Pilots for food sustainability

Developing a new traceability tool to help farmers to grow tomato more sustainably

A first-mile traceability tool (AgriplugÆ) to support tomato growers will be used to track data (weather, forecast models of Phyto pathologies, plant water needs and stress, fertilizers, satellite vigor indices, chlorophyll) from the start of the growing season to the product delivery. A Decision Support System cloud platform will support farmers in data collection providing a toolbox (crop scouting tools and crop operations) and smart integration of data.

Developing a new traceability tool to help farmers to grow rice more sustainably

This pilot is proposing the same set of tools used by tomato growers to support rice growers as well. The tools will be tested in Italy during two crop seasons, on 2-3 experimental fields in 1-2 farms per year. After the first crop season, fine-tuning will be performed, and the tools will be applied again during the second crop season. This precision farming system aims to solve complex and accurate capture and analysis of real-time data on field operations.

Development of a common language for growers and purchasers of fruits and vegetables

This pilot will develop a common language descriptor for products embedded into a buying algorithm and a transaction platform for procurement clusters streamlining direct access to updated product descriptions thus reducing the risks of rejecting the products. This system increases the communication efficiency of the industry during commercial transactions between the production regions and retailers and as a result significantly reduces unnecessary food loss, particularly for fruits and vegetables.

Setting up the supply chain for carbon certificates in almond production

This case study will design, develop and test Almond Crop Tracer tools aiming to increase traceability in almond production. The tools consist in tracking labels or tags produced by each supply chain actor and a minimum viable product (MVP) web app to scan the tag’s QR codes for monitoring the almond product from the farm to the final consumer. The almond product information will be uploaded to a blockchain already available in the market to offer valuable information to users.

Improving the transparency in the Vietnamese shrimp supply chain by implementing digital traceability

This pilot will explore the applicability of Open Food Chain, an open source and customizable blockchain (BC) with application programming interfaces (APIs) to link processors and farmers’ recording systems to the BC, and a scannable QR-code to share selected data along the supply chain. These systems improve the decision-making by supply chain actors of the shrimp aquaculture sector. The long-term goal is to add labor information to guarantee a forced labor-free shrimp supply chain.

Development of a fully automated inventory system for the hospitality sector

This pilot aims to create a fully automated inventory system for the hospitality industry. Smart labels (RFID tags) and sensors will be used to collect product information (i.e., expiration date, price, quantity) to improve the input and output of data information from food delivery to the use of food items. The entire food chain will be visualized via an app by employees and web administration by inventory managers contributing to food waste prevention.