21st Century Abattoir Review for FSA

There have been rising concerns about resource efficiency, food safety and food fraud within meat industry in the UK and worldwide. Such concerns raises questions on how 21st Century Abattoir should function and what are the scope of automating some the processes, utilise different data science capabilities and emerging technology adoption for improving resource efficiency and monitoring food quality, food safety and fraud issues within the supply chain. The study will explore viability and opportunities for using STFC space science and technologies capabilities in Harwell Campus (RAL Space, Cryox, Diamond, ISIS, Harwell Green Hub) and Daresbury (Hartree Centre, ASTeC) along with food and supply chain research centres in Sheffield, Hull and Manchester for enhancing resource efficiency, enabling traceable supply chain, sensing food quality and detecting food safety/ food fraud issues in UK meat industry, focusing particularly on British Abattoirs. Interdisciplinary research would include but not limited to broad areas of:
1. Meat Processing: Cleaning, curing, smoking, drying, fermentation, thermal processing, other treatments, packaging
2. Infrastructure: Flooring that affects hygiene, food quality, worker safety and cost effectiveness
3. Quality inspection: quality assurance and inspection efficiencies, intervention points, mistake proofing (Poka Yoke)
4. Technology enablement - Real-time analytics, real-time detection, in-line integrity checks, multiple inspection points, artificial intelligence, automation in meat processing
5. Management practices: KPI identification, current processes, resource efficiencies, process re-engineering opportunities, transfer of best practices, lean and six sigma applicability
6. Legislation: certification, labelling, standards, traceability, consumer awareness

This project has been co-designed with beneficiaries such as Food Standard Agency (FSA) who are providing access to five of their abattoirs in the UK and their contacts in the EU abattoirs for conducting the research for a review on 21st Century Abattoir Challenges. Our research will map how STFC capabilities in space science and technology along with other social science disciplines would enable to tackle some of those challenges in food quality monitoring, food safety/ food fraud detection and for enhancing resource efficiency (i.e. reducing food, water and energy losses across the supply chain). This review will provide a baseline for defining future large-grant research agenda and sandpit for conducting some of the pilot scale projects/ proof of concept projects.

So, the immediate impact of this research would be engagement with policy makers (FSA) and opportunity to define pathways of future interdisciplinary research in food supply chain (focusing on meat industry in particular). The report produced through this review will be of immediate use by STFC and other research councils for setting their research priorities in meat/ poultry supply chain that would enable significant improvement in British abattoirs and their supply chain.

Medium term impact include at least 1 sandpit event would be conducted based on the themes identified in this review. This will enable a few interdisciplinary pilot scale projects working together with STFC, FSA and University research institutes. The follow-on projects would include demonstration projects that could also include co-designing sensors/ detectors for specific challenge identified during the review process.

Long-term impact would include at least one function Blockchain that would enable to trace the identified food safety indicators/ standards (outcome of the review) from farm-to-fork.