Chapter 4: Big Data in Food Safety and Security Applications and Examples in Food Authenticity, Adulteration, and Fraud Check Access

The agile and modern assessment of food safety and security (e.g. authenticity, contamination, fraud, provenance) is achieved by the utilization of modern digital and sensing technologies. The utilization of digital and sensing technologies determines that large amounts of data are generated during the analysis of food to achieve its assessment. In this context, big data is defined as the rapid collection of complex data in large quantities during the analysis of foods. Therefore, to implement an application, the data must be analyzed and interpreted using different data analytics tools including statistics and machine learning methods and techniques. This chapter presents the definition of big data, as well as examples of the utilization of digital and sensing technologies combined with data analytics to develop applications targeting food safety and security in the food supply and value chains.