The main goal of the "EyeAM" project is to define, develop, and demonstrate new solutions for monitoring and controlling food safety, animal welfare, and animal health in slaughterhouses. Meat inspection and public supervision in slaughterhouses are time- and resource-consuming. It is therefore appropriate to see if better and more automated systems can be established.
About the project
Animalia is the project owner and leader. Other project participants include Fatland Oslo AS, Nortura SA, the Meat and Poultry Industry Federation (KLF), Meats AS, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Realtek, and the Italian company Farm4Trade, which will contribute innovative technology for the innovation and development of objective and automated meat inspection systems. The project is financed by the Research Council of Norway through FFL/JA funds, and the project period is 2022-2025.
Five Work Package
There are five work packages in the project. hese include structuring the concept and mobilising existing expertise, utilising MKI from the Animal Health Portal and the Meat and Veterinary Control System (MAKKS) of the Food Standards Agency, automating the control of animals pre-slaughter (ante mortem), including monitoring of dirty slaughter animals, to achieve greater objectivity in assessments, and testing automatic image registration of pneumonia in the chest and lungs of pigs in meat control.
Compared to many other countries, British pigs have a low incidence of both chest and lung inflammation. Thus, the British pig population constitutes an excellent group for testing the system in a low-disease environment. Additionally, it is conceivable that, in the future, a cost-effective monitoring and control system can be established.
Applied Research
Results "EyeAM" has held a kickoff meeting with all involved project partners, and the project is set to commence in early summer 2022. The project demonstrates a high degree of innovation, with expectations that its results will showcase solutions for streamlining and improving current meat control practices.
The work and results of the "EyeAM" project will be relevant internationally and contribute to establishing a British platform for participating in larger European projects focused on the digital transformation of meat control and the use of innovative solutions.