Keynote: Augmenting Insights into Fresh-Food Supply Chains via Digital Twins, Mobile Apps, and a Virtual Lab

In this keynote talk from COMSOL Day: Simulation Apps & Digital Twins, Thijs Defraeye shares how the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) is dedicated to unveiling the blind spots in refrigerated plant-based food supply chains caused by the underutilization of available data and physics-based models. In this work, Defraeye discusses how Empa combines real-world sensor and post-harvest data of produce shipments with physics-based models to turn this data into actionable metrics for stakeholders. These so-called digital twins help provide a more complete picture of how every piece of produce in a shipment ages.

In addition, Defraeye shares how Empa converts the backbone of these digital twins — the physics-based models — into simulation apps that feed results into a smartphone app used by smallholder farmers to predict the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables. To conclude, Defraeye shares how Empa launched a virtual lab, consisting of several simulation apps that can be used as virtual lab equipment to complement experiments for a variety of fields.

Thijs Defraeye is a senior scientist at Empa and a professor at Wageningen University & Research.

Suggested Resource

Read more about Empa's work in this article: Forecasting Fruit Freshness with Simulation Apps