Fresh fruit and vegetables are healthy. Yet, the fresh produce is enormously expensive and wasteful. An estimated 40 percent of all fruits and vegetables grown in the U.S. ends up in the trash. What makes it to your local grocery store is often coated in layers of wax to keep it as fresh—or, rather, fresh looking—as possible. Apeel Sciences has developed a solution to this conundrum: By taking plant material that would ordinarily be wasted (grape skins from wine production, for example, or broccoli stems) and engineering a micro-thin, invisible, tasteless “barrier” that can be applied to produce, the company aims to dramatically extend the shelf life of everything from strawberries and bananas to green beans.
Fