The startup specializes in developing innovative materials aimed at protecting fresh food and optimizing its shelf life. The mission is to combat food waste and enhance food safety through the use of active biodegradable biopolymers derived from vegetal sources.
The worldwide issue of food waste results in staggering economic losses, seeing at its peak the ‘fresh fruit and vegetables’ category with over 50% waste along the supply chain due to inadequate conservation conditions. This problem is particularly acute for actors involved in the distribution of packed fresh produce, who face challenges in preserving product quality amidst temperature fluctuations along the supply chain. Existing solutions such as artificial ripening control and modified atmosphere packaging have limitations, including high costs, maintenance requirements, and potential alterations to organoleptic properties.
To address these challenges, the startup developed a biobased and biodegradable device to protect fresh fruits and vegetables: the device is a small active tag (1-euro-coin-like dimensions) that once is placed within fruit packaging, releases natural and plant-extracted substances that reduce fungi and bacteria proliferation, thus extending the shelf-life of packed fresh produce.
The startup is collaborating with research institutes and Italian industrial partners to validate effectiveness, demonstrating a commitment to evidence-based open-innovation and continuous improvement: offering a simple, cost-effective solution accessible to actors across the supply chain, fostering widespread adoption and systemic change towards sustainability.
Our flagship product represents a breakthrough innovation for product life extension, strategically placed within fruit and vegetable packaging to reduce the growth of pathogens responsible for deterioration.
The startup plans to continue performing collaborative pilot projects with stakeholders interested in adopting its product looking to gather essential information to refine and scale the solution, demonstrating its feasibility and impact on reducing food waste by using agricultural by-products.
The company has already carried out, in collaboration with industrial partners, lab-scale pilot tests in realistic-environment conditions with promising results, paving the way for mass adoption among target produce.
The startup is looking forward to cooperate with stakeholders interested in adopting the patented technology, to refine and scale the solution, demonstrating its feasibility and impact on reducing food waste by using natural plug-and-play solutions: in particular fruit distributors, packers, and retailers (GDO) to continue testing and validating the product on fresh fruits such as whole or cut citrus, berries, cherries, strawberries and table grape. The cooperation will be in the form of material transfer agreement with technical assistance, aimed at becoming a Supply Commercial Agreement once regulatory testing is concluded.
The startup is also looking for enterprises in the food packaging sector who are active in open-innovation and are interested in either co-developing groundbreaking packaging solutions leveraging on the startup’s technology, or provide services for the production of the device at scale.
The startup is also open to investors and VCs active in the AgriFoodTech and Impact spaces to fund its Seed Round, following the pre-seed acceleration program FoodSeed, which granted a SAFE ticket in late 2023. The Round will be focused on:
• performing necessary tests for product market launch in 8-12 months;
• setup a production facility with enough capacity to prove the business model;
• expand the team to increase R&D capacity and to rank up the sales pipeline.