INNOQUESAR: Operational Group for production management and traceability of artisanal cheese

INNOQUESAR responded to the need of a family-run, low-technology sector to access management and control tools adapted to its reality, also incorporating virtual demonstration spaces that allowed the target group to see and try out the system's capabilities before adopting it.

The objectives of the project, aligned with those of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP), were:

• To promote an efficient, competitive agri-food production sector aligned with Industry 4.0.
• To help improve food traceability control, in order to detect and respond quickly to potential health alerts.
• To improve the economic, administrative, and commercial management and control of the target companies.
• To reduce the digital divide between SMEs and micro-SMEs in the sector and large companies.
• To drive Industry 4.0 in rural companies that have the most difficulty accessing these tools on their own.

The areas on which INNOQUESAR was built were:

• Management and traceability tool: development of a production management system, complemented with sensors at the points of the process that needed real-time control.
• Virtual demonstration spaces: two immersive virtual reality environments that allowed the target group to learn about the process without having to travel. The first recreated the ASINCAR agri-food pilot plant, with its sensorized dairy processing room, where the production process of any cheese dairy could be reproduced. The second recreated the Los Mazos maturation cave, used for aging Cabrales PDO cheese, thus also covering the phase of the process that takes place outside the cheese dairy itself.

CTIC coordinated the INNOQUESAR Operational Group, with the collaboration of Asincar, the Red Asturiana de Desarrollo Rural (READER), and the Asociación para el Desarrollo Rural e Integral del Oriente de Asturias, contributing its technological expertise to the development of the management tool, the sensorization of the process, and the virtual demonstration spaces aimed at Asturian artisanal cheese dairies.