Artificial intelligence and data for the sustainability of the food industry

Thanks to the integration of industrial data, sustainability indicators, and artificial intelligence, it is possible to reduce emissions and improve energy and water efficiency in the food sector. This is demonstrated by the European project CLARUS, coordinated by the Department of Management Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano and funded by the Horizon Europe programme.

The project developed a digital platform capable of monitoring and optimizing the use of resources in the food supply chain, integrating artificial intelligence models, sustainability assessment tools based on the Green Deal Index (GDI), and a secure infrastructure for data sharing between companies and research centers.

The CLARUS solutions were tested in real industrial contexts: at Ardo, a company active in primary food processing, the optimization of refrigeration systems enabled a reduction in CO₂ emissions of up to 9.5% and an improvement in water efficiency of 21.6%. In the Finnish company Honkajoki, specialized in the valorization of food by-products, the use of AI models improved logistics, reducing transport times by 8.3% and increasing energy efficiency.