Miraculous coating - spray on fruits and it will have 5 times longer shelf life

This is a new breakthrough in agricultural engineering science!

From the moment strawberries or chickpeas are harvested, they will keep their freshness up to three weeks before starting to decompose. It takes a week or two for them to be transported to the grocery store and then when stored in your refrigerator, you only have a few days to eat them.

A startup at Santa Barbara called Apeel Science says it has invented a edible coating that can extend the fresh time of a fruit or plant by up to 5 times normal. That means, if you spray one layer on a ripe strawberry, it can keep it fresh until weeks later.

Made of residual plant shells and stems, coatings act as barriers to slow decay. You can use it with food at any time throughout its life cycle - Apeel can even make each fruit in the same banana chamber ripen on different days.

Six farms in Southern California, Kenya, and Nigeria are using products from Apeel, CEO James Rogers.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Apeel's first products, Edipeel and Invisipeel. They are recognized as safe, and are fully edible and put on sale.

Here's how they are put to use.

Apeel products, called Edipeel and Invisipeel , are transparent coatings that you spray or dip food into.

Katlin Svik, Master of Market Research for Apeel Science.

Edipeel keeps water for food and does not allow oxygen to enter. Meanwhile, Invisipeel is to protect products from insects (both are processes that break down food). To get the best results, you need to use both Edipeel and Invispeel.

After the coating has dried, it acts as a protective shield from natural gas (such as oxygen and ethylene) that often causes decay. With this coating, food can last 5 times longer than normal food, Rogers said.

Edipeel keeps water for food and does not allow oxygen to enter.

Apeel is testing Invisipeel and Edipeel on all fruits and vegetables. Here is a comparison with ripe strawberries - the company has processed the fruit in the bottom row with Edipeel:

Comparison between natural strawberries and strawberries covered by Edipeel.

Below is the process of ripening bananas for 10 days. The pairs on the right are covered with Edipeel:

The process of ripe bananas decays for 10 days.

The green beans do not cover Edipeel on the left side after only a few days.

The process of changing green beans before and after coating Edipeel.

Food used by Apeel products can extend the life of an additional 2-5 days without cooling before it begins to decay, Rogers said. This startup - first appearing in the New York Times - is also testing its products on avocados, tomatoes, and green leafy vegetables.

Coatings are made from molecules on the remnants of organic products - anything, from pear pods to grape skins, from alcohol fermentation to mowing.

Dr. James Rogers, CEO of Apeel Sciences.

"We use everything we can from vegetables to make Edipeel and Invisipeel , " Rogers said.

When the coating is dry, it affects the molecules of fruits and vegetables, thereby protecting them from decay.

Savannah Dearden, one of Apeel's contributors to making products, works at one of Apeel Sciences' laboratories.

Coatings can allow grocery stores and restaurants to buy food from a remote farm, while avoiding wasting foods that are too fast.

The coating helps to avoid wasting food too quickly.

For example, it takes 30 days for the blueberries to grow in Chile to be shipped to US stores. To keep them fresh, farmers often wrap them in a layer of wax and picking before the fruit ripens. Many trucks are also needed to preserve these fruits (which will consume a lot of energy and money).

Because Apeel's plant-based products can control the "rotting" rate of fruits , it has contributed to a method of preserving food without the need for genetic modification - which is much of a threat to gender. consumption.

Rogers said that Apeel opened an opportunity for food to be grown in untapped areas, such as Peru, where land and labor costs are lower than California.

Apeel's plant-based products can control the "rotting" speed of fruits.

Apeel's team is also exploring new applications for Edipeel and Invisipeel, including how to apply a water-resistant coating to foods that can still exchange gas.

Rogers came up with the idea for Apeel products while studying to get a doctorate at the University of California - Santa Barbara. When he went from university dormitory to Berkeley lab, he often saw many farms.

Apeel's team is also learning more new applications for Edipeel and Invisipeel.

After that, Rogers thought that if the stainless steel had a layer of iron and carbon on the outside to prevent the metal from oxidizing, could the same method be used to preserve food? " This is what inspired me to create products like Invisipeel or Edipeel , " Rogers said.

Apeel plans to sell its products at a higher price than conventional food.

Apeel plans to sell its products at a higher price than conventional food, but "softer" than organic food, Rogers said. Products can help reduce costs of cultivation and transportation, thereby reducing food costs.

"We should not be afraid to face global challenges by using scientific and technological techniques."

Products can help reduce costs of cultivation and transportation, thereby reducing food costs.