Food waste is a big concern world over given millions of people go without food each day. In Germany itself, nearly 12 million tons of food is wasted each year, of which, more than 30 percent is destroyed in the production process. In a bid to reduce this, this has aroused the interest of Fraunhofer Institute for Casting, Composite and Processing Technology to examine under the Resource-efficient Intelligent Foodchain project.
Hi-tech knowledge of artificial intelligence can be valuable for the pursuit, opine experts. This implies, using data-based algorithms, meat, cheese, bread, and other food items can be easily produced. Herein, machine learning methods are suitable as they can optimize sales, production planning as well as process and plant control systems.
Meanwhile, Germany has committed to the United Nations aim to cut food waste by half by 2030. Going by numbers, in Germany, nearly 12 million tons of food lands in trash each year, and this is long the value chain from farm to table. Of this, domestic households account for some 52 percent of waste, according to data from a 2019 study conducted by Thunen Institute. Besides this, food processing and production account for nearly 30 percent of food waste, reveals data from the study. And, wholesale and retail, account for the remaining 18 percent of food waste.
At the REIF project end, it has 30 partners who are working on a long term solution to reduce food wastage. In the larger picture, to do this, the design of an AI ecosystem, which includes participants at every step of the value chain is the primary focus.
