📡 A Review of IoT Applications in Food Processing and Related Fields

Reza Alimadani*, Akinbode A. Adedeji, and Mohammadreza Narimani

Journal of Food Processing and Preservation · Volume 2025 · Article 3064441 · 2025 · Open access CC BY

University of Tehran · University of Kentucky · University of California, Davis

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Why IoT in the Agri-Food Chain

Food systems must raise efficiency while land, water, and energy tighten. The Internet of Things can move sensor data from farms, plants, and logistics into decisions on safety, waste, and energy—but deployments remain fragmented, with limited interoperability.

This Wiley open-access systematic review by Reza Alimadani (corresponding author), Akinbode A. Adedeji, and Mohammadreza Narimani synthesizes English-language peer-reviewed studies from 2011–2024. Papers were clustered into food safety and quality, packaging and traceability, supply chain, and waste or contamination. The authors then propose a practical three-layer architecture for food-processing IoT.

Core story: IoT already spans farm-to-plate monitoring, but the field needs a shared architecture—perception, network, and application—so systems can interoperate instead of remaining one-off stacks.
2011–2024Review window
25Supply-chain papers
23Safety and quality
17Traceability
3Layers in the architecture
CC BYOpen-access license

Where the Literature Is Concentrated

Publication activity rose through the late 2010s, with Asia contributing the largest share of studies, followed by Europe. Country counts are led by China and India. Application papers cluster most in supply chain (25) and food safety and quality (23), then traceability (17), with fewer dedicated packaging studies.

Mohammadreza Narimani bar chart of IoT food-processing papers from 2011 to 2024 by continent showing Asia leading Europe North America Africa and Oceania
Figure 1. IoT food-processing publications by continent, 2011–2024.
Mohammadreza Narimani pie chart of countries publishing IoT food-processing research with China and India as the largest shares
Figure 2. Country distribution of the reviewed IoT food-processing literature.
Mohammadreza Narimani donut chart of IoT food-processing papers with versus without monitoring implementations, 91 percent yes and 9 percent no
Figure 3. Share of reviewed papers that implemented IoT monitoring (yes 91%, no 9%).
Mohammadreza Narimani bar chart of monitored IoT variables in food processing: temperature, humidity, location, PMC properties, and other
Figure 4. Monitored variables: temperature, humidity, location tracking, PMC properties, and other sensors.
Mohammadreza Narimani bar chart of communication technologies in IoT food-processing papers: GPS 3G 4G 5G, ZigBee, Wi-Fi, NFC, Ethernet, and RFID
Figure 5. Communication technologies used in the reviewed IoT food-processing papers.
Mohammadreza Narimani bar chart of IoT application domains in food processing: supply chain, food safety and quality, traceability, food packaging, and others
Figure 6. Application domains: supply chain, safety and quality, traceability, packaging, and other uses.

A Three-Layer Architecture

The proposed stack is deliberately simple so food companies can reuse components: a perception layer (RFID, QR, cameras, GPS, WSNs), a network layer (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee/XBee, Ethernet), and an application layer (ThingSpeak, MQTT, SCADA, Raspberry Pi, MySQL, Arduino, and related services) for smart industry, food, and agriculture apps.

Mohammadreza Narimani proposed IoT architecture for food processing with perception, network, and application layers including RFID, MQTT, SCADA, and Arduino
Figure 7. Proposed IoT architecture for food processing and related fields.

The review argues that autonomous IoT nodes should sit in a software ecosystem that maximizes reuse. Remaining barriers include interoperability, fragmented platforms, and the gap between pilot sensors and plant-scale quality systems.

Paper and Citation

Alimadani, R., Adedeji, A. A., & Narimani, M. (2025). A review of IoT applications in food processing and related fields. Journal of Food Processing and Preservation, 2025(1), 3064441.

DOI: 10.1155/jfpp/3064441 · Open access under CC BY 4.0

Please cite the publisher version when you use this work. The summary on this page is a research card, not a substitute for the article.

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Contact

Mohammadreza Narimani
PhD Candidate, University of California, Davis

📧 mnarimani@ucdavis.edu  |  🎓 Google Scholar