food Archives

Linehouse creates greenhouse-informed food market in Shanghai

Architecture studio Linehouse has wrapped a food market in a Shanghai laneway neighbourhood around a central atrium informed by Victorian greenhouses.

Named Foodie Social, the 2,000-square-metre food market is located within the Hong Shou Fang community – a residential area in Shanghai’s Putuo district known for its classic “longtang” laneway architecture.

Linehouse Foodie Social — The food market is in a two-storey grey brick building in Shanghai

The entrance to the two-storey market was framed by a double-height arrangement of stacked recycled red bricks, with a corten steel canopy added to provide shelter.

The same recycled red bricks sourced from demolished houses in China can also be found on the interior walls, stacked to create three dimensional patterns.

A large glass door can be pulled open on warm days, with patterned paving from the laneway outside extending to the interior of the market, fully connecting the interior and exterior.

The interior of the market was designed to resemble a greenhouse, with shops and cafe’s arrranged around a central, double-height atrium.

The glass pitched roof above the atrium was lined with gently curved metal truss, in reference to Victorian greenhouses, with three large fans hanging from the metal truss to improve the air circulation.

A cafe in the atrium, which contains an olive tree planted into the ground, integrates a metal staircase that leads to the upper floor.

A area describes as a “stage” is located by the staircase with a series of undulating balconies wrapped around the atrium on the upper floor.

Various typologies of food vendors are arranged in the open atrium on the ground floor, some of which are designed to be retractable, allowing flexibility for different types of vendors as well as a large open event space to be formed at the centre.

“This new typology brings together the local with more curated food offerings in a contemporary yet humble and sustainable way,” explained Linehouse‘s Shanghai team who are responsible for the design.

Smaller snack shops were positioned on the ground floor, while larger restaurants occupy the upper floor.

Each stall was assembled from a kit of parts, so that the vendors are able to create their own signage and layout, but maintain a consistent material and lighting palette.

Linehouse is a Hong Kong and Shanghai-based architecture and interior design studio established in 2013 by Alex Mok and Briar Hickling. The duo won the emerging interior designer of the year category at the 2019 Dezeen Awards.

The studio has also recently designed the facade of a shopping centre in Bangkok and the interiors for a Hong Kong residence that respond to coastal views.

The photography is by Wen Studio.

Project credits:

Design principal: Alex Mok
Associate-in-charge: Cherngyu Chen
Design team: Yeling Guo, Fei Wang, Wang Jue, Norman Wang, Aiwen Shao, Mia Zhou, Yunbin Lou, Xiaoxi Chen, Tom Grannells

Reference

Sustainable News

Scientists develop hybrid “beef rice” as future meat alternative

By Zarkon Group,23/02/2024

Scientists from South Korea’s Yonsei University have invented what they believe to be a sustainable, high-protein food in the form of “beef rice”, made by growing cow cells in grains of rice.

Tinged a pale pink from the cell culturing process, the hybrid food contains more protein and fat than standard rice while having a low carbon footprint, leading its creators to see it as a potential future meat alternative.

The beef rice was made by inserting muscle and fat stem cells from cows into grains of rice and leaving them to grow in a Petri dish.

Photo of a bowl of pink-coloured rice viewed from above — The hybrid “beef rice” is made by growing cow muscle and fat cells within rice grains

Because the rice grains are porous and have a rich internal structure, the cells can grow there in a similar way to how they would within an animal. A coating of gelatine – in this case, fish-derived – further helps the cells to attach to the rice.

Although beef rice might sound like a form of genetically modified food, there is no altering of DNA in the plants or animals. Instead, this process constitutes a type of cell-cultured or lab-grown meat but with the beef grown inside rice.

In a paper published in the journal Matter, the Yonsei University researchers explain that their process is similar to that used to make a product already sold in Singapore – a cultured meat grown in soy-based textured vegetable protein (TVP).

Soy and nuts are the first foods that have been used for animal cell culturing, they say, but their usefulness is limited because they are common allergens and do not have as much cell-holding potential as rice.

Complex graphic depicting bovine and fat cells inserted into rice grains and the nutritional content table for 100 grams of cultured meat rice — It contains more fat and protein than standard rice

The nutritional gains for their beef rice are also currently small, but the researchers from Yonsei University’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering say that with further optimisation, more cells and therefore more protein could be packed in.

The hybrid rice contains 3890 milligrams of protein and 150 milligrams of fat per 100 grams – just 310 milligrams more protein and 10 milligrams more fat than standard rice.

“Although hybrid rice grains still have a lower protein content than beef, advances in technology that can improve the cell capacity of rice grains will undoubtedly improve the nutritional content of hybrid rice,” the researchers said in their paper.

The scientists also believe the product could be inexpensively commercialised and tout the short time frame required to boost nutrition through culturing.

Whereas beef production usually takes one to three years and rice 95 to 250 days, they say their cell culturing process took less than 10 days.

“Imagine obtaining all the nutrients we need from cell-cultured protein rice,” said researcher Sohyeon Park. “I see a world of possibilities for this grain-based hybrid food. It could one day serve as food relief for famine, military ration or even space food.”

If commercialised, the hybrid grain is expected to have a low carbon footprint, similar to growing standard rice, because there would be no need to farm lots of animals. While the stem cells used for the process are extracted from live animals, they can proliferate indefinitely and don’t require animal slaughter.

An obstacle for some may be the taste; the cell culturing process slightly changes the texture and smell of the rice, making it more firm and brittle and introducing odour compounds related to beef, almonds, cream, butter and coconut oil.

Image of hybrid "beef rice" being grown in a petri dish — The meat alternative was grown in a Petri dish

Image of hybrid — The meat alternative was grown in a Petri dish

However, lead researcher Jinkee Hong told the Guardian that the foodstuff tastes “pleasant and novel”.

The team is now planning to continue their research and work to boost the nutritional value of the hybrid rice by stimulating more cell growth.

Lab-grown and cultivated meats have been a subject of great interest and investment since 2013 when the world’s first lab-grown burger was eaten live at a press conference.

However, scaling up production, clearing regulatory hurdles and creating an appealing taste and texture have proven a challenge, and there are few examples on sale anywhere in the world.

In the meantime, speculative designers have explored the issue. Leyu Li recently created three conceptual products that, similar to beef rice, combine lab-grown meat with vegetables, calling them Broccopork, Mushchicken and Peaf.

All images courtesy of Yonsei University.

Reference

Sustainable News

Prolonging food freshness with natural coatings

By Zarkon Group,13/02/2024

Spotted: Food waste is a major problem, with around one-third of all food produced for human consumption going to waste and 13 per cent of that happening between harvest and retail. That is a lot of wasted resources and nutrition. One thing that could help is extending the shelf life of crops while preserving their quality.

In Switzerland, AgroSustain, a spinout from the University of Lausanne, is hoping to tackle this problem by becoming a one-stop-shop for natural and biological fungicides and coatings that prevent food waste from farm to fork.

The company’s first product is an invisible, odourless, and tasteless coating that extends the shelf life of fruit. This coating, which is called AgroSFruits, has been in use since 2022, but the company is not resting on its laurels and is committed to ongoing research to develop further products for both pre- and post-harvest applications.

These new products include similar natural coatings for flowers and vegetables, as well as a new category of ‘next-level’ biocoatings. Beyond this, AgroSustain is also working on a biostimulant that will improve the productivity of crops and boost their resilience to emerging environmental stresses, such as drought.

The company claims that its natural coatings can extend the shelf life of some goods by up to one month, while reducing water use by up to 70 per cent.

Increasingly, innovators are interested in developing new ways to reduce the vast amount of emissions from agriculture. Springwise has spotted a number of these, including using farm waste as fertiliser and turning fruit waste into delicious new products.

