Recently a new one began EIT food project under the name "Smart Tags". The aim of the project is to increase consumer confidence in food and food systems by sharing information about the value chain throughout the product's life cycle. The project aims to share interactive information with consumers and suppliers using so-called smart tags or smart tags. The technology offers numerous possibilities in the field of information provision, as well as the development of products and services. With the advent of technology, the food industry also gets a powerful tool to gain insight into consumer needs and thus facilitates innovation tailored to consumer needs.
International food value chains are often long and complex. This makes it difficult for consumers to trust the information provided by suppliers. Research has shown that the information available on food today is insufficient in the opinion of consumers. Examples of information that consumers are interested in include; Ingredients, origin, product sustainability, fair trade, modes of transport and mode of transport, service life and recycling potential. Information on nutritional value can often be difficult to understand, and products are often decorated with meaningless or unsubstantiated labels such as "sustainable", "natural" and "healthy".
Smart tags can come in a variety of forms. They can be in the form of simple barcodes that can be read with a smartphone, they can also use active convertible ink that can provide relevant real-time information. Smart labels also give consumers the opportunity to exercise restraint through direct contact with manufacturers, suppliers or other stakeholders. The term smart tag is used for tags that can measure environmental variables with, for example, variable flashes, indicators or sensors using software solutions. Bar codes printed with active variable ink change automatically according to environmental variables, for example with changes in temperature or humidity. Under these conditions, the color of the bar code section appears, disappears or changes and can therefore provide updated information to the consumer.
The Smart Tags project is led by VTT in Finland, but other participants are Matís, the University of Reading in the UK, the University of Warsaw in Poland, KU Leuven in Belgium, AZTI in Spain, DouxMatok in Israel and Maspex in Poland. The project is supported by EIT Food, which is part of the European Union.
The innovative solutions that will be developed in the project will be created in close collaboration with consumers and other stakeholders in all participating countries in the project. The project will run through the year 2021 and it will be possible to monitor its progress website of the project and Twitter its account.
