The REAMIT project proposes to adapt and apply existing innovative technology to food supply chains in NWE to reduce food waste and hence improve resource efficiency. Reducing food waste is of highest priority for the EU (88Mt or € 143B wasted per year). The EU has committed to halving food waste by 2030 by focusing on all stages in the supply chain. 35% of food waste in EU-28 has occurred in supply chains in 2012. Though technologies exist to reduce food waste, they have not been applied to food supply chains.
REAMIT will focus on fruits, vegetables, meat and fish as these are wasted in large quantities. The supply chain includes farms, packaging sites, food processors, distribution, logistics, wholesalers and retailers. The project will be carried out in Ireland, Germany, France, UK and the Netherlands due to the amount of interconnected food supply chains and huge food waste in these countries.
REAMIT will adapt existing Internet of Things and Big Data technologies to best fit the needs of the food supply chain management system in NWE. Through testing and adaptation, these technologies will be enabled to continuously monitor and record food quality and signal potential food quality issues. Through analytics, owners of 'food to be at risk of becoming waste' will be provided with decision support options to minimise food waste including redistribution to nearby customers.
REAMIT project will save 1.8Mt of food waste or €3B per year in NWE, avoid 5.5Mt/yr of CO2 emissions, test and operationalise 8 solutions, and, support 20 enterprises. The technologies will be self-sustaining at the end of the project. They will be made available to the public via REAMIT website and social media.
The long-term effects of REAMIT will be optimising (re)use of food and natural resources in NWE economies and a consortium capable of jointly addressing the challenges in food sector.
Posted on 30-04-2021
REAMIT Newsletter - April 2021. Available to view on the link below. Read more
Posted on 10-05-2021
The REAMIT team at the University of Bedfordshire are currently recruiting for a Research Fellow to take on responsibilities within the Big Data Hub and perform research tasks with... Read more
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Lead partner
| Organisation | Address | Website | |
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| University of Bedfordshire |
University Square Luton LU1 3JU United Kingdom |
ram.ramanathan@beds.ac.uk | www.beds.ac.uk/research-ref/bmri |
| Name | Contact Name | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Images & Réseaux | Gaël MAUGIS | gmaugis@images-et-reseaux.com | France |
| National University of Ireland, Dublin, University College Dublin | Fionnuala Murphy | fionnuala.murphy@ucd.ie | Ireland |
| University of Nantes | Gérald Thouand | gerald.thouand@univ-nantes.fr | France |
| Levstone Ltd. | Davinder Bola | dbola@levstone.com | United Kingdom |
| Nottingham Trent University | Usha Ramanathan | usha.ramanathan@ntu.ac.uk | United Kingdom |
| Whysor | Marcel Steegh | marcel@whysor.com | Netherlands |
| Munster Technological University | Pat Doody | Pat.Doody@staff.ittralee.ie | Ireland |
| SenX | Hervé Rannou | herve.rannou@senx.io | France |
| Ulster University | Joan Condell | j.condell@ulster.ac.uk | United Kingdom |
REAMIT Newsletter - January 2020 edition Read More
In the past few months, there have been much web articles and general online buzz around the REAMIT Project. Here are some of the articles that have featured our project Read More
REAMIT Newsletter - December 2019 Read More
We are currently recruiting for a Postdoctoral Researcher to work on carrying out real-time life cycle assessment as part of the REAMIT project. Closing date: 17:00hrs (local Irish time) on 17th December 2019. Read More
We are looking to recruit a Research Fellow for a research project titled "Improving Resources Efficiency of Agribusiness supply chains by Minimizing waste using Internet of Things sensors (REAMIT)", funded by the Interreg North West Europe (NWE) Programme. Read More
This article explains the REAMIT project in simple terms. Read More
The University of Bedfordshire has made a press release on REAMIT project. Read More
If you are interesting in participating in technology demonstrations with REAMIT, please contact us on the email address below
reamit4nwe@gmail.com
REAMIT Project lead, Prof. Ram Ramanathan of the University of Bedfordshire will be speaking at the Smart Food Matters Conference, taking place on the 1-2 April 2020 in London.
Read More
We are pleased to announce that REAMIT will be exhibiting at The Chartered ABS’s Annual Research Conference & Exhibition. This is the yearly gathering of directors of research, directors of impact, research and impact leads, postgraduate research directors and heads of knowledge exchange from UK business schools.
The theme for this year’s conference is Reach | Relevance | Impact and will explore how the academy can improve the reach, relevance and impact of the knowledge being produced in UK business schools; and how academics can improve their own personal reach, relevance and impact with colleagues, collaborators, practitioners and policymakers.
Click the link below for further details and registration.
Read More
Dr Fionnuala Murphy of the University College Dublin delivered a seminar titled 'Is the Bioeconomy inherently sustainable? Using Life Cycle Assessment to find out!'. As partners of the REAMIT project, Dr. Murphy detailed the involvement of REAMIT and the Life Cycle Assessment. The seminar for the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering was organised by said department and was delivered online at Penn State University, USA, on 24th March 2020.
Read More
REAMIT Project Lead, Prof. Ram Ramanathan will be delivering a plenary session at the 3rd International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operation Research, in Istanbul, Turkey on the 11th February 2020. This conference is hosted by the Canadian Institute for Knowledge Development
Read More
REAMIT project partners will be meeting for the 2nd RSC+RAC+WP meeting. The meeting will take place in Rennes at Images & Reseaux on January 15th to 16th, 2020.
