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Digitalizing food supply systems for business and global benefits: reflections on the UK Trusted Bytes project

Presented by Steve Brewer

Steve Brewer is a research and project coordinator at the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology (LIAT) at the University of Lincoln (UK) working on projects that aim to reduce food waste, increase nutritional value and productivity, and reduce environmental impact across the supply chain. He has been coordinating the UKRI-funded Internet of Food Things Network Plus, an interdisciplinary UK-wide initiative as well as supporting two Innovate UK projects developing innovative digitally-enabled food manufacturing and production supply chain solutions with industrial partners. In addition to data-centric food production supply chains, he is also interested in how human networks in the research community better connect with wider societal goals. His research is looking into how best practices emerge from networks and what governance mechanisms and skill sets can best optimise such practices whether at a human or data sharing level of interaction. His research environment is split between Prof Simon Pearson’s LIAT group at the University of Lincoln and Prof Jeremy Frey’s Computational Systems Chemistry Group at the University of Southampton.

Abstract

At all levels - global, national and local – food supply chains are facing unprecedented pressure. The Covid pandemic brought home to the UK its reliance in international trade links to ensure a steady supply of food. In particular, the UK is dependent on many highly perishable products such as fruit and vegetable which for seasonality reasons cannot be produced in the UK. Fresh produce supply-chains are therefore the archetype of "just-in-time" modality, where delays or disruption leads to food waste and massive financial losses. The Trusted Bytes project has been funded by the UK Government’s Manufacturing made smarter Industrial Research fund to address these challenges. The project brings together technology businesses and academic research teams to work with fresh produce providers to develop an interoperable ecosystem for trusted data exchange. Outcomes are being integrated with new standards-compliant API's to facilitate cross border transition alongside new telecommunications technologies that provide ubiquitous access to data. This talk also describes the underlying research that has contributed to these concepts, namely the role of new technology and of data in digitalized supply chain, as well as interdisciplinary collaborative research and the co-creation process needed when transferring innovation to the wider community.

Chair: Laurette Dubé (Scientific Director of MCCHE)
Co-Chair & Moderator: John G. Keogh (Professor of Practice, MCCHE; Founder, Shantalla Inc.)

Special Panel: A panel will follow with scientists and action leaders to advance convergence science and innovation at the food, health, medicine and healthcare interfaces for addressing challenge and possibilities afforded by open-sciences in accelerating world-scale transformation toward sustainable prosperity. Discussion will also explore how digital transformation of science, business and society can accelerate the bridging of seemingly incompatible commons and value-capture logics, capabilities, processes and impacts.