Public Funding for Granville Food Care Limited

This project aims to undertake a feasibility study into the improved used of digital technology, robotics, and automation to improve food traceability and increase the capacity and utilisation of cold store infrastructure in the UK. Covid-19 has placed tremendous pressure on the cold chain and has exposed limitations on the UKs capacity and capability to store food supplies during a crisis. The supply chain is fragmented, with many organisations involved and virtually no common digital infrastructure in place. Uptake of digital technology, automation and robotics has been slow to date resulting in low value manual processes and bottlenecks in the food supply chain, with businesses operating with high labour costs and low productivity in a market with growing labour availability issues. This project proposes to support all stakeholders in the cold chain, by undertaking a feasibility study into the development of a cloud-based digitally enabled supply chain that integrates processors, coldstores, and end customers with an end-to-end fully traceability, optimised, real-time inventory management platform. If successful, this project will lead to further work to research the development of a nation-wide solution that will aim to deliver a single digital supply chain for the UK food industry.