The Institute of Food Science and Technology has published an article on new sensors to monitor the quality of food produced.

EGM is involved in this work through the European R&D project GRACED, which supports the objectives of the European strategy “from farm to fork”. One of the main challenges of the project is to evaluate nanophotonic sensors that allow a rapid analysis of the quality and durability of fruits and vegetables. They should allow the identification of contaminants at the molecular level and perform rapid analysis.

The biosensor resulting from the research of the group of 14 partners is developed in 2 versions:

  • a portable analytical instrument to be used throughout the life cycle of food from farm to fork.
  • a connected version allowing the detection of contaminants without the need for costly and time-consuming laboratory analysis.

This perspective of obtaining regular data to improve the traceability of micro-organisms is a viable solution to limit the disastrous impact of contamination. In a context where the effects of pesticides are more and more decried, the detection of micro-organisms is a solution validated by the EU to avoid massive contamination of agricultural productions. The pilot projects and the perspectives of evolution are presented in this article.

EGM’s role in this GRACED project is to provide decision support to the four Graced pilots, thanks to its innovative smart Decision Support System (sDSS), capable of ingesting any type of pilots’ data and providing predictive and prescriptive decision support from it.