European funds: a unique opportunity for the digitalization of the food industry
In a global context of constant change, it is essential that the agri-food industry knows how to adapt and jump on the bandwagon of innovation and digitalization. To this end, the European Next Generation EU funds represent an unprecedented funding opportunity to promote and consolidate the digitalization processes of Spanish agri-food companies.
In this way, artica+i together with IDEA Ingeniería organized the webinar “Digitalization of the food industry and Next Generation EU Funds” on 18 November. An event that brought together more than 40 attendees, in which experts from both companies also explained the importance of the application of digital twins in the food industry.
Emilio Sánchez, founder and CEO of IDEA Ingeniería, kicked off the event by highlighting the importance of “understanding digitalization as a travelling companion in the growth of the company“. In this way, he highlighted the potential of data to improve decision making and anticipation in organizations, encouraging them to take advantage of the impetus of the Next Generation funds “so that digitalization is effective and at the heart of agri-food companies“.
Digital twins
For her part, Clara Osuna, R&D engineer at IDEA, presented the digital twin as one of the “most transformational technologies which, moreover, will become a transversal management tool in the organizations that implement it”. In this sense, he added that “it is a key cornerstone”, as it is a platform capable of integrating many other digital enablers (IoT, blockchain, artificial intelligence…), giving them meaning and usefulness in the company.
Thus, Osuna highlighted that this technology enables companies to have a fully controlled environment thanks to data and through a holistic and transversal vision. Digital twins would therefore present several competitive advantages for agri-food companies by facilitating a virtual representation of physical processes and their use, to understand and predict the performance characteristics of their real analogues.
Next Generation Funds
From artica+i the webinar was attended by our Director of Business Development, Fernando Boned, and our Head of Investment and Innovation, Ricardo Zazo. Both highlighted that the 2021-2027 period will have a “very powerful” European budget that will be reinforced with the exceptional arrival of the Next Generation European funds, hence the importance of knowing well the structure of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (‘España Puede) that will channel this aid.
In this sense, they also pointed out that “digitalization is a key element in the Next Generation funds“, as well as the fact that the ‘España Puede’ Plan maintains this line by trying to reorient the national economy towards three key axes: sustainability, digitalization, and R&D&I. In this context, they highlighted that digitalization is the subject of approximately 30% of this Plan, which means that some 21,000 M€ of direct subsidies will be applied in Spain between 2021 and 2023 in this area.
In addition, Boned and Zazo recalled that the food industry is one of the key national sectors of “España Puede”, offering the opportunity to the more than 30,000 companies in the sector to access many options and investment opportunities to digitalizes their production processes and operations.
