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Watson Project

A holistic frameWork with Anticounterfeit and inTelligence-based technologieS that will assist food chain stakehOlders in rapidly identifying and preveNting the spread of fraudulent practices.

Dr Dimitrios Argyropoulos
Assistant Professor in UCD's School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, UCD Programme Director of the MSc Digital Technology for Sustainable Agriculture, and Principal Investigator with the UCD Institute of Food and Health. Academic Profile >

 

Funders:
European Union's Horizon Europe Research and
Innovation programme

Team:
The project team is a multidisciplinary consortium of 44 partners across 20 EU and
non-EU countries.

About Watson

The project aims to develop a set of tools and systems that can detect and prevent fraudulent practices across the food supply chain. It will increase transparency through improved track-and- trace mechanisms containing accurate, time-relevant and untampered information on the food product throughout its whole journey. The proposed framework will be demonstrated and tested in real-life conditions in a range of case studies on agri-food value chains: wine in Portugal, honey in Spain, olive oil in Italy, meat in Germany, dairy in Finland, and fish in Norway.

The project aims to develop a set of tools and systems that can detect and prevent fraudulent practices across the food supply chain.

We speak to Dr. Dimitrios Argyropoulos, about this fascinating project. Read the full interview by clicking on the magawatson project coverzine cover.

Watson is a €11 million 3-year project that has been funded by the EU’s research and innovation framework, Horizon Europe to combat fraudulent practices in the food supply chain. 
Watson’s interdisciplinary consortium of 44 partners across 19 EU and non-EU countries will develop a holistic traceability framework that will integrate data-driven services, intelligence-based toolsets and risk-estimation approaches, enabling food safety authorities to identify and prevent fraudulent activities.
Watson will rely upon the following digital and intelligence-based technologies:
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI).
  • Internet of Things (IoT).
  • Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).
  • A suite of novel Spectroscopy-based Technology.
Watson is organised around 6 agri-food sectors. The proposed framework will be tested in six different European countries considering different operational procedures and diverse environments: 
  • Tackling counterfeiting of wine in Portugal.
  • Rapid traceability of extra virgin olive oil in Italy.
  • Improved traceability of high-value products in cereal. and dairy chain in Finland.
  • Preserving the authenticity of PGI honey in Spain.
  • Identification of possible manipulations at all stages of the meat chain in Germany.
  • Combating of fish counterfeiting in Norway.

UCD Institute of Food and Health

University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
T: +353 1 716 7777 | E: foodandhealth@ucd.ie