Swiss food processing equipment manufacturer Buhler has partnered with Microsoft to unveil new digital technologies for minimising toxic contamination and reducing food waste, as well as increasing end-product quality across the food value chain.

By establishing new partnerships, Bühler intends to create new businesses that have the potential to address challenges faced by the global food industry.

Bühler CTO Ian Roberts said: “Today’s food value chains are facing tremendous challenges. Digital solutions will allow us to improve food safety and integrity and reduce food losses and waste.

“They enable us to be more efficient in production. In fact, with the intelligent implementation of our digital capabilities, we will make a major step towards meeting our goals of lowering waste and energy consumption in the food value chain by 30%.”

"For the agriculture industry to meet the global quality demands of the future, sustainability in all aspects of the agricultural production is key."

The digital solutions and services will be showcased by Microsoft at the Hannover industry tradeshow in Germany.

Technologies that will be presented at the exhibition include Gamaya, which has been designed to improve the efficiency and sustainability of industrial farms, as well as new sorting solutions that have the potential to increase the yield of the maize crop.

The unveiling will include PreMa, an intelligent silo monitoring solution, which has been designed to improve the storage and handling of cereal grains.

At the event, Buhler will also showcase its digital rice analyser called TotalSense that performs rice quality checks.

Additionally, a new technology called Safefood.ai will be presented at the event that scans official databases, websites, news and social media channels for events and insight related to food safety.

Microsoft Manufacturing and Resources general manager Caglayan Arkan said: “For the agriculture industry to meet the global quality demands of the future, sustainability in all aspects of the agricultural production is key.

“Microsoft’s mission is to help leaders like Bühler take advantage of its data using our Azure cloud and Azure Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to accurately forecast trends in agriculture, improve food safety and provide better services for customers.”