Journal:Can a byte improve our bite? An analysis of digital twins in the food industry

Full article title	Can a byte improve our bite? An analysis of digital twins in the food industry
Journal	Sensors
Author(s)	Henrichs, Elia Noack, Tanja; Piedrahita, Ana María Pinzon; Salem, María Alejandra; Stolz, Johnathan; Krupitzer, Christian
Author affiliation(s)	University of Hohenheim
Primary contact	christian dot krupitzer at uni-hohenheim dot de
Editors	Tiwari, Ashutosh
Year published	2022
Volume and issue	22(1)
Article #	115
DOI	10.3390/s22010115
ISSN	1424-8220
Distribution license	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Website	https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/22/1/115/htm
Download	https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/22/1/115/pdf (PDF)

Abstract

The food industry faces many challenges, including the need to feed a growing population, manage food loss and waste, and improve inefficient production systems. To cope with those challenges, digital twins—digital representations of physical entities created by integrating real-time and real-world data—seem to be a promising approach. This paper aims to provide an overview of digital twin applications in the food industry and analyze their challenges and potentials. First, a literature review is executed to examine digital twin applications in the food supply chain. The applications found are classified according to a taxonomy, and key elements to implement digital twins are identified. Further, the challenges and potentials of digital twin applications in the food industry are discussed. This survey reveals that application of digital twins mainly target the production (i.e., agriculture) or food processing stages. Nearly all applications are used for monitoring and many for prediction. However, relatively few focus on the integration of digital twins in systems for developing autonomous control or providing recommendations to humans. The main challenges of implementing digital twins are combining multidisciplinary knowledge and providing enough data. Nevertheless, digital twins provide huge potentials, e.g., in determining food quality, ensuring traceability, or designing personalized foods.

Keywords: digital twins, food industry, food supply chain, cyber–physical systems, sensors, internet of things, survey

Introduction

With the evolution and digitalization towards Industry 4.0, the concept of creating digital copies of physical systems received entry to the industry. [1] In particular, the food industry is of special interest because it requires highly efficient use of available resources. [2] Over time, food production systems have evolved alongside technological innovations, allowing for increased production, greater product variety, more resilient food stocks, and increased international trade. Yet, despite these advances, food systems around the world continue to face unprecedented challenges that pose significant threats to current food systems, such as climate change, pressure to feed a growing global population, and persistent global food waste. In addition, there are growing societal demands for greater food provenance, traceability, and sustainability within the food system. [3]

A key element of Industry 4.0 is the digital twin, a virtual model of a product, process, or system created with data collected by sensors that enables simulations or real-time analyses of that product, process, or system. [1,4] The use of digital twins seems beneficial in food processing for various reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the vulnerability of food supply resilience. [5] To ensure the consistency of a food supply, production processes must allow high flexibility and adaptivity. [6] Furthermore, product quality is influenced by different quality levels of input materials. Especially in the case of seasonal fluctuations impacting raw material quality, the ability to adjustment parameters in the production process is essential. Introduction processes of new products could be simplified by a digital twin of already existing physical processes. The digital twin is able to learn the correct process parameters for production and is used as the knowledge base within a self-adaptive software system. [7] However, a digital twin of food production has additional specific requirements compared to digital twins of the production of material goods. [8] Due to the variability of raw materials, these cannot be based only on the processing steps but must also take into account the chemical, physical, and (micro)biological properties of the food. However, when functioning as intended, the technology can be applied to create a detailed digital model of the supply chain that integrates real-time and real-world data to respond to unexpected events and uncertainty within the supply chain.

This work aims to provide an overview of digital twin applications in the food industry and analyze their challenges and potentials. We first present a taxonomy to differentiate underlying technologies and better understand the intended use of each digital twin. Second, a survey is executed to examine digital twin applications in the food supply chain (FSC). We target the FSC as it provides a link between all the key activities and processes involved in bringing a specific food product to market. [9] To meet these unprecedented challenges, FSCs and corresponding actors are turning to modern technology for assistance. [10] We classify the found applications of digital twins according to our taxonomy. Third, we investigate the key elements to implement digital twins in the FSC. Fourth, since the concept of digital twins is still young, we discuss the potentials of applying them in the food sector. Finally, we discuss the challenges of applying digital twins in the food industry.

In summary, this paper contributes to the body of research by providing the following scopes:

• Classification of digital twins in the food sector,
• Overview of the application of digital twins in the food industry,
• Definition of the key elements for implementing a digital twin,
• Analysis of the potential of digital twins in the food industry, and
• Description of challenges of applying digital twins in the food industry.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section explains several fundamentals related to the FSC and the digitalization of the food industry, and it provides a definition of digital twins. Then, the methodological approach for the literature review is presented. The subsequent section evaluates the literature review results and summarizes the key elements for implementing digital twins. Then we discuss the potentials and challenges of digital twins and their implementation in the food supply chain, and then we discriminate this work against other publications in the field. We conclude this paper with a summary of our results.

Notes

This presentation is faithful to the original, with only a few minor changes to presentation and updates to spelling and grammar. In some cases important information was missing from the references, and that information was added.