Waste reduction by product-quality based scheduling in food processing

Related to resource efficiency waste reduction is the crucial point in the processing of food. As shown in different Food Waste Studies the amount of waste in food processing is enormous. Up to 400.000 metric tons of edible food is disposed every year caused by wrong treatment, handling and processing. Processing is the major point to deal with. In the case of manual processing in a cantina kitchen waste can be classified into waste associated with overproduction, product damages or technical interruptions. To reduce the amount of loss by using technical solutions it is possible to reduce up to 60 % of loss during the processing. Related to the product itself the automation and especially the scheduling of the processes in a commercial kitchen is more complex than the scheduling of standard products e.g. in the automotive sector. This article shows a solution to extend the criteria of production planning within an automated food processing environment. The paper introduces a product model that prescribes the progress of product quality while processing.