A natural solution to food waste.

[Bayard]

Currently around half of all food grown ends up in a landfill. And we will soon reach a critical point in our ability to feed the world. We believe rather than devoting more land, energy, and water resources to food production, the key to abundance is in the building blocks of plants. If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution in the world. For fruits and vegetables, Apeel founder James Rogers realized that a simple coating could extend the life of food. The coating itself is derived from food.

Avocados, which are particularly likely to end up in the trash because they ripen so quickly, were the company’s first target. So far, Rogers says, the product has reduced retail waste by more than 50%, while groceries are simultaneously selling more avocados and having fewer customer returns. Soon, Apeel-coated limes and asparagus will also be in stores, followed by other produce.

While working on his PhD in Materials, Apeel Sciences Founder and CEO James Rogers will tell you he spent a few years “watching paint dry” in an effort to develop an energy-harvesting solar paint that would help democratize clean energy.

One day, driving through lush farmland on his way home to Santa Barbara from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, he heard a story on the radio about global hunger and wondered how can so many people be hungry if we’re able to grow such an abundance of food?

It turns out that there isn’t an issue with growing the food we need — the culprit is spoilage.

Inspired by nature’s strategy for preservation, James and the Apeel Sciences team went to work building a barrier out of edible plant materials that would slow down the rate of spoilage.

Apeel Sciences was founded in 2012 with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Today, Apeel Sciences has developed products for dozens of USDA Organic Certified and conventional produce categories, and the company works with partners ranging from smallholder farmers and local organic growers to the world’s largest food brands to make better quality, more sustainable produce possible.

https://apeelsciences.com

[Salviati]

1. Wow, those time lapse videos were very impressive

Hope this catches on.

[Kali]

2. ...

"One day, driving through lush farmland on his way home to Santa Barbara from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, he heard a story on the radio about global hunger and wondered how can so many people be hungry if we’re able to grow such an abundance of food?

It turns out that there isn’t an issue with growing the food we need — the culprit is spoilage. "

while the article is hopeful and his product is helpful I don't think the above statement is entirely accurate. the issue of hunger is more about distribution and corruption than spoilage.

[hunter]

3. Their site links to a Wired article for the "how." I get frustrated with the empty hype of TV news.

https://www.wired.com/story/apeel/

These are natural plant-derived lipids they are spraying on produce. They are in a sense replacing and thickening any protective covering damaged when the fruit is picked and handled.

It works better than wax because it's incorporated into the natural defensive surface of the produce.

But its not going to solve the world hunger problem. People have been preserving food in various ways for thousands of years. I dry our small crop of apricots and almonds every year. I've also made wine and beer. Our pantry always has rice and lentils.

The problem has always been getting the food to the people who most need it.

Usually food is blocked by warfare, corruption, genocidal political systems, and deranged economic ideologies.

Often the difficulty is a combination of these things, even within the U.S.A.. It's not hard to find racists in the U.S.A. who wouldn't give a hungry black or brown child a nutritious free lunch but are willing to pay a significant fraction of their taxes to disrupt and destroy nations that don't conform to their economic or political ideology and then turn away refugees of that chaos.

It may not be a bad thing, for example, if African farmers are better able to export their produce to China or wealthier nations in Europe, but only if farm workers receive a just share of that income, and don't suffer abusive working conditions. We don't have a good history of that here in the U.S.A.. Farm workers have suffered everything from slavery to extremely abusive working conditions enabled by such threats as starvation, sexual violence, or deportation.