BBTWINS: optimised and sustainable food production

Status: Ongoing Companies Agriculture

With the help of a digital twin, we are examining how to make food production systems more efficient, decrease the environmental impact, and increase yields.

Digital twins: the perfect testing environment

Europe already is the main food and drink producer. However, the demand for food keeps rising. Therefore, our food production systems should be optimised and made more sustainable. The BBTWINS project uses digital twins to examine how we can do so.

First and foremost, we’re making a real-time, digital replica of a physical process. Then, we can start researching and testing that digital replica without it having a potentially negative impact in the real world.

We went with two cases: one from the fruit industry and another from the meat industry. The goal is to demonstrate how we can integrate the agri-food value chain and raw materials into a single value chain.

Concrete steps to improve the agri-food value chain

To reach our goals, we will combine various technologies on one platform. Think of artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), software analysis and more.

The platform predicts which pretreatment and path are most suitable for every raw material in various circumstances. That allows us to increase the available biomass, combat waste, and make sure that biomass can be stored longer without affecting the quality.

Our goal is to improve the agri-food value chain. We will attempt to do so by:

Mapping out every step in the agri-food value chain.
Improving the availability and sustainability of raw materials in biobased processes.
Valorising raw materials so we can offer new biobased products.
Using virtual tools to make sound decisions that will lead to optimised biobased processes.
Introducing end-to-end traceability of the products: from raw material to end user.
Validating the digital BBTWINS tools in a real-life situation.
Contributing to a reduction of GHG emissions and the environmental impact of the agri-food industry.
Ensuring that the BBTWINS can be used by industries related to the agri-food industry.
Creating new business models for biobased industries.

Funding

This project is backed by the Bio Based Industries Joined Undertaking (JU). The JU is supported by the European Union’s research and innovation program Horizon 2020 and the Bio Based Industries Consortium.