Background: Digital twins have advanced fast in various industries, but are just emerging in postharvest supply
chains. A digital twin is a virtual representation of a certain product, such as fresh horticultural produce. This
twin is linked to the real-world product by sensors supplying data of the environmental conditions near the target
fruit or vegetable. Statistical and data-driven twins quantify how quality loss of fresh horticultural produce
occurs by grasping patterns in the data. Physics-based twins provide an augmented insight into the underlying
physical, biochemical, microbiological and physiological processes, enabling to explain also why this quality loss
occurs.
Scope and approach: We identify what the key advantages are of digital twins and how the supply chain of fresh
horticultural produce can benefit from them in the future.
Key findings and conclusions: A digital twin has a huge potential to help horticultural produce to tell its history as
it drifts along throughout its postharvest life. The reason is that each shipment is subject to a unique and unpredictable
set of temperature and gas atmosphere conditions from farm to consumer. Digital twins help to
identify the resulting, largely uncharted, postharvest evolution of food quality. The benefit of digital twins
particularly comes forward for perishable species and at low airflow rates. Digital twins provide actionable data
for exporters, retailers, and consumers, such as the remaining shelf life for each shipment, on which logistics
decisions and marketing strategies can be based. The twins also help diagnose and predict potential problems in
supply chains that will reduce food quality and induce food loss. Twins can even suggest preventive shipmenttailored
measures to reduce retail and household food losses.