On 23 September 2020, the virtual study visit in Germany was organized by Food Processing Initiative. The event was attended by participants from 12 countries and included the following programme and presentations:

• Presentation
  • Towards a digital innovation eco-system – latest developments at OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lemgo
  • Smart FOODFACTORY – a living lab for digital solutions in food production 
• Expert panel: Food 4.0 – insights and developments
• Welcome to smartFoodTechnologyOWL
  • From batchwise to continuous mashing – cyber-physical systems and its potential to improve production processes
  • Smart process control – the example of dough production
• Round of discussions
• The road ahead – SFT.OWL 2025

Conclusion: The Region OWL is a “hot spot” for digital transformation of industry in Germany based on a strong industry and research structure as well as a close collaboration between relevant actors from industry (food / technology / digital solution providers) and interdisciplinary research.

At Lemgo Innovation Campus TH OWL: Pilot laboratories, machinery / equipment for testing and researchers from all relevant research areas are under “one roof”, building a research, demonstration, and collaboration platform for digital transformation in food technology, therefore establishing an international centre of excellence and evaluation possibilities for new “smart” technologies, products and processes as well as a showroom for experts and the interested public. 

The close collaboration between industry and applied research from the two disciplines food technology and IT solutions enables companies to test products or processes in this living labs before investing in bigger scale. Moreover, it connects the research landscape even better with the needs of the companies as trials can be performed in demonstrators.

The study visit proved that the digital transfomation towards the development of applicable solutions with added-value for food industry, relys on 3 pillars:

1. Interdisciplinary collaboration
2. R&D collaboration with industry partners focussed on selected challenges
3. Living labs (like Smart FOODFACTORY) as space for testing and competence improvement