Project description
Optimised high quality food by artificial intelligence
Food manufacturers are constantly looking for innovative recipes that are high in quality, safe, tasty, environmentally friendly and healthy at the same time. It can take up to 2 years and hundreds of tests to create a new food product that meets all consumer and distributor requirements as well as regulations. There is a need for a tool that assists in optimising quality, safety, environmental impacts, and nutritional values. The EU-funded OptiSignFood project will develop a holistic and integrated approach to predict and optimise the quality of food, as well as its appearance and safety. Bringing together a transnational consortium of nutrition, food technology and environmental expertise from research and industry, the project aims to roll out the first such solution on the market.
Objective
New food product development is still an inefficient, time-intensive and manual process based on an iterative laboratory approach. In the food design process, a multitude of parameter, e.g. consumer’s wishes, food safety, health requirements and environmental related needs, must be considered. It takes up to 24 months and 150 tests to create a new food product.
We will overcome this challenge with a disruptive digital food design solution based on data science and AI. The OptiSignFood software will provide a holistic and integrated approach to predict and optimise food’s quality, appearance and safety based on reliable scientific data. OptiSignFood will be the first solution on the market able taking in consideration all aspects of food design. The AI based approach allows 85% more accurate predictions than competitors simple calculations. It saves manufacturers 90% of time in the food product design and helps achieving Green Deal and UN sustainable development goals by creating more sustainable and healthy food products selecting ingredients with same nutritional properties, but lower environmental impact, saving up to 98% CO2eq. We target 9.6% of serviceable available F&B companies and 9.4 M€ gross profit in 2027.
The translational consortium combines nutrition, food technology and environmental expertise from the research and industry to foster the transfer of the innovative solution from the lab into a product that meets the customer needs:
Mia & Ben (Berlin & London), a science led food manufacturing company, laid the foundation for OptiSignFood and develops the AI prediction models.
Agroscope (Zürich) is one of the leading institutions for sustainability in the food chain and focuses on the concept to connect environmental and nutrition/health impacts.
Metacognis (London) is specialised on life science and AI data mining.
Pascal Processing (Helmond, NL) is a contract manufacturer and will contribute real data to the project and become the first industry user.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
3003 Bern
Switzerland