Advances in Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence for Food Safety Systems

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Engineering and Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 898

Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Computer and Artificial Intelligence, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, China
Interests: artificial intelligence-driven food safety early warning and risk analysis; multi-modal data fusion and intelligent sensing technologies; collaborative application of blockchain, IoT, and edge computing in food traceability; distributed ledger technology (DLT) and food supply chain data security; smart contracts in automated regulation and quality assessment; digital twin and transparent management of food supply chains

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Guest Editor
China National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture (NERCITA),Beijing, China
Interests: agricultural product labeling and traceability

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Guest Editor
School of Light Industry Science and Engineering, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, China
Interests: machine learning; food contact materials

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, global food supply chains have become increasingly networked, complex, and cross-domain. Issues such as data silos, information opacity, and a lack of trust among multiple stakeholders remain critical bottlenecks restricting the advancement of food safety management. At the same time, the rapid development of information technologies—particularly the deep integration of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain, and edge computing—is providing unprecedented technical support for building a new generation of food safety management systems.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the ways in which food safety is monitored, warned, and decided upon. From deep learning-based contaminant identification to multi-modal data fusion analysis, AI technologies are making food quality assessment more accurate and efficient. Cutting-edge technologies represented by large language models and multi-modal large models further expand the potential applications of AI in scenarios such as intelligent regulatory compliance analysis and cross-modal information fusion. Meanwhile, the Internet of Things enables full-process data collection from "farm to fork," while blockchain, through its decentralized and tamper-proof trust mechanisms, ensures data authenticity and traceability. When these technologies work in synergy, they not only enable transparent management throughout the food lifecycle but also promote automated and intelligent regulatory processes through smart contracts.

This Special Issue aims to explore the frontiers and innovative applications of information technology and artificial intelligence in food safety systems. We invite the submission of original research papers and review articles. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: AI-driven food safety early warning, multi-modal data fusion, exploration of large language models and multi-modal large models, collaborative blockchain-IoT traceability, smart contract applications, data security architectures based on distributed ledger technology, and digital twin-enabled supply chain transparency.

We look forward to your valuable contributions to fostering the deep integration of information technology and artificial intelligence in modern food science. 

Prof. Dr. Xin Zhang
Prof. Dr. Chuanheng Sun
Dr. Ying Sun
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • artificial intelligence
  • food safety systems
  • blockchain technology
  • internet of things, IoT
  • large language models, LLMs
  • multimodal large models
  • smart contracts
  • distributed ledger technology, DLT
  • data security and privacy
  • supply chain transparency
  • digital twin

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 1031 KB  
Article
Fungal Growth Risk Prediction and Optimal Regulation Method for Food Storage Based on the Forward Reachable Set
by Zhiyao Zhao, Mengshan Li, Yuqin Zhou, Fan Zhang and Xiaolei Sun
Foods 2026, 15(17), 2975; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods15172975 - 25 Aug 2026
Abstract
Affected by coupled environmental factors including temperature and water activity, food storage is restricted by fungal contamination, quality degradation, and energy limits. Conventional microbial growth prediction models typically rely on given initial states and environmental parameters, making it difficult to account for the [...] Read more.
Affected by coupled environmental factors including temperature and water activity, food storage is restricted by fungal contamination, quality degradation, and energy limits. Conventional microbial growth prediction models typically rely on given initial states and environmental parameters, making it difficult to account for the effects of prior-parameter errors and thereby limiting the accurate quantification of fungal growth risk and the real-time regulation of storage environments. This paper develops a fungal growth risk prediction and optimal regulation method for food storage based on the forward reachable set (FRS). The method combines a fungal growth kinetic model for Aspergillus flavus with FRS theory to calculate the reachable domains of colony radius and cell states within a finite time horizon, adopts a risk margin to describe the maximum colony expansion relative to deterministic growth trajectories, and constructs a multi-objective index covering energy cost, fungal growth risk, quality loss, and control switching cost to select the optimal environmental control scheme. Numerical simulation results show that the risk margin reflects the expansion of fungal growth risk caused by the propagation and accumulation over time of prior-parameter errors, while the selected regulation strategy exhibits stronger conservatism. Full article
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16 pages, 7143 KB  
Article
Linear Variable Filter Hyperspectral Imaging for Determination of Acidity and Hardness of Multiple Fruits
by Yixuan Sun, Bo Li, Mei Sun and Yi Yang
Foods 2026, 15(13), 2348; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods15132348 - 2 Jul 2026
Viewed by 328
Abstract
Acidity determines the maturity of fruits and is an important component of fruit taste. Hardness is a key indicator for judging ripening status, storage tolerance, and transportation quality. Therefore, detecting acidity and hardness is of great significance. This article uses a linear gradient [...] Read more.
Acidity determines the maturity of fruits and is an important component of fruit taste. Hardness is a key indicator for judging ripening status, storage tolerance, and transportation quality. Therefore, detecting acidity and hardness is of great significance. This article uses a linear gradient filter type hyperspectral imager to obtain hyperspectral data of apples, pears, and kiwifruit. A total of 150 fruits (50 apples, 50 pears, and 50 kiwifruits) were used. The dataset was split into modeling and validation sets in a 1:1 ratio using the concentration gradient (SPXY) method. Six spectral indices (NI, RI, DI, AI, TBNI, TBRI) were used to construct detection models for acidity and hardness across multiple fruit types, suitable for combined multi-fruit datasets. Results showed that the Three-Band Normalized Index (TBNI) achieved the highest accuracy for acidity prediction, with R2C = 0.832, R2V = 0.783, MAE = 0.14, and MRE = 0.03. The Three-Band Ratio Index (TBRI) achieved the highest accuracy for hardness prediction, with R2C = 0.914, R2V = 0.898, MAE = 0.63, and MRE = 0.19. These findings provide technical support for rapid detection of fruit physiological indicators in combined multi-fruit scenarios. Full article
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