Written By: Lisa Magloff and Matthew Hempstead

Reference

Sustainable News

Food-waste dyes bring colour to mycelium leather by Sages and Osmose

By Zarkon Group,31/01/2024

Two British materials companies, Sages and Osmose, have collaborated to dye sheets of mycelium with natural food waste, mimicking the appearance of tanned leather and suggesting a colourful future for the biomaterial.

Osmose is a company making a leather alternative from mycelium – the fibrous underground root network of mushrooms – while Sages makes natural dyes from food waste such as avocado pits, blueberries, red cabbages and onion skins, which are normally applied to textiles.

The two believe they’ve achieved a world first with their collaboration, combining two emerging areas of sustainable material development to colour mycelium without resorting to petroleum-based synthetic dyes, thereby keeping the product non-toxic and able to biodegrade safely in soil.

A small square piece of leather-like material, in a mottled hue of caramel brown — Sages and Osmose have developed a natural dying process for mycelium leather

“There are lots of different types of vegan leather alternatives to traditional leather but the majority of them use either synthetic colourations or they use plasticisers, so they’re non-biodegradable,” said Sages CEO Emily Taylor.

“We wanted to explore an option where we could have a fully biodegradable leather that has also been coloured in a biodegradable and sustainable manner,” she continued.

Companies that prioritise biodegradability have offered mycelium in its natural shades of white and brown or black, which Osmose CEO Aurelie Fontan says is much easier to achieve naturally.

“I think the challenge for mycelium leather was that the offering just wasn’t there in terms of aesthetic,” she said. “When you’re presenting for brands and you’re like ‘we can only do brown’, it’s a little bit boring for them.”

Photo of swatches of mycelium dyed in different shades of tan, pale violet and mulberry — The companies experimented with different food wastes in the dyeing process

“The colour sector is somewhere where you can develop your USP, essentially, which is why working with Sages is so interesting,” Fontan added.

Osmose and Sages have created tan-coloured mycelium sheets using avocado waste, which Sages sources from an importer and guacamole factory in Milton Keynes, where tens of tonnes of leftover pits and skins are produced each week.

It was a new area for both companies, as the food waste dye takes differently to mycelium leather than it does to the usually cellulose-based textiles that Sages has worked with.

The duo collaborated with materials science researchers at the UK’s Cranfield University on the project, for which the researchers focused on how to transfer and fix the dye to the material using “green chemistry” – an area of chemistry that aims to cut out hazardous substances.

In this case, the researchers sought to replace the formic acid and fluorinated acids that are often used in tanning to dissolve the polymers of the leather so it can be infused with dye. Instead, the team developed a method, which they say is significantly less toxic.

After working with Cranfield University, Sages and Osmose expanded the experiment and trialled other waste streams such as blueberries and onion skins to see what colours they could get, producing mycelium swatches in shades of violet and bordeaux.

Taylor and Fontan say they are trying to develop a process for mycelium that is akin to leather tanning, where both colour and durability properties are added in one or two steps. Their equivalent, they say, would be to dye and waterproof the material at the same time.

Close-up of vegan mycelium sheet showing its similarity to the texture of tanned leather — The tan colour was created by using waste avocado pits and skins

Osmose’s focus now is on developing a waterproof coating for their mycelium that, like the dye, is bio-based, non-toxic and able to biodegrade safely in soil. This is notoriously a challenge for plant-based leather alternatives, which almost always rely on a protective synthetic coating.

“It’s really hard to design a solution that fits all materials, which is basically what everyone is struggling with,” said Fontan. “Someone might have pineapple leather and they have their own coating but it doesn’t mean it’s going to work on mushroom and so on.”

Unlike some companies, however, Osmose says it does not want to bring a product with a non-biodegradable coating to market.

“If you’re doing a composite, it will not biodegrade at the end of life, which is compromising all the good work that you’ve been doing before that step,” Fontan said.

