On 30 November, the final event of the KISusCheck project took place as a hybrid event at the IBM Watson Center Munich. Umweltcluster Bayern was there live as part of CEFoodCycle.
The “Sustainable Shopping Assistant KISusCheck” is a research project in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) that aims to promote healthier and more sustainable food consumption. The joint project, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, is being developed and implemented by the Competence Centre for Nutrition (KErn), the State Research Institute for Software-Intensive Systems (fortiss) and business partner IBM. It aims to support consumers in making targeted decisions when shopping for food. Knowledge-based AI elements can be used to simplify and facilitate decision-making processes when selecting sustainable products. Consumers should thus be able to orientate themselves better in the shopping environment and make decisions more easily.
At the final event, the pioneering work in the areas of sustainable nutrition and artificial intelligence (AI) driven by the project was presented. Dr Martin Kussman, Head of Science at the KErn (Bavarian Competence Centre for Nutrition), and Lena Mehl from the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) opened the event with a warm welcome.
KErn experts (Dr Martin Kussmann, Silvia Hrouda, Nicoleta Culiuc) discussed the great importance of sustainable nutrition and how this can be further promoted and made accessible to everyone in the future using AI. Axel Wirz from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FIBL) presented the basic concept of the “Sustainable Shopping Assistant” and the data on which the system is based, as well as the categorisation of food thanks to labels and scores. Prof Dr Alois Heißenhuber then offered insights into a fairer value chain and provided important information for the future actions of consumers, producers and politicians.
An exciting presentation by Peter Kuhn (fortiss) shed light on the integration of the chatbot and the sustainability index into the online tool developed in the “KISusCheck” project. After an interesting lunch break, during which many contacts were made, Elke Kunde and Eduard Erhart from IBM and Peter Kuhn discussed the experiences and lessons learnt from the areas of AI, blockchain (IBM Food Trust), data management and chatbot development. Dr Dirk Michelsen and Kamil Gawlik then gave an outlook on future trends in AI and the generation of databases for nutritional information.
The event ended with summarising closing remarks from Dr Kussmann and the project participants, who highlighted the significant insights and innovative concepts that shaped the day. The event provided valuable insights and inspiration for our CEFoodCycle project, which aims to use AI to reduce food waste and channel residual materials from food production into a further value creation cycle. The CEFoodCycle team returned to Augsburg with numerous new contacts, ideas and impulses. We would like to thank the Kern team for allowing us to be there.
