Organizational and Technological Aspects of a platform for Collective Food Awareness

What is it about?

The paper aims to give an insight into current research directions on information technologies employable in a platform for collective food awareness. We model a cooperative process for generating and sharing reliable food information that is derived from food instrumental measurements performed by consumers via smart food things. Moreover we present the functional architecture of a platform capable to let a consumer community share reliable food information.

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Photo by Igor Miske on Unsplash

Photo by Igor Miske on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Food consumers are ever more engaged in open discussions, comments and feedback on characteristics, quality and safety of food. Moreover, new technological advances, especially in food sensor miniaturization, have made possible the development of lab-on-smartphone platforms for mobile food diagnostics that allow a rapid and on-site food analysis for preliminary and meaningful food information extraction. These lab-on-smartphone platforms use hand-held and low-cost devices (e.g. food scanners or food sniffers) to capture and communicate food data . These devices are easy to use and incorporate an analytical precision and resolution almost equivalent to bench-top instruments. These trends let envisage future scenarios where consumers and other stakeholders of the food supply chain, using their own capabilities integrated with ICT and food diagnostics technologies, could collaboratively constitute a large-scale socio-technical superorganism capable to foster collective food awareness.