectiveness of industrial R&D increases, due to proper handling and sharing of data, methods, materials, results, etc.  The experiences gained in TI Food & Nutrition are passed on to the industrial partners in a natural way, as the technology is demonstrated extensively in their own (agrifood) domain. The design of the tools is generic, such that applications in other sectors are very well possible.

In 2015 a number of experiments are planned with food companies and other organisations to fit our proposed solutions into their regular processes, for example in the context of waste reduction in the food supply chain. We will build advisory services to assist domain experts in ontology development and semantic data sharing. These services are based on the tools developed in eFoodLab, but will eventually be commercially self-supporting.  A feature of our valorisation strategy is not to overload user with new tools, but to embed new technology in software applications commonly used in business environments. Moreover, we start from a clear understanding of the business process.