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Electronics for Better Quality Foods

Torino, October 20, 2017

Danilo Demarchi, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Mohamad Sawan, Polytecnique Montreal, Canada

FoodCAS wants to be the first reference meeting of scientists and industry stakeholders engaged in developing the edge technologies for food production, preparation, monitoring and preservation.

The food chain involves several levels of Circuit and System technologies, some of the expectations of food industry in terms of CAS related solutions are:

• Sensors for on-field monitoring during food preparation at market level
• Smart Control Electronics for the whole steps of production
• Monitoring Networks for controlling the status of the cultures in growing facilities
• High-Tech Information Systems for delivering to customers’ timely information of food provenience, organoleptic contents, food status, etc.
• … and several other examples

Food regulation introduces the need of online environment control and food status, during harvesting, elaborating, packaging, and shipping.

Food production involves the need of automated equipment for harvesting, treatment, and packaging.

The need of monitoring systems for food at all levels is mandatory. This involves the introduction of new sensing platforms, efficient and low-power monitoring systems. 

A consistent effort has to be spent dealing with the Internet of Things for better quality foods at all levels: production, monitoring, shipment and preservation. One of the main challenges can be the cost, because most of the scenarios can be related to low-cost goods.

The public interest is growing, for example a new concept of food selling was introduced in a recent Expo in Milan presenting the Supermarket of the Future:

http://www.ceflaarredamenti.com/en/projects/point-of-sales/supermarket-o..., where Coop Italia created an innovative Supermarket, showcasing advanced new technologies - from smart shelves to interactive food display tables - that showed how is possible to transform the shopping experience. Their goal is to arm shoppers with the tools and information to make their experience convenient, relevant and personalized. The supermarket and suppliers also can benefit from greater efficiency and customer interaction.

The proposed Workshop can be focused on 5 pillars:

CAS for Food Ingredients

• Tools for milk based food
• Vegetables resources
• Meat quality and tracking

CAS for Food Production

• Monitoring of Sampled Cultures
• Optimization of market growing

CAS for Food Processing

• Treatment and Production Equipment
• On-line production monitoring
• Environmental Control

CAS for Food Shipment

• Food Status monitoring during transportation
• Food Tracking

CAS for Food Retail

• Food monitoring in shops and supermarkets
• Information and feedback to/from customers

In conclusion, the proposal wants to open a novel track inside the BioCAS Conference topics, taking care of the emerging needs of the food industry, bringing interesting possibilities for the research and the commercial application of Electronic Circuits and Systems.