The TERAFOOD project, supported by the European Cohesion Policy, is developing a sensor to indicate whether or not a foodstuff is edible, without having to open the packaging.
In the European Union, almost 90 billion kilos of food is thrown away every year - mostly because consumers don't know if they can still eat the food after its use-by date.
In an attempt to combat this phenomenon, Belgian and French researchers working on the TERAFOOD are working on a microchip sensor that could indicate whether the food is good or out of date, without having to open the packaging.
" We use microbiological methods to examine microbial growth in food products, chemical methods to determine the concentrations of volatile compounds and sensory evaluation to obtain information from the panel by smell." explains Lotta Kuuliala, a microbiology researcher at Ghent University.
The technology used to develop this sensor is highly innovative. detect volatile components produced by food. " It's a multidisciplinary project. We need specialists in agri-food and food waste - and on the other hand, we need scientists who can miniaturise and manufacture the microchips that make the technology possible." says Frank Devlieghere, a microbiologist at Ghent University.
To miniaturise sensors, researchers in Lille are using silicon, a common and cheap material. For the time being, these miniature chips can only be read by expensive and complex machines. But the scientists don't want to stop there, as Marc Faucher, head of the nano & micro-systems group at CNRS, explains: " At the end of the technological development of this micro-system, the plan is for it to contain its own detection method and to be remotely interrogatable, so that it can be used in the field without the need for major laboratory resources.. "
It will still take time to develop a sensor capable of "smelling" all types of food. But the project coordinator, Mathias Vanwolleghem, believes that this innovative technology, based on terahertz wavesis already working : " We are about to carry out the first tests to introduce this sensor into a cell that simulates what would be a real food packaging, he explains. By summer 2020, we expect to have a first demonstration of the viability of this new technology. "
Researchers believe that the first machines designed for the agri-food industry could be on the market within 5 yearsBut it will take even longer to develop a mobile application, this time for the general public.
The 4-year TERAFOOD project brings together partners in four towns in Belgium and northern France. Total investment : 2 million euroshalf of which was provided by the European Cohesion Policy.
https://fr.euronews.com/2020/03/02/terafood-la-technologie-pour-lutter-contre-le-gaspillage-alimentaire
By Selene Verri & Aurora Velez
Project partners
- CNRS (IEMN) (Lead Partner)
- Flanders'Food
- VMicro SAS
- University of Littoral Côte d'Opale (ULCO)
- Universiteit Gent
