Duration: August 2020 to July 2023

In order to avoid food waste and for quality assurance in particular, a continuous digital mapping of the entire supply chain, along which the quality of each individual food is measured and logged non-invasively, is of central importance. In the AI-BioSense project, using Distributed Ledger Technologies, this type of end-to-end digitization of the supply chain from production to sale of fishery products is designed and set up as a demonstrator. Central monitoring elements with the help of which the quality is to be checked along this supply chain, biosensors are part of an intelligent food packaging, on the basis of which the freshness of the product can be determined continuously and read non-invasively using optical methods. AI methods are used in particular to calibrate these sensors and predict the freshness of the food.

The AI-BioSense project is carried out by a consortium consisting of GALAB Laboratories, the Institutes for Biomedical Optics, Nutritional Medicine and Software Technology and Programming Languages at the University of Lübeck and leading companies in the food industry, in order to investigate aspects of digitization of the supply chain as well as the optimization of biosensors, and to research the calibration of the same with the help of AI methods, as well as forecasting methods for determining the freshness of the food along the supply chain with the help of machine learning techniques.

There is a great need in the food industry to determine the shelf life of foods routinely and non-invasively. When degrading biological tissue, e.g. when food of animal origin is spoiled, protein degradation products such as amines are released into the environment in a gaseous phase. By detecting these substances, the shelf life of food can be determined and any changes in shelf life (spoilage, ripeness, etc.) can be indicated accordingly.

This can also contribute to less food being disposed when the end of its shelf life has not yet been reached (cf. the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture “Too Good for The Bin”). Fish and other food processing companies can ensure continuous control throughout the entire production process and enable automated online control, not just in random samples, but for each individually packaged unit of goods.