Each plastic wrapped cucumber = 5 plastic straws! Now Apeel are moving to solve this problem with their food coating product. The conundrum for much fresh produce is that without packaging we have increased waste, but with packaging we have pollution. The Apeel product solves this by applying an invisible, tasteless, edible barrier layer to the outside of the product. It works by keeping moisture in and oxygen out, significantly extending product shelf life. As you can see from the image above from Fortune magazine, it’s pretty effective!
In Germany, the Edeka Group achieved a 50% reduction in store waste and a 20% increase in sales of their treated avocadoes. They also have products for apples and citrus.
Both food waste and plastic pollution are major problems and this product addresses both of them. Since I first wrote about them in 2018 they’ve become a billion dollar unicorn company. And that was achieved with a USD250m investment from Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC mid-pandemic in May. Proving once again that investment in new food technologies is still powering ahead, despite COVID.
Imagine knowing about Apeel in 2018, could your investment company have made a killing?