Date and Time: Wednesday 15th - Thursday 16th January 2020
Venue: IMAGES & RESEAUX, Campus de Beaulieu (building 9a), Allee Jean Perrin, 35042 RENNES, France
Purpose: Second meeting of the REAMIT Advisory Committee, Work Packages and REAMIT Steering Committee.
Read More
The REAMIT Networking Symposium on 9th Jan 2020 focusing on minimising food waste in agribusiness supply chains, across North West Europe.
The Symposium is arranged by Nottingham Trent University, who are partners in the project.
Read More
Pilot Test -1 - Ulster University with Dunbia
Read More
REAMIT project partners come together for it's 1st RSC+RAC+WP meeting 2019 held at the Putteridge Bury Conference Centre, hosted by lead project partner, University of Bedfordshire
Read More
REAMIT team meets in Putteridge Bury, Bedfordshire, UK on 16 May 2019 11am - 5 pm. This kick-off meeting facilitated interaction among project partners to plan project activities, communication strategy and dissemination.
Read More
Food waste is a serious problem in the EU. Nearly 88 million tonnes of food, equivalent to €3 billion, are wasted every year in the EU. The Union has pledged halving the food waste by the year 2025. Reducing kwaste not only increases food availability but has more benefits in the form of saving significant resources (water, energy, labour, fertilisers, etc.) that formed input to the production of food.
It has been estimated that around 35% of food waste occurs when the food travels across the supply chains. In the REAMIT project, we are passionate in reducing food waste along agribusiness supply chains using new internet of Things sensors and big data technologies. We will focus on fresh food [both packaged and unpackaged] (fruits/vegetables/meat and fish) and propose to do reduce waste of these foods in the following ways:
. Tracking the quality of fresh food using sensors. Both traditional (temperature, humidity, light, vibrations, etc.) and newer (e.g., Raman spectroscopy and 3D Fluorescence spectroscopy).
2. Collecting data from sensors in the cloud and monitoring the data using automated big data technologies.
3. Contacting food owners (using smart phone Apps) as early as possible in the case of any potential loss of food quality, providing suggestions for saving the food before it becomes waste, and, thus encouraging the derivation of best value of food thus avoiding food waste.
4. Conducting big data analytics on the sensor data to bring out long term strategies for reducing food waste in NWE in the long run.
We will share the data on food quality only with the owners of the food and will not share with any other parties. For data analytics purposes, only aggregated information will be made available for public consumption and no information specific to any company will be made available.
INFORMATION GUIDE FOR APPLICANTS
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THE CANDIDATE
The REAMIT project solicits expressions of interest from agribusiness end users (involved in transporting and storing fresh food) who are interested in understanding how to reduce waste of food when it moves along the supply chain. We have some partners in the consortium that are end-users willing to explore the power of sensors and big data in reducing food waste but we need more end-users in the North West Europe (NWE) to join in this exciting project.
We will work with you in deciding the best strategies for fitting IoT sensors in trucks/warehouses to continuously monitor food quality. We will monitor the food quality and share the data on your food quality only with you. We will help you in preventing food becoming waste and in generating best value for your food (that would otherwise become a waste). We will combine data on quality of your food with similar data from other end-users in order to identify the patterns of food waste in NWE and thus help policy makers in producing well-informed policies on food waste.
What we need from you:
You will be a company dealing with transportation and/or storage of fresh food, willing to use sensors to track quality of the food and share the data to help reduce food waste in NWE region. We will work with you in identifying best ways of fitting sensors and collecting the data.
We are currently looking for end-users in Ireland, Germany, France and the Netherlands, though we are keen to recruit more end-users from all parts of NWE.
What we offer in return:
We have a small budget in the project for fitting sensors, which we will use to share a part of the costs of fitting sensors in your trucks and warehouses. We will then collect the data to perform big data analytics with support from Big Data experts in the REAMIT consortium. We will help you derive best value for your food by contacting you in advance if there are potential quality issues with your food. This strategy may help you save money in the long run. Finally, we also provide the opportunity to be a part of European Union’s efforts in reducing food waste and help in supporting a noble cause of protecting the environment.
We will follow established ethical principles while sharing and analyzing your data.
If you have interest in becoming a leader in reducing food waste in the EU and would like to participate in the REAMIT project, we invite you to contact us using the mail: openchallenge@reamit.eu or ram.ramanathan@beds.ac.uk . We will then be in touch with you and discuss your interest in detail.
ICSF Farming Innovation Pathways (Feasibility and Industrial Research) (https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/853/overview)
Expression of interest: transforming UK food systems for health and environment (https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/transforming-uk-food-systems-for-health-and-environment/)
Are you a UK based FoodTech SME or Academic working on diet, health or nutrition innovation? If so, you could get your project or research in front of more than 80 people during the KTN Food Industry Innovation 2021 event. For more information click here.
Deadline for applications: 12 February 2021
H2020 the agROBOfood Open Call 1 for Innovation Experiments (https://agrobofood.eu/) aims at boosting the adoption of robotic technologies in the European agrifood sector. This call is targeted at European SMEs working in the field of agrifood and robotics. Deadline for bid submission is 31 May 2020. Project size EUR 300k – 500k. Number of partners: 2 – 5. Budget per partner: EUR 50k – 300k.
Funding is available through UKRI.Get funding for ideas that address COVID-19.
Proposals are invited for short-term projects addressing and mitigating the health, social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak.
REAMIT’s PI has since applied for this funding.Click here for more information.