Mycelium is one of the most popular emerging leather alternatives. It has already appeared in luxury goods such as a bag by Hermes, clothing by Stella McCartney and trainers by Adidas.

Reference

Sustainable News

CornWall gives discarded corn cobs new life as interior tiles

By Zarkon Group,11/01/2024

Materials companies Circular Matters and StoneCycling have used corn cobs – one of the world’s most plentiful agricultural waste materials – to make interior cladding that is biodegradable and almost entirely bio-based.

Available in the form of tiles and sheets, CornWall is intended as a more sustainable alternative to ceramic interior wall tiles or plastic laminate.

The material is derived from more than 99 per cent renewable, biological sources, is created at low temperatures using mainly solar power and emits less carbon dioxide in its production than was captured by the corn as it grew, the manufacturers claim.

Photo of seven colours of CornWall tile in flatlay, ranging from a warm beige to a a muted reddish brown and a dark greenish grey. The tiles are arranged beside a bare corn cob, a full corn cob and a small bowl of shredded biomass — CornWall is an interior cladding material that is 99 per cent bio-based

To give the products a long lifespan, Circular Matters and StoneCycling have produced the tiles with a mechanical fixing system, so they can be demounted and reused or given back to the company for cleaning and recycling.

The technology behind CornWall was invented by Circular Matters – a start-up spun out of a lab at Belgium’s KU Leuven University, where founder Pieter Dondeyne and his team found a way to process plants to enhance their natural biopolymers and create durable materials.

The team then partnered with Dutch company StoneCycling to channel their technology into a product.

Photo of a person, close-up on their hands, holding a small pile of bare corn cobs, their kernels removed — Corn cobs make up most of the composition of the tiles

StoneCycling co-founder Ward Massa told Dezeen that the focus on corn came because it is one of the most grown crops on the planet and its waste is abundant.

“What happens when you grow corn for human consumption is when it’s ready to harvest, you take off the corn and the corn cob is a leftover material because it doesn’t hold any nutritious value,” he said.

“Usually, that means that these corn cobs remain on the field and rot away, or they are burned as biomass to generate energy,” he continued. “In both cases, you release the carbon that was stored in those fibres – it rots away and it gets released, or you burn it and it gets released.”

With CornWall, the carbon is locked away until the tiles reach the end of their life and are left to decompose.

The production process begins with the discarded cobs being collected, dried and shredded into biomass.

This material is then mixed with other agricultural waste, binders and pigments and pressed into a plate material at a relatively low heat of 120 to 150 degrees. As a final step, the tiles are given a thin coating for water resistance.

All of the ingredients are derived from biomass apart from the pigment, which accounts for the 0.5 per cent of the product that is not bio-based – a very low percentage in a field where even products containing small amounts of materials of organic origin are sometimes labelled as bio-based.

Photo of a person at a distance standing in a huge warehouse of bare corn cobs piled high into hills — The agricultural waste material was chosen because of its abundance

According to Massa, the companies were able to keep the product pure by focusing on interior wall applications only.

“If you want to create a product that can also be used on the exterior or as a flooring or in the shower, then you have to start adding chemicals to bind it, to make it more water resistant and stuff like that,” he said.

“We chose to start with this application because it’s relatively easy and the binder and the product is nothing else than the natural polymers that are already part of this biomass. Because of adding heat and pressure, these polymers are activated and bind together.”

Photo of four objects in flatlay — a full corn cob on the left, followed by a bare corn cob, then a small tray of shredded biomass, then a CornWall tile — The corn cobs are dried and shredded before being pressed into tiles

CornWall is also biodegradable according to official standards, with Massa saying it could be buried in a field and disintegrate in a couple of months.

The only thing that would remain is the water-resistant coating, which is not biodegradable but makes up less than 0,001 per cent of the total product meaning it does not affect its biodegradability overall, according to Massa.

“Unfortunately there are no 100 per cent biodegradable coatings on the market yet,” he said. “We’re working with our suppliers on this but it’ll take more time.”

Instead, the intent is to keep the product in use for as long as possible.

The companies wants to target retail and hospitality chains that frequently open and close locations – Starbucks is an example Massa gives – and work with them to make sure the tiles stay in a closed loop of material reuse.

He also believes CornWall offers good options for these kinds of businesses in the design stage, as it can be ordered in custom colours and embossed patterns to complement their branding.

“As far as we are concerned, this will become the new retail material,” said Massa. “Especially in those places in retail where they now use materials that are either glued or take a lot more energy to make or create a lot of waste when the shops are being renovated or demolished.”

“Production can also be done regionally because you don’t need a very complicated factory for it.”

CornWall is currently available in a base range of six colours and two sizes, developed in collaboration with Dutch design practice Studio Nina van Bart. Massa says additional textures will soon be added to the line.

CornWall is the fourth product from StoneCycling. The first was the WasteBasedBrick, which is made from 60 per cent waste and was used by Dutch architects Nina Aalbers and Ferry in ‘t Veld of Architectuur Maken to build their own house in Rotterdam.

Reference

Sustainable News

Deep learning tests for contaminants in food factories

By Zarkon Group,11/01/2024

Spotted: Almost all of the food that we eat is processed in some way in a factory setting. These factories need to be kept very clean to avoid bacterial contamination, which can be an expensive and time-consuming process, involving constant monitoring and testing. French startup Spore.Bio has developed a way to speed up this process without compromising on safety.

Spore.Bio’s pathogen-detection system works by using a laser to shine an optical light of a particular wavelength on surfaces. Bacteria then react to this excitation in specific ways and the company trains its computer vision and chemometrics models to recognise this spectral signature, identifying the presence of bacteria.

To train the system, the light was first shined on a huge variety of surfaces, some that held clean food, and some that held contaminated food. The images produced were analysed by machine learning models that compared the two datasets to learn how to recognise and detect the presence of bacteria on a surface.

The company has recently completed an €8 million pre-seed funding round led by London’s LocalGlobe VC, with participation from EmergingTech Ventures, No Label Ventures, and several others. The funding will be used to further develop the technology.

Combatting food pathogens is the focus of a number of recent innovations spotted by Springwise, including a spray that kills harmful bacteria on food and a technique that helps plants combat fungal pathogens by disrupting the pathogen’s ability to cause disease.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

Sustainable News

Bark to beauty: forest byproducts for cosmetics, food, and chemicals

By Zarkon Group,18/11/2023

Spotted: One part of the UN FAO’s (Food and Agricultural Organization) forestry programme is the “conservation and sustainable use of forests to enhance forest-based livelihoods.” In this spirit, Finnish materials technology company Montinutra has created a chemical-free extraction process for valorising forestry waste.

Using Pressurised Hot Water Extraction (PHWE), the company transforms forest industry side streams into valuable new ingredients for the cosmetics, food and beverage, and chemical industries. Sawdust and bark are two of the most common waste products in the forestry, and with Montinutra’s inexpensive, efficient extraction process, businesses can turn a byproduct with little value into a new income stream.

The bioactive compounds that come from wood waste are highly valuable ingredients. When they are used in place of petrochemical-based materials, manufacturers reduce production emissions while improving the health of their products. In cosmetics, for instance, wood sugars provide emulsifying, SPF-boosting, and antioxidant qualities, and the ingredients can be used in industrial applications as binders, coatings, and fillers.

The extraction process works with many different types of feedstock, and the machinery and hardware are modular, transportable, and use closed-loop water circulation and energy recovery. That makes it easy for lumberyards and other forestry businesses to integrate a new system into existing infrastructure while improving the overall sustainability of their operations. The minimal amount of material left over after extraction can then be used for biofuel.

Montinutra’s pilot plant in Turku, Finland, proved the viability of the technology, and the company is now in the planning stages for its expansion to industrial-scale manufacturing capabilities by 2026. Following recent funding, the company hopes to quicken its international expansion and is also looking to soon rebrand as ‘Boreal Bioproducts’.

In Springwise’s database, other innovations centred on upcycling sawdust include using the material for 3D printing and building new beehives that help the insects survive winters.

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference

Sustainable News

The future of food: three key trends

By Zarkon Group,09/11/2023

While some recent figures show a decline in meat consumption – notably in the UK and US – the reasons behind people’s choices are often more to do with the cost of meat than ethical judgements around animal welfare or the impact on climate. However, population growth, food security, and the climate are key concerns for governments globally, and are fuelling continued development of protein alternatives. In Singapore, it has been a key government policy to foster innovation and investment in this area to bolster domestic food security and reduce reliance on imports.

We compared notes with Jack Ellis, a Senior Associate specialising in agriculture and food at Cleantech Group, to identify the key drivers accelerating the development of meat alternatives.

1. Technology

Artificial Intelligence (AI), gene editing, 3D printing… New technologies are opening up exciting possibilities for growth in the alternative protein space, and innovative startups are pioneering their use.

“It feels like there is momentum building around AI, and startups are putting it to different uses,” says Jack. US startup Climax Foods utilises AI to design non-dairy cheese that mimics the texture and taste of several varieties, including brie, blue, and feta. NotCo, a Chilean startup that we first spotted in 2016 – which has since become a unicorn company – uses AI to analyse the smell, texture, and taste of dairy and meat at the molecular level, and then replicate it.

Gene editing can raise protein yields from raw ingredients by ‘tweaking’ the DNA of an organism to make it behave differently. It is generally different to creating a genetically modified organism (GMO), which typically refers to taking genetic material from one species and putting it into another one – a process that has been banned in the EU since 2001. In 2018, gene editing fell under the same law, but in July this year, the EU announced that this was under review. “Startups in Europe have been vocal in pushing for more regulatory clarity on this,” says Jack. “And if that clarity does come to be and progress, then there will be an uptick, at least in innovative activity and partnering.”

2. Cell cultivation

To date, cell-cultivated meat has two key obstacles: it’s expensive to produce (and so would be prohibitively expensive for consumers) and it needs regulatory clearance as a biological product. The latter first happened in 2020, when Singapore became the first country to grant approval, with the US following suit this year. Despite these blockers, startups are innovating to reduce the costs involved in cell cultivation. For example, Czech-based firm Mewery uses a technique based on microalgae to decrease the cost of cultivation by up to 70 per cent. Its range of meat-free pork should be available in 2025, pending regulatory clearance.

3. Fermentation

Food production accounts for a quarter of global greenhouse emissions, with cows and other farm animals contributing around 14 per cent. Agriculture is water intensive and uses half of all habitable land on Earth. A growing trend in making food production more resource-efficient is the use of fermentation to produce alternative proteins. Amsterdam-based agritech firm Farmless only requires one five-hundredth of the amount of land needed for animal protein production. Farmless’ process creates food packed with amino-acid complete proteins, fibre, essential vitamins, carbohydrates, and unsaturated fats. It does this by turning existing supply chains of liquid feedstock into the basis for its fermentation system. The company uses a naturally occurring single-cell organism that ferments at a rapid rate, and then, through careful selection of different microbes for different results, produces proteins and foods that can be customised to include almost any combination of macronutrients.

According to Springwise Commissioning Editor Matthew Hempstead, “With alternative proteins, there are several avenues of innovation and multiple uncertainties. But more and more businesses like Farmless are developing industrial manufacturing capabilities and are set to play an increasingly central role in transforming the agriculture industry in time to meet 2050 climate goals.”

Written By: Angela Everitt

Our November edition of Future Now shares our full list of the top ten innovations pushing the boundaries of food production, leveraging AI for greater efficiency while harnessing other technologies to create alternatives to meat. It is free for members of our Innovation Database. For more information click here.

Reference

Sustainable News

Sustainable oils and fats for food and cosmetics

By Zarkon Group,08/09/2023

Spotted: According to a market report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the State of Sustainability Initiatives, the conundrum facing palm oil producers is that “while the sector is a main driver of climate change through deforestation and land-use change,” the crop is “the most widely produced edible oil, meeting 40 per cent of global demand for vegetable oil on less than six per cent of all land dedicated to producing vegetable oils.”

The oil’s versatility means that it is used in many different food and cosmetic products, making it very difficult to find a sustainable replacement. Fermentation may be the key to meeting that challenge. UK foodtech company Clean Food Group uses food waste and large-scale fermentation to create sustainable oils and fats. Designed to replace traditionally grown products, the fermented versions grow on non-GMO yeast chosen for its speed and customisation capacity.

Having recently raised £2.3 million to scale its operations, the company has already completed a 1,000 litre fermentation test. The results from the latest trials will be used to create the oils and fats that will be submitted for regulatory food and cosmetics approvals late in 2023. Clean Food Group plans to complete commercial scale trials and its Series A funding round in 2024.

The company is working with industrial food specialists Alianza Team and Doehler Group to scale production capacity to industrial quantities as well as develop the products that will undergo compliance testing.

Replacing standard chemicals with less toxic versions that also create less pollution during production is a challenge that is attracting the attention of innovators around the world. In Springwise’s library, examples of new manufacturing techniques include bio-based surfactants and AI-powered R&D.

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference

Sustainable News

Keeping food fresh naturally – Springwise

By Zarkon Group,07/08/2023

Every step of the food production process generates greenhouse gas emissions; but not many of us are aware of how much damage food waste does to the environment, causing up to 10 per cent of our global emissions.

One-third of the food we produce globally is never eaten, with the financial cost of this wastage estimated $2.6 trillion per year. The environmental impact may be even higher over the long-term. Food that ends up in landfill generates methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, while reducing food waste has the potential to draw 87 gigatonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

In India, the issue of wasted food is particularly acute, largely due to the need to transport and store food at ambient temperatures because, unlike in developed countries, cold storage is not widely available. India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world behind China, but 40 per cent of its produce is lost before it even reaches consumers. This incurs significant costs for the Indian economy, contributes significantly to global emissions, and does nothing to improve the lives of the 14 per cent of people in the country who are undernourished.

The founders of GreenPod Labs, an agri-biotech company based in Chennai, south-east India, believe this is a preventable problem and have come up with a solution that can increase the shelf life of produce by up to 60 per cent. It produces sachets made of non-woven, gas-permeable membranes that are packed alongside the fresh produce during transportation and storage. The sachets contain 8-12 bioactive ingredients – specific to the particular crop – in powder form. These activate the built-in defence mechanisms in the fruits and vegetables, a bit like the way the human immune system responds to outside stresses. The process slows down the ripening rate and minimises microbial growth that contributes to rot.

GreenPod Labs has completed products for three crops, with two more in the pipeline. It hopes to scale its business to include Africa and other countries in Asia, a welcome solution in regions where food security is already an issue, and climate change increasingly disrupts supply chains.

Written By: Matthew Hempstead

Video credit: RE:TV

Reference

food

Linehouse creates greenhouse-informed food market in Shanghai

Scientists develop hybrid “beef rice” as future meat alternative

Prolonging food freshness with natural coatings

Food-waste dyes bring colour to mycelium leather by Sages and Osmose

CornWall gives discarded corn cobs new life as interior tiles

Deep learning tests for contaminants in food factories

Bark to beauty: forest byproducts for cosmetics, food, and chemicals

The future of food: three key trends

1. Technology

2. Cell cultivation

3. Fermentation

Sustainable oils and fats for food and cosmetics

Keeping food fresh naturally – Springwise

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