Smart and Sustainable Food Processing

The world population is expanding and the demand for safe, healthy, sustainable food with less packaging, loss and waste is growing quickly. Worldwide food production is under huge pressure to change towards smart industry practices. Smart digital technologies are opening a multitude of opportunities for optimizing production processes, making them more sustainable and more flexible.

At Wageningen Food & Biobased Research we aim to provide innovative processing technologies, sensors, predictive models, multicriteria analysis, decision support tools and advanced process control systems to reduce processing resources (i.e. energy, water), provide flexibility in the use of raw materials and ingredients (i.e. plant based, unrefined) and to better comply to a circular economy (i.e. on-demand local processing).

Research developments in artificial intelligence, multivariate control algorithms, and reliable, tailor-made sensors and related data analytics, show large potential to make food production more sustainable. Improving on sustainability requires a multicriteria approach to assess the potential benefits and burdens of possible changes. Improving sustainability goes hand in hand with increased process control, which in general also increases the control of the quality of food processing.

Together with partners that span the entire production chain, the experts of Wageningen Food & Biobased Research analyse, understand, and improve the current food processing to a more sustainable food system.

Does this approach appeal to you?

Get in touch to discuss the options.