Alliance

”ALLIANCE – A hoListic framework in the quality Labelled food supply chain system’s management towards enhanced data  Integrity and verAcity, interoperability, traNsparenCy, and tracEability” is a pioneering 36-month project, co-funded by the European Commission, and by Horizon Europe, starting on the 1st of November 2022 and estimated to be completed on the 31st of October 2025.

ALLIANCE represents a paradigm shift in the Food Supply Chain Systems’ management for the combat against Food Fraud, distinguishing from the traditionally approaches that leverage monolithic digitalized logistic solutions and standalone FSC interoperability protocols.

ALLIANCE aims to provide a holistic framework that safeguards data integrity and veracity, enhances traceability and transparency and reinforces interoperability in quality labelled supply chain of organic, PDO, PGI, and GI food, through innovative technology solutions and validated approaches (such as distributed ledger technologies supported by IoT sensing devices,providing extensible anchors to interoperability protocols and use of in-situ portable rapid testing devices to detect adulteration andverify food origin and authenticity) and fosters evidence-based decision making through AI and ML for preventative interventions and actionable planning.

The proposed framework will improve social and economic sustainability of quality labelled food supply chains by ensuring quality & authenticity, increasing food safety, while also considering climatic and environmental impacts of food products.The technologies to be employed in this project will be described and demonstrated in detail to reach higher technology readiness levels (TRLs) and enable smooth and rapid adoption by all stakeholders.

ALLIANCE’S OBJECTIVES

ALLIANCE will deliver three main results:

1.  ALLIANCE will develop a novel blockchain platform, based on the open source Blockchain Technology Hyperledger Fabric25, for delivering trustedtransactions in the food supply chain of quality-labeled food products not only focusing on data authenticity, transparency and security but also on data accuracy, integrity and veracity.
2. ALLIANCE will incorporate advanced AI mechanisms and predictive analytics to conduct continuous vulnerability risk assessment for detecting food fraud and blind holes across the food supply chain and leverage prescriptive analytics to propose insightful recommendations to actors for making preventative interventions and plan actionable policies against food fraud.
3. ALLIANCE will leverage the capabilities of portable qPCR testing to conduct on-site DNA fingerprinting testing in food products and raw materials to validate provenance. Moreover, leveraging advanced analytical methods, such as Near Infrared (NIR) and Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) spectroscopy and integrating them into the quality and assurance control processes will successfully enhance the food safety and quality control management capabilities of food actors to identify unknown contaminants and prevent significantly food fraud in their FSCs.

The Consortium

ALLIANCE consortium is composed of (26) partners from (12) countries with diversified experiences and expertise necessary to achieve the objectives and activities of the project:

PANEPISTIMIO THESSALIAS (GR), NETCOMPANY-INTRASOFT SA (LU), BIOCOS IKE (GR), UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB (HR),  CENTRE INTERNATIONAL DE HAUTES ETUDES AGRONOMIQUES MEDITERRANEENNES (FR), UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA (IT), INSTITUTE FOR FOOD TECHNOLOGY OF NOVI SAD  (RS), FEDERBIO SERVIZI SRL (IT), ALCE NERO SPA (IT), LARISA’S DAIRY INDUSTRY S.A. OLYMPOS (GR), WISEFOUR LTD (CY), MENA GROUP (RS), CONSEJO REGULADOR IGP FABA ASTURIANA (ES), ASOCIACIÓN DE INVESTIGACIÓN INDUSTRIAS DE LA CARNE DEL PRINCIPADO DE ASTURIAS (ES), CONFEDERAZIONE ITALIANA AGRICOLTORI REGIONALE UMBRIA (IT), UDRUGA PROIZVODACA LICKOG KRUMPIRA (HR), ORIGINAL (RS), BIOTECHNICON (HR), CONSEJER A DE MEDIO RURAL Y COHESI N TERRITORIAL DEL PRINCIPADO DE ASTURIAS  (ES), RMS 001 d.o.o. (RS), BAVARIAN HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY AUTHORITY (DE), MIGROS TICARET ANONIM SIRKETI (TR), DIAMANTIS MASOUTIS AE SUPER MARKET (GR), THE LISBON COUNCIL FOR ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS AND SOCIAL RENEWAL ASBL (BE), THE WORLD BEE PROJECT (UK), EUROPEAN FOOD INFORMATION RESOURCES (BE).