A UK food tech company has created a film solution which “prolongs the life of fresh fruit and veg and significantly reduces food waste.”
The new ‘purposeful packaging’ technology reduces food waste in supermarkets, in the supply chain, and in the home and is the latest addition to the It’s Fresh! product portfolio.
Infinite is a new sustainable delivery system that utilises a proprietary ‘active ingredient’ that can be printed directly onto existing packaging for fruit, vegetables and even flowers to prolong shelf life and extend freshness and quality by absorbing the natural ripening hormone, ethylene.
After 3 years in development, Infinite is soon to be trialled on packs of berries in leading supermarket Morrisons. Tests have proved that Infinite is more efficient at extending quality and freshness of fresh produce and more environmentally friendly than any alternative methods that are currently being used, because Infinite is non-invasive and can be used in packs of ‘naked’ untreated or uncoated fruit.
The tech is the latest innovation by leading UK food tech company It’s Fresh!, the firm behind the unique filters used by supermarkets to extend the life and quality of fruit by two to four days. Now adopted by many of the main supermarket chains worldwide, It’s Fresh! said it is setting new industry benchmarks for reducing waste in food production and consumption.
Simon Lee, co-founder of It’s Fresh!, said: “We are a nation of fresh fruit lovers, and are used to being able to buy our favourites all year round, whatever the season. This creates huge challenges for farmers, importers and supermarkets globally to keep produce fresh in transit. There is a big debate about food packaging at the moment. “The reality is that the fresh food industry does need packaging. Ours is what we would call purposeful packaging, which is genuinely helping to reduce food wastage and which will in turn reduce the amount of packaging needed overall as the produce lasts longer.”
It’s Fresh! this week also announced favourable results from their latest series of trials showing how their technology prolongs the life of strawberries, blueberries, cherries and bananas in storage and in transit.
It’s Fresh! utilises existing packaging to make it more functional and purposeful, to ensure that less resources are wasted in the food supply chain. Originally founded in the UK, It’s Fresh! is an international business recently backed and invested in by US company AgroFresh Solutions Inc.
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