The aim of the OPTIMAL project is to minimise chilled and frozen storage in the food supply chain. This will be achieved through the introduction of food science-based big data techniques to enable food processing plant managers to manage their resources through more accurate and timely data on the associated manufacturing processes. The project approach will be applicable to food processing in general but will be demonstrated, specifically, in the meat processing and dairy manufacturing sectors. The primary benefits of this new approach will be: a) Users will be able to significantly reduce the food, storage and packaging wastage across their entire food processing activities. Furthermore, their food processing activities will be benchmarked in terms of the industry norms with the analytics being able to identify where there are specific weaknesses in comparison with best of breed; b) The introduction of Food Sciences-based insight into how input recipes should be matched to the properties of the raw materials and the output food requirements should make it possible to optimise the recipe for food storage requirements. This will enable storage costs to be reduced by 50%.