TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL

The mass production of high quality and economic food is a great achievement of industrial society which has made possible significant increases in life expectancy and quality of life globally. However, by no means all the world’s population has benefitted from this achievement, whilst climate change and population dietary change are existential threats to the benefits so far achieved by the industrial production of food.

By food quality, we do not mean haute cuisine or highly expensive meals. We mean an economic and ready supply of food enabling a healthy, long and productive life for consumers, with a good variety enhancing the enjoyment of life — neither eating to live or living to eat but a balance in which the consumer is empowered to make informed choice. By quality ingredients we mean that the consumer is entitled to receive ingredients described, e.g., rice means rice largely uncontaminated by herbicide; British beef means specific cattle breeds, born and raised in the UK.

Currently food supply chains are highly susceptible to: a) criminal contamination, b) accidental contamination and c) manufacturer obfuscation threatening public health and confidence in food product. These threats are exacerbated by the globalization of supply chains. Another serious issue is the deliberate addition of cheap food ingredients which are public health threats, the most prominent of which is the addition of sugar to numerous food products where it might not be expected such as ready meals and processed fruit and vegetables. Independent monitoring of food supply chains is necessary to reassure the consumer and to provide quality food economically.

A combination of 100% on-line monitoring at the factory gate and wholesale recipient with automated supervision in the distribution system (Container environment monitoring intermittently reporting using mobile technologies together with in-package monitoring using colour change dyes and RFC technology) can, together with consumer education, transform our health choices and help eliminate societal diseases such as diabetes. The Technology will also help eliminate food waste, even in China currently 30% of processed pork is spoilt in the supply chain and the use of artificial intelligence will allow the optimisation of the supply chain, reducing energy usage and waste. Agriculture and food processing are together the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and optimisation of the supply chain is essential if these contributions are to be reduced.

Ambrosus is a solution which brings transparency into the system by assuring food quality data that cannot be tampered, recorded on a robust platform that cannot be amended or shut down by any single stakeholder. Contemporary mobile technology permits the ready integration of measured data obtained in a timely manner to be analysed both on the fly and retrospectively. The optimisation and integrity of food supply chains requires such technology which in turn is necessary if the challenges outlined above raised by global warming and the health of the population of the world are to be effectively addressed. An additional benefit can be greatly improved variety in the supply of quality food and a more resilient supply chain capable of supplying good food to everyone.

Professor Povey is advising Ambrosus on Food Reassurance, enabling our blockchain solution to be compatible with the existing methods and techniques of food quality assessment in the industry. Additional technical publications on Food Reassurance prepared by Professor Povey will be published within the next 3 weeks, whereas the results of the pilot projects with the food processing and distribution companies will be published afterwards.