Dynamic digital product passports – real-time, intelligent digital records that capture the true condition of perishable goods such as food and drink throughout their lifecycle – could dramatically cut waste and improve safety, thanks to a new framework jointly developed by researchers at the University of Surrey and King’s College London.

Digital Product Passports (DPPs) will become mandatory in the EU from 2027, but current approaches are static and designed for long-shelf-life products like electronics. While they record fixed information such as design, materials and recycling instructions, they cannot reflect rapid changes in freshness, safety or quality.

In a perspective article published in Nature Reviews Clean Technology, researchers have introduced the world’s first comprehensive framework for dynamic digital product passports (D-DPPs), showing how real-time sensing, supply-chain digital twins, physics-informed machine learning and secure data infrastructures can work together to track lifecycle changes in short-shelf-life items.

D-DPPs work by continually updating as products move through farms, factories, transport, storage and retail environments. They could also support earlier interventions to prevent spoilage, reduce unnecessary waste and strengthen transparency across food and drink supply chains.

Dr Lei Xing, Lecturer in Digital Chemical Engineering at the University of Surrey and lead author, said:

“Perishable products don’t behave in fixed ways – they change hour by hour as they move through real supply chains. Static digital passports simply cannot keep up. We’ve demonstrated how integrating digital twins, real-time sensing and AI can evolve digital product passports from static compliance records into intelligent decision-support tools that enhance safety, cut waste and enable more circular supply chains.

“Dynamic digital product passports could also help identify where quality begins to decline and why. That knowledge is invaluable for improving stock management and reducing the significant amount of food lost before it ever reaches consumers.”

Dr Miao Guo, Senior Lecturer in Engineering at King’s College London and co-creator of the D-DPP concept, said:

“To make our vision work at scale, digital product passports need data infrastructures that can cope with intermittent connectivity and rapidly changing conditions. By combining interdisciplinary expertise, our perspective article shows how next-generation networks and secure data architectures can keep product information trustworthy and up to date as short-shelf-life products move through complex, real-world supply chains.”

The research also highlights the role of secure, decentralised data systems – such as blockchain-supported networks and smart-contract routines – in keeping passport information trustworthy across fragmented supply chains. The team suggests supermarkets could act as living labs to test D-DPPs under real conditions, providing a practical way to evaluate how the technology supports freshness monitoring, stock rotation and day-to-day decision-making.

The framework set out a new pathway for digital sustainability and more circular use of resources across the food and drink sector. It also shows how collaboration across engineering, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is essential for building the safer, smarter and more sustainable supply chains of the future.

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