The Internet of Food Things

食品物联网将打造一个跨学科的网络，对英国的食品数字经济进行碎片化和扩大化。食品和饮料是英国经济中最大的制造业。从农场到消费者的食品供应链每年产生1080亿GB的GVA，雇佣了390万人。此外，粮食对社会和环境有非常重大的影响。仅肥胖一项，包括对下游健康的影响，如糖尿病、心脏病等，每年就给英国经济造成490亿英镑的损失。每年仍有约100万起食物中毒事件，每年造成15亿英镑的损失。食品占英国公路货运的30%，但每年有1000万吨食品被浪费，产生20MTCO2e的温室气体排放。数字技术有可能改变食物链，例如，机会(映射到EPSRC DE Network战略)包括但不限于；-通过分布式分类账技术(DLT)建立新的商业模式，以支持食品的可追溯性。最近的霍姆斯报告指出，食品是英国最有可能从DLTS中受益的七个关键行业之一。--为食品行业创建一个“数据信托”，以支持复杂供应链内的数据共享、信任和互操作性。-在服务业广泛应用物联网(IoT)，例如，国内用户(冰箱、烹饪设备等)使用物联网以改善健康结果和减少浪费。-发展新的数码标签协议，协助消费者使用食物和优化供应链；-使用新的数码技术(例如人工智能)，优化从制造商到消费者的整个供应链，以减少食物浪费。迫切需要对受到数字启发的学术界进行整理，并将其与食品行业从业者联系起来。尽管数字焦点在EPSRC的职权范围内(物联网、区块链、数据信任、互操作性问题)，但我们将通过纳入食品科学和技术从业者、政策制定者、工程师、管理专家以及社会科学和行为科学同行的跨学科贡献来扩大影响。该网络将包括学术界、工业界和消费者的利益。行业兴趣覆盖整个食品和数字创新链，包括食品制造商(例如食品和饮料联合会、EPSRC Food CIM)、物联网和数字专家(西门子和IMS Evolve)、HVM Catapult和监管机构，如食品标准局和GS1，后者是为零售制定数据标准(条形码)的国际机构。消费者将通过OUT得到代表，但将食品零售商纳入联盟提供了获得显示行为的无与伦比的数据集的途径。DE网络将促进一些关键行动，包括营销、社交媒体和工作场所/会议活动，产生一个在食品数字领域拥有共同利益的大规模(多达500人)网络。我们每年将主办一次主要会议，此外每年还将举办三次促进研讨会。深入探讨食品领域的关键问题。我们将资助一系列试点研究(应用GB 350K)和详细审查，以支持水平扫描。所有的研究挑战都将与工业界共同创造。我们预计，该网络将促进未来的研究资金，并催化人们对食品数字经济的兴趣。除了网络活动外，我们还将提供一条全面的影响途径，让专业从业者以及普通公众和学校参与进来。

The "Internet of Food Things" will create an interdisciplinary network that defragments and expands the UK's food digital economy. Food and drink is the largest manufacturing sector of the UK economy. The food supply chain from farm to consumer generates £108bn GVA per year and employs 3.9m people. In addition, food has highly significant social and environmental impacts. Obesity alone, including downstream health impacts such as diabetes, heart disease etc, costs the UK economy £49bn per annum. There are still c. 1,000,000 cases of food poisoning per year costing £1.5bn p.a.. Food generates up to 30% of the UK's road freight, but 10MT of food, generating 20MTCO2e of GHG emissions, are wasted each year. Digital technology has the potential to transform the food chain, for example, opportunities (that map onto the EPSRC DE Network strategy) include but are not limited to;- New business models via distributed ledger technology (DLT) to underpin the traceability of food. The recent Holmes report identified food as one of the key seven UK industry sectors most likely to benefit from DLTs.- The creation of a "data trust" for the food sector to underpin data sharing, trust and interoperability within complex supply chains. - Wide scale application of the internet of things (IoT) for the service community, for example, the use of IoT by domestic users (refrigerators, cooking devices etc) to improve health outcomes and reduce waste. - The development of new digital labelling protocols that assist with consumer use of food as well as supply chain optimisation, - The use of novel digital technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence) to reduce food waste by optimising whole supply chains from manufacturer to consumer.Hitherto these opportunities have not or are only partially realised. There is an urgent need to defragment the digitally inspired academic community and connect it to food industry practitioners.Although the digital focus is in within EPSRC's remit (IoT, blockchain, data trusts, interoperability issues), we will multiply impact by including interdisciplinary contributions from food science and technology practitioners, policy makers, engineers, management specialists and colleagues in social and behavioural sciences. The network will include academia, industry and consumer interests. The industry interest covers the whole food and digital innovation chain including food manufacturers (e.g. Food and Drink Federation, EPSRC Food CIM), IoT and digital specialists (Siemens and IMS Evolve), the HVM Catapult and regulators such as the Food Standards Agency and GS1 the international agency that sets data standards (bar codes) for retail. Consumers will be represented through out, but the inclusion of food retailers within the consortium provides access to unrivalled data sets demonstrating behaviours.The DE network will facilitate a number of key actions, including a marketing, social media and work shop / conference campaign that yields a large scale (up to 500 persons) network who have mutual interests within the food digital domain. We will host one main conference per year and in addition 3 facilitated workshops p.a. to deep dive key questions within the food domain. We will fund a range of pilot studies (£350K applied) and detailed reviews to underpin horizon scanning. All the research challenges will be co created with industry. We expect that the network will facilitate onward research funding and catalyse interest in the food digital economy. In addition to network activities, we will deliver a comprehensive pathway to impact that engages professional practitioners as well as the general public and schools.