Hate mealy apples and soggy french fries? Science can help.
Restaurants, grocers, farmers and food companies are increasingly turning to chemistry and physics to tackle the problem of food waste.
In 2019, around 35% of the 229 million tons of food available in the U.S. — worth around $418 billion — went unsold or uneaten, according to ReFed. Food waste is the largest category of material placed in municipal landfills, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that rotting food releases methane, a problematic greenhouse gas.
Nashville, Tennessee-based hot-chicken chain Hattie B’s was skeptical. But after testing SavrPaks using humidity sensors, it now uses the packs when it’s catering fried foods and is working with SavrPak to integrate the packs into regular takeout containers. Apeel says treated avocados can last a few extra days, while citrus fruit lasts for several weeks. The coating is made of purified mono- and diglycerides, emulsifiers that are common food additives.
Beaudry said the complexity has caused some projects to fail. He remembers working with one large packaging company on a container designed to prevent fungus in tomatoes. For the science to work, the tomatoes had to be screened for size and then oriented stem-up in each container. Eventually the project was scrapped.
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Fight to curb food waste increasingly turns to scienceHate mealy apples and soggy french fries? Science can help. Restaurants, grocers, farmers and food companies are increasingly turning to chemistry and physics to tackle the problem of food waste.
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Fight to curb food waste increasingly turns to scienceIn 2019, around 35% of the 229 million tons of food available in the U.S. — worth around $418 billion — went unsold or uneaten, experts said.
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Fight to curb food waste increasingly turns to scienceRestaurants, grocers, farmers and food companies are increasingly turning to chemistry and physics to tackle the problem of food waste.
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