Technologies related to the Internet of Things are poised to bring the food and beverage value chain into the Digital Age. We highlight the “Internet of Food” concept and shifts in the current food and beverage cold chain
Food consumption is growing worldwide as countries develop and incomes rise – global F&B supply chains will be under pressure to maintain quality and increase throughput to meet this demand
Key aspects of enabling IoT (e.g., costs of sensors / processing, availability of connectivity, etc.) have reached a point where wide-scale implementations of IoT solutions are possible across the food value chain
The “Internet of Food” represents the convergence of technologies that empower producers and consumers to make intelligent, data-driven decisions about their food
The “Internet of Food” will have varying impact across the food and beverage value chain – use cases include improving food safety with end-to-end supply chain visibility and using consumer data to better forecast demand and develop new products
One key IoT use case will be advanced tracking – cargo-level tracking can supplement asset-level tracking by filling in critical data visibility gaps at the individual pallet level and can enable full supply chain visibility and risk-management for food producers
The F&B cold chain is a complex process, transporting temperature sensitive products along a supply chain from manufacturer the end-user – an emerging ecosystem has formed, focused on adding a digital / data layer to this process
