In this webinar session, Alexandru Luca will give an introduction to Digital monitoring of fruit & vegetable freshness. It will focus on the possibility of using digital twins to reduce postharvest losses by providing the industry with an online tool to gain immediate access to the actual shelf life expectations of the physical product. The concept of digital twins being a virtual copy of some real-life physical system containing at least three parts, (i) the physical product, (ii) its virtual counterpart, and (iii) the connections of data and information that tie them together. Central to this concept is the ability to collect and process information through a multitude of sensors to register processing conditions and the responses of the physical system which is used to develop valid virtual models and to evaluate the virtual system under given conditions mimicking the behavior of the physical system as good as possible.

While fresh fruit & vegetable are not physically manufactured but organically grown, digital twins can revolutionize the postharvest supply chain by providing insights into the performance of the physical product under the incurred logistic conditions (e.g. temperature, humidity, gas conditions). Despite well-known theoretical optimal storage conditions, fresh fruit & vegetables are typically exposed to a sequence of suboptimal storage and transport conditions starting at harvest, through export and retail, eventually reaching the consumers, but at the cost of unwanted quality losses leading to food waste. Where logistics typically applies the approach of FIFO (First in First Out), the concept of FEFO (First Expired First Out) might be more efficient in minimizing food losses throughout the handling chain. This is where a digital twin can add value by supporting logistic decision-making based on predictions of remaining shelf life”.