A Plant-Based Coating Helps Small Farmers Stop Crop Rot

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-27/apeel-sciences-creates-plant-based-coating-to-extend-produce-life

by rsgoheen • 6 years ago

1 1 6 years ago

This is a problem created by massive supply chains in food industry. This is a post farm gate solution for food wastage problem. Small farmers don’t need this.

Currently it’s only used in avocados. It’s a tad perplexing to me because avocados are harvested off trees when hard and then treated with ethylene gas. I don’t see how this is a value add tech.

But it is valued at over a billion dollars. Maybe the investors know something that I can’t see...and the secret sauce will be applied to some other produce soon.

In my opinion, the only effective way is to detect ethylene gas threshold and have an effective supply chain system. The sensor for this can be made from graphenes.

Graphene tech is rather new and likely expensive but we don’t need a whole lot of it. My instinct is to go that route for efficiency and broad adoption.

Apeel sciences cannot apply the same tech to all produce. It’s simply impossible. From an outsider POV, it’s only for produce that is picked unripe and then ripened somewhere in the supply chain. I don’t know where else they can use it. Maybe melons? That’s the next high wastage produce, but I suspect Apeel tech will not work with melons.

Perhaps someone more familiar with their tech and R&D can clarify my doubts.

A Plant-Based Coating Helps Small Farmers Stop Crop Rot

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