The SME voucher beneficiaries presented their award-winnig projects, focusing on the results, lessons learned, impact achieved and possible spillover to other companies/other sectors.
The speakers were excited to showcase their projects and how essential S3FOOD fund was to advance their technologies and go-to market. All participants took the opportunity to learn from each other’s projects and make new contacts.
Are you interested in efficient innovative solutions for the food industry?
Here’s a brief summary:
Buns and chocolate – How to use data in the manufacturing process?
Maximilian Backenstos – DatenBerg GmbH (Germany)
Data is the new oil – that’s what people keep saying. When one is looking at many SMEs, you see a difference. Data is often hidden in paper, manually tracked and ideas how to take advantage out of those data silos are lacking. In this pitch we show how to change that and will present two use-cases: One from a bakery (100 employees) and a chocolate manufacturer who mainly supplies big supermarkets worldwide. We will present how to leverage data from PLCs, bring transparency in the production, get rid of paper and enable the factory staff to make data-driven decisions.
Enhancing food production through digitalization, using sensor technologies
Balázs Weibel – Cubilog (Hungary)
Cubilog implemented a complex digital solution in an egg processing factory to enhance its quality control processes, support production efficiency, provide data-based information for process and product development and facilitate resource efficiency, thus achieving less ecological impact. To advance the plant’s further development, a sensor-based, complex data logging and analytical system is implemented. The scope of the project is the digitization of the production process, which starts with the breaking of the egg and ends with packaging of the product. The project involves the installation of sensors, and the integration of various equipment’s data. All these will provide information via an application for the use case to monitor processes. The online platform provides visualization, predefined reports and archiving of the data, and also provides an opportunity for the users in various capacity to create their own information and analysis.
Preventing the rise to fall – intelligent acoustic machine and production monitoring in an industrial bakery
Jasper Wouters – Magics Instruments (Belgium)
Within the scope of the S3FOOD voucher support scheme, we have deployed intelligent audio sensor nodes in an industrial bakery setting to tackle various manufacturing challenges. In this pitch we will elaborate on some of these challenges and highlight our technical portfolio that covers the full extent of such a monitoring project. We will dive deeper into an active learning framework that was developed within the scope of this project to accelerate the time to learn and minimize human involvement in the learning process. With these improvements we strive for easy scaling both within a certain manufacturing site and across different applications, while remaining cost-effective.
DNAblockchain: Trace the DNA not the package
Stelios Arhondakis – BIOCOS (Greece)
Olive Oil (OO) is a fast-growing industry with Europe producing 70% of OO worldwide. OO and particularly Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) are at substantial risk of non-compliances/frauds due to their fragmented supply chain. This increase health risks, jeopardize sustainability and local production, promotes unfair competition, and reduces EVOO valuation. Thus, efficient traceability solutions from field-to-store become imperative to protect EVOO integrity and quality. Among those, blockchain is widely employed, providing a digitally secure way to track/trace each lot number from the manufacturing site to the consumer. However, its limitation is that it traces solely the bottle, and not its content: the EVOO. On the contrary, DNA represents an indisputable source of information offering the ability to obtain a genetic profile for an EVOO. This makes it impossible to admix with vegetable oils while in parallel assures its varietal composition from field-to-store. In DNAblockchain, we bridge this gap (bottle-content) through the incorporation of DNA data collected along the entire supply chain. The DNAblockchain delivers a DNA traceability system, from field to bottle, protecting EVOO integrity and quality.
Digging up data treasures: how bakeries use software to prevent food waste
Dr. Tobias Pfaff – Foodtracks (Germany)
FoodTracks helps bakeries and organic supermarkets to leverage their treasure trove of data hidden in ERP and POS systems to ultimately make better decisions. Order planning is often a source of unrest. Here, a balance can only be achieved if demand patterns are systematically evaluated. An algorithm recognizes potential cases and automatically suggests order quantities. In this way, high returns and early sell-outs can be specifically avoided – and thousands of euros can be earned. With 1,500 connected stores, FoodTracks is on its way to becoming the market leader in intelligent order planning cloud software for bakeries.
DT-Optidry: Digital Twin for optimization of manufacturing processes in agri-food companies
Olaya Muñoz – Upintelligence (Spain)
DT-OptiDry, is dedicated to the development and validation of a Digital Twin (DT) for the maturation of cured-smoked products, based in Machine Learning models for the optimization of environmental parameters thorough the smoking process. The DT integrates different solutions framed within the concept of Industry 4.0, encompassed in two key components: (i) a validated DT; and (ii) an intelligent control system based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The DT-Optidry system is fed by the data of the key parameters acquired by the sensors, which are automatically transmitted through the IoT network. The compiled data are used for process simulations, as well as for predictive models to predict the number of days for optimal maturation.
Better Biscuits using Intelligent Software and Cameras for Quality Control Using Innovative Technology
Leo Borms – La Confiance (Belgium)
With the BBISQUIT project, La Confiance switched to a more objective and continuous quality control system. Cameras and intelligent software evaluate the colour of the baked biscuits and make the necessary adjustments to oven parameters. The benefit is optimised production and increased food safety – and always uniform quality. In addition to La Confiance, the international consortium behind this project consisted of AI experts from Yazzoom in Belgium and oven automation specialists from Goldstream in Holland.
A digital buddy for operators and technicians
Stefan Ruyters – Gemsotec (Belgium)
The current project is the result of an exploration voucher of S3FOOD (Lindesens) which identified elements for a new and modern way of working, focusing on intensifying the connection between data and workers. Lindemans has undergone a quite extensive automation and has several systems in place, however, the data is available in different formats, in different systems and only to limited people hampering effective use of it. With this project Lindemans aims for better compliance towards the quality system, better communication and information sharing to intervene faster on process failures, and better insights in operations (eg OEE). The digital solution comprises of GoRound, a mobile platform that enables to manually record quality related data, to manage and execute tasks, and to streamline communication and compliance towards the quality system and uses Teams for communication.
Libatio: The digital transformation of popular activities
Xavier Crespo – S.C.Robotics (Spain)
Even though measuring the digitalization level of a sector is not easy, we can assert that many of the steps in the wine-making process do not rely on technology. We have noticed that, compared to what has happened in other industries, the improvements that technology brings are yet to be leveraged. The consortium that participates in this S3FOOD project has developed a system that can monitor, in real-time, the wine aging process. This system consists of a hardware piece, the so-called smart bung, and a cloud platform. The bung measures physical variables from within the barrels, such as temperature and liquid level, and then sends it to the cloud platform. Oenologists can use this platform to check in real-time the status of the wine and they can also use it to set alerts that allow them to react faster to unexpected events. With wineries being usually located in rural areas, one of the things they enjoy the most is the ability to access barrel’s status from anywhere in the world. We consider this to be an initial step towards the digital transformation of this sector but it’s definitely not the end of the road. At this moment we are collecting data and we intend to work on more advanced techniques that allow wineries to predict wine quality or detect the presence of organisms that spoil the contents of a barrel.
About S3FOOD
S3FOOD is a four-year €5 million project that aims to inspire, support and fund the digital transition of the European food processing industry. At least 75% of its funding has gone directly to SMEs in the form of vouchers, training and business coaching.
The project partners are: Flanders’ FOOD, Belgium; INNOSKART, Hungary; AgriFood
Capital BV, The Netherlands; Industry Association of Navarra (AIN), Spain; Asociacion
De Investigacion De Industrias De La Carne Del Principado De Asturias (ASINCAR),
Spain; Bretagne Development Innovation (BDI), France; Galicia Food Cluster
