Innovation in the Agri-Food sector: Exploiting opportunities for Industry 4.0

Agri-Food producers have a responsibility to provide safe, secure and sustainable food in a world characterized by disruption and increasing intolerance of waste along supply chains. As such, it is critical that they adopt new technologies to ensure efficient and effective management of their responsibility. While Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies can underpin process innovation opportunities, there is a gap in research-based understanding of how they influence innovation practice and outcomes in Agri-Food. In this paper, we investigate how I4.0, as a set of enabling technologies, influences core process innovation practice and product innovation outcomes in Agri-Food firms. We present case studies of two Spanish firms processing fresh food products, competing in two important subsectors of the industry, meat and fruit and vegetables. We used secondary material and semi-structured interviews as data sources. The findings describe how, in the two cases, I4.0 has enabled responses to new customers requirements through process innovations resulting in enhanced functionality, aesthetics and meaning of the delivered products. Our paper contributes a framework identifying for researchers and managers how I4.0 technologies act as enablers of the core innovation processes and competitive outcomes.