Scenarios for the Development and Use of Data Products Within the Value Chain of the Industrial Food Production

Abstract

The industrial food production is currently caught between the increasing demands of numerous stakeholders, economic profitability and the challenges of digitization. A solution to face these various challenges can be seen in the aggregation of data into higher-value, independent data products that can be offered and sold on a buyer’s market. Large amounts of heterogeneous data are already available in the value chain of the industrial food production, e.g. throughout the data-driven harvesting of primary products, further processing by interconnected production facilities and the information-intensive product distribution to end consumers. However, the data is usually only evaluated and used locally for the optimization of internal processes or, at the most, within comprehensive partnerships. The purpose of this paper is to identify new revenue opportunities for current and future players in the industrial food production by using data as an independent economic good (data products). For this purpose, scenarios for the development and use of data products via Industrial Internet of Things platforms are developed for a food technical reference process, the industrial chocolate production and its value chain. On this basis, examples for different types of data products and their value propositions are derived. The results can not only serve food producers and relevant stakeholders but all industrial producers as an input for the future, yield-increasing orientation of their business models.