Food economy 4.0: VTT's vision towards intelligent, consumer-centric food production

VTT has envisioned change paths towards a new era of smart 21st century food production, where physical production merges with the utilisation of digitalisation into a new food economy. Food Economy 4.0 is a sustainable consumer-centric ecosystem that connects traditional and new food economy actors with end users in new ways. In the Food Economy 4.0 vision, the consumer's activity increases, empowered by digitalisation. Raw materials are utilised more efficiently than today, and some of the raw materials are produced using new production methods. Personalised solutions and services reinforce the role of food in demonstrating values and supporting health and vitality. During the work, three change paths to a new food economy were established in cooperation with VTT's multi-sector team of experts and representatives from companies in the food sector: 1) From mass production to personalised solutions, 2) From centralisation to agile manufacturing and delivery, 3) From horizontal to vertical food production. The visions, enablers of change, and the required advancements have been identified and defined for the change paths. Food Economy 4.0 contains a lot of opportunities for creating new business. The wide scale success of companies requires cooperation across traditional sectoral borders and from both companies and government ministries in order to build a favourable foundation for the innovation and development of exports.