PRECISE - Interreg Deutschland-Danmark

PRECISE is supported by the European Regional Development Fund Interreg Deutschland-Danmark (Grant number 03-2.3-22 1). Meat and fish production heavily contributes to CO2 emissions and unsustainable food consumption. On the other hand, meat/fish production are important regional economic activities. PRECISE will propose a model to reduce the carbon footprint of meat/fish consumption by eliminating the unnecessary food waste. Today, restaurants and food stores rely on the printed “best before” date of meat and fish products, which is based on general prediction curves for meat degradation. For pork cuts at 5°C, the prediction curve says 8 +/- 3 days. To be on the safe side, expiration dates are set to 5 days, leading to a huge product waste of 48,000 tons/year in Schleswig-Holstein/Syddanmark/Sjælland . Meat/fish pieces are purchased with a “best before” date, and the retailers/restaurants are legally allowed to extend that date if the product is still consumable. Currently, the only feasible way to do that in this part of the value chain is to use human senses to evaluate the freshness, and doubts lead to waste. We propose to realize this potential for better resource use by implementing a sensor enabling PRECISE measurements of meat and fish expiration dates, terminating 50% of the current meat/fish waste. Our starting point is the current cross-border meat freshness sensor developed by the partners. This solution can measure product freshness indexes, but due to limitations on the sensing elements, databases, and AI algorithms, it currently only operates for 4 types of meat/fish species. PRECISE will maximize the impact of such a solution expanding the library of meat/fish types. That requires innovative steps with cross-border expertise to implement a new type of sensing element, to perform advanced AI data analysis, and to calibrate the sensors with accredited quality methodology.