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Welcome to October’s edition of our Monthly Forecasts Review, where we review the incident forecasts for the previous month to understand the effectiveness of the forecasting models.

How is the performance of the forecasts reviewed?

We perform a comparative analysis of the the forecasted incidents trend for each food product category, hazard, and risk category for September as seen in FOODAKAI against the actual recorded incidents for that month month.

FOODAKAI utilizes trend forecasting models that take advantage of more than 250 distinct factors in order to produce robust generalized models and accurate predictions that help food & beverage companies to drastically enhanced food risk prevention.

This time we are back to examine incident trends forecasts for 10 key food categories and hazard trends forecasts for the top Biological, Chemical, Foreign Bodies, Allergens Hazards as well as Food Fraud.

For our previous edition ─ the August report, read here.

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Key Food Categories Forecasts Review

Firstly, let’s start with the overall incidents trend forecasts in 10 Key Food Categories for September.

FOODAKAI successfully forecasted the incident trends in 8 out of the 10 key food categories: Cocoa, Coffee & Tea, Fruits & Vegetables, Dairy Products, Poultry & Poultry Meat Products, Herbs & Spices, Confectionary, Nuts & Seeds and Meat & Meat products. The forecasts for the Cereals & Bakery and Fats & Oils categories were not successful.

Highlights:

• In the Cocoa, Coffee & Tea, Fruits & Vegetables and Meat & Meat Products categories, while FOODAKAI forecasted an increasing trend, it managed so with a big difference in the percentages from forecasted to actual increase. While in the first two product categories, the large amounts of data could offer better forecasts in the future, in the latter category this is mainly attributed to the latency in the announcement of the incidents by public sources.
• In the Dairy Products, Herbs & Spices, Confectionery and Nuts & Seeds product categories the platform forecasted with great accuracy the trend with only a slight difference between the forecasted and the actual result
• For Poultry & Poultry Meat products, a near-perfect forecast was achieved by the platform’s AI-powered models.
• Unfortunately, for Cereal & Bakery products the failure to predict the forecasts means there should be a fine tuning of the model.
• For Fats and Oils product categories, FOODAKAI forecasted a decrease in the number of incidents rather than an increase. In the case of Fats & Oils this forecasting can be attributed to the lack of data.

Hazard & Risk Categories Forecasts Review

Now, let’s review the performance of the hazard & risk trend forecasts in comparison to the recorded number of incidents.

FOODAKAI managed to successfully forecast the incidents trend in 4 out of the 5 Hazard and Risk types: Biological, Allergens, Food Fraud and Foreign Bodies. It didn’t forecast the trend for Chemical incidents.

Highlights:

• For Chemical Hazards incidents, the platform forecasted an increase instead of the actual decrease.
• For Biological Hazards & Allergen incidents, FOODAKAI forecasted increasing trends but with a large difference in the percentages of forecasted vs actual number of incidents.
• In the Foreign bodies Hazard type category, the platform managed an exceptional forecast of the decreasing trend.
• In the Food Fraud product category, while the platform correctly forecasted the increase, due to the delay in the announcement of incidents by public sources, the resulting forecast was much bigger than the actual trend.

Chemical Hazards Forecasts Per Food Category

Finally, let’s dig deeper into the forecasted vs the actual trends for incidents associated with chemical hazards for these 10 Food Categories.

The platform forecasted the incident trends for chemical hazards in 7 out of the 9 food categories: Cocoa, Coffee & Tea, Poultry & Poultry Meat Products, Herbs & Spices, Confectionary, and Fats & Oils, Nuts & Seeds, and Meat & Meat products. For the Fruits & Vegetables, Herbs & Spices, and Cereals & Bakery products categories, the incident trend was not forecasted successfully. For the Dairy Products no chemical incidents were reported.

Highlight:

• For Chemical Hazards in Cocoa, Coffee & Tea and Fats & Oils the platform forecasted a decreasing trend with only a small difference in the percentages between actual and forecasted number of incidents.
• In the Fruits & Vegetables, Herbs & Spices as well as Cereals & Bakery product categories, FOODAKAI failed to forecast the trends.
• For Chemical Hazards incidents in Poultry & Poultry Meat Products and Nuts & Seeds products, FOODAKAI forecasted the increasing and decreasing trend accordingly but with a large difference between the actual and forecasted number of incidents.
• Finally, in the Confectionary and Meat & Meat products categories, FOODAKAI achieved 100% accurate forecasting.

As food & beverage companies are increasingly facing a landscape of unexpected supply chain disruptions, and novel food risks, it now more than ever vital for them to be able to anticipate emerging risks and mitigate them before they escalate. AI and predictive analytics are no longer an experiment but a tested solution that can empower companies to companies to proactively identify potential hazards and incidents before they occur.

FOODAKAI helps F&B companies to leverage the power of accurate forecasts for biological, chemical, allergen, and food fraud risks, to ensure product safety, prevent costly recalls, and maintain consumer trust.

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