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Novel Scanners to Determine Whether Fruits Are Ripe

Novel Scanners to Determine Whether Fruits Are Ripe

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Highlights:
  • We still do not have a reliable method for determining when fruits are ripe
  • Perishable food, which is estimated to be worth USD 1 million, is frequently thrown before it even reaches consumers’ kitchens
  • OneThird, a developing food waste prevention start-up, launched ‘freshness scanners’, to reduce perishable food wastage
Everyone has been there. It is late, you are exhausted from a long day’s work, and all you want to do is go home and relax with your family. But aren’t you at home? No, you’re at the grocery store with a need for homemade guacamole, and that pile of fresh, treacherous avocados is staring you down, teasing you with their indecipherable knobby skins and presumably rock-hard insides. Who has three days to let them sit in a bag after you go full Last Crusade and make a bad choice? OneThird’s ‘freshness detectors’ come in handy here.

Technology to Help Reduce Food Wastage

According to the corporation, up to 40% of perishable food shipped to market each year (about $1 trillion) is finally thrown before it reaches our kitchen tables. Furthermore, the current generation of produce scanners can only provide information on lab-specific tests (such as sugar level and acidity), not freshness or prospective shelf life. The OneThird touch points do and, according to the company, can minimize food waste in these scenarios by up to 25% on average.


Novel Device Predicts Shelf Life of Fresh Produce

“The astronomical volume of food that goes to waste each year is heart-breaking, particularly since so much is wasted in affluent countries. We have worked hard to create technology that helps to address this persistent, global challenge which directly impacts food scarcity,” said Marco Snikkers, CEO and founder of OneThird. “We are proud to have built the first product that accurately and objectively predicts the shelf life of fresh produce. The interest has been overwhelming and we aim to accelerate the deployment of our technology globally.”

The OneThird devices can assess an avocado’s shelf life in real time by using proprietary algorithms to read returns from a near-infrared laser. The technology is available in two versions, one for the end user in the produce aisle and another for the growers in the supply chain.

Source: Medindia


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