Activities

Spoke 7 attività
The agribusiness sector must promote strategies to harness the technical and soft skills of operators
Responding to challenges by creating synergies

To meet the demands of the modern consumer, who is aware of the significance of concepts such as 'food safety' and 'food quality', the agribusiness sector must evolve and bring to market products capable to can satisfy the end customer. 

Agri-food industries face multiple challenges, from the prerequisite of safety, to processes that must be as sustainable as possible, in terms of resource use (raw materials, water and energy) and by-products or produced waste (that nowadays should be valorized as secondary raw materials). 

 

In this context, the agribusiness sector needs to promote strategies to harness technical and soft skills of operators. Spoke 7 moves along these lines of action, proposing an integration of multiple disciplines to stimulate competitiveness in agribusiness in northwestern Italy. At the same time, in synergy with other ecosystem partners, it will help to create a multistakeholder platform where academia and research and industry collaborate, co-authoring solutions for economic growth.

Spoke 7 aims to stimulate the use of current technologies to build intelligent, interconnected systems that can extract data and process it, with the support of Artificial Intelligence.
Lines of action and flagship projects

Spoke 7 activities will focus on three main topics:

  • High-quality, healthy and safe food productions. Spoke 7 will implement strategies to push the market toward high value-added food productions. At the same time, research will promote and guide the continuous improvement of systems that already integrate primary production and sustainable processing. In addition, consumers will be involved in the development of innovative, sustainable and healthy products.
  • Sustainable food production through the application of circularity principles. Spoke 7 will analyze knowledge, skills, competencies and attitudes of economic actors toward the application of circular principles in food production, and will be responsible for promoting the development of environmentally friendly food processing solutions and processes. This will include actions aimed at making food packaging more sustainable. 
  • Smart processes and systems for food processing supported by the new paradigm of Industry 4.0 for product improvement. Circularity and sustainability need data and data processing to control and optimize the agrifood system. Current technologies will be leveraged and innovated to build intelligent and interconnected systems that can extract data and process it, supported by Artificial Intelligence.

Spoke 7 is also active on two flagship projects: SADAIFO ANIMAL and SADAIFO PLANT (SADAIFO stands for Sustainable And DigitAl Innovation for FOods) aim to stimulate sustainability and digital innovation in the areas related to dairy products, processed products (such as ham and sausage), and products derived from fruit and vegetables, such as wine.