A Conceptual Framework of a Digital-Twin for a Circular Meat Supply Chain

Abstract

AbstractEvery year more than 900 million tonnes of food is wasted, contributing to almost 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing food waste has been identified as essential to tackle the current climate crisis, and links to several UN’s sustainable development goals. This is especially critical for energy and resource-intensive food products like meat, whose consumption is predicted to reach an historical maximum by 2030. Whilst wastage occurs at all stages of the supply chain, tractable data about the journey of food from production to consumer remains largely hidden or unrecorded. Powered by the latest advances in sensing like smart food packaging and digital technologies such as Big Data and IoT, Digital Twins offer a valuable opportunity to monitor and control meat products and processes across the whole supply chain, enabling food waste to be reduced and by-products reintegrated into the supply chain. This paper proposes a new framework for a Digital Twin that integrates key technological enablers across different areas of the meat supply chain towards with the goal of a “zero-waste”, circular meat supply chain.