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Digital twins unveil trade-offs in maintaining citrus quality in the refrigerated supply chain

The digital twin technology uses real-time sensor data and in silico models to predict food quality and marketability metrics for every single refrigerated shipment. With this approach, we can identify the optimal shipment temperature window for maintaining citrus fruit quality, killing fruit fly larvae and avoiding chilling injury.

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Fig. 1: Digital twin for citrus fruit in a refrigerated container.

References

  1. Defraeye, T. D. et al. Digital twins are coming: will we need them in supply chains of fresh horticultural produce? Trends Food Sci. Technol. 109, 245–258 (2021). A review article that identifies the key advantages of digital twins and how postharvest supply chains can benefit from them.

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  2. Khumalo, G., Goedhals-Gerber, L. L., Cronje, P. & Berry, T. The non-conformance of in-transit citrus container shipments to cold protocol markets: a systematic literature review. Food Control 125, 107947 (2021). A review article discussing the causes of non-conformance of in-transit citrus shipments and the effects on fruit quality.

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  3. Cold Treatment Container Protocols https://go.nature.com/3F0LO2R (Perishable Products Export Control Board, 2019). This report summarizes the cold treatment protocols for citrus fruit exported from South Africa.

  4. Defraeye, T. et al. Digital twins probe into food cooling and biochemical quality changes for reducing losses in refrigerated supply chains. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 149, 778–794 (2019). A paper that demonstrates the use of digital twins to quantify the thermal history and biochemical quality evolution of fruit in trans-continental supply chains.

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This is a summary of: Shrivastava, C. et al. Digital twins enable the quantification of the trade-offs in maintaining citrus quality and marketability in the refrigerated supply chain. Nat. Food https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00497-9 (2022).

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Digital twins unveil trade-offs in maintaining citrus quality in the refrigerated supply chain. Nat Food 3, 411–412 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00498-8

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