From Challenge to Application: Connecting Food with Photonics

The food industry is under constant pressure to improve quality, efficiency, food safety, and sustainability. At the same time, photonics — technologies based on light — offers powerful new ways to measure, inspect, monitor, and control food processes.

But having a technology is not the same as having an application. And knowing a challenge exists does not automatically reveal the right solution.

That is where this afternoon comes in.

As part of the EU project Phorwards21, we bring together food companies, machine builders, and photonics companies at the Jamfabriek in Den Bosch, on Wednesday, 25 November, to explore how photonics can address real challenges in food processing — and how challenges in the food industry can inspire new photonics applications.

Bring your challenge. Bring your technology. Find the opportunity.

The afternoon is designed as a two-way exchange.

For food companies, it is an opportunity to discover what photonics can do for your processes, explore technologies that could address current challenges, and meet companies that can help turn these possibilities into practical solutions.

For photonics companies, it is an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of real food-industry challenges, discover new application areas, meet potential customers and partners, and explore how your technology can be adapted or developed to create value in food processing.

Machine builders play a key role in connecting these two worlds — helping translate promising technologies into solutions that can be integrated into industrial processes and equipment.

What will we explore?

Together, we will:

• Discuss real challenges and needs from the food processing industry.
• Discover different photonics-based sensing technologies and their potential.
• Look at existing applications and what makes them successful.
• Identify where technologies can be applied today and where further development is needed.
• Explore technical, organisational, and commercial barriers to adoption.
• Identify opportunities for new applications, co-development, and collaboration.

Why should you join?

Are you a food company?
Bring a challenge, a process you want to improve, or a measurement you currently struggle with. Discover technologies and potential partners that could help you move forward.

Are you a photonics company?
Bring your technology and expertise. Hear directly from food companies about their challenges and discover where your technology could find its next application or customer.

Are you a machine builder?
Connect technology with application. Discover new sensing capabilities and explore how photonics can create added value in future machines and production lines.

The goal: move from conversation to opportunity

This is not just a showcase of technologies. It is an opportunity to put challenges, technologies, and people together and explore what can happen when they meet.

You may come with a specific challenge, a technology, an idea for a new application — or simply curiosity about what the other industry can offer.

Come with a challenge. Come with a technology. Come looking for new opportunities.

Let’s discover together how light can help shape the future of food processing.

📅 Wednesday, 25 November

🍽️ 12:00 – Arrival

⏱️ 13:00–17:00 – Interactive programme

🥂 17:00 – Networking drinks

📍 Jamfabriek, Den Bosch

🔬 Photonics × Food × Innovation

Where real challenges meet new technology — and where new collaborations begin.

We look forward to bringing the two worlds together!