About DFPI

Consumer trends are disrupting established industries at an unprecedented rate. Food production is no exception: within ten years, solutions for personalized food will be a commercial reality, driven by the desire for personal empowerment in nutrition choices, the need for sustainable processes and the interest in unique food experiences. As current production systems cannot meet these requirements, TNO, Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University & Research and Wageningen Food & Biobased Research have joined forces to create the Digital Food Processing Initiative (DFPI).

How it works

By combining nearly 10 years of experience across food-related domains, DFPI aims to create a world-leading ecosystem of companies and knowledge institutions at the interface of high-tech systems (Eindhoven) and food sciences (Wageningen). This will expand the current infrastructure of the digital food processing domain (such as 3D printing facilities) with new parties, knowledge and facilities, in turn broadening our joint propositions.

Covering all angles

Cooperation between the parties focuses on the realization of a coherent project portfolio that will lead to commercial products, applications and services, as in the personalized Barilla pasta shapes. The nature of these projects depends on the parties involved but could include co-development, consortium projects, PhDs, proof-of-concepts, applied and fundamental research or prototype development. TU/e, for instance, conducts fundamental work on high-tech systems, such as advanced control and dynamics and mechatronics systems design. For food science, WUR handles issues like the dynamic behavior of microstructures or new concept development. On the applied side, TNO and Wageningen Food & Biobased Research then transform this knowledge into market-ready products for the benefit of industry and society.

DFPI is a collaboration of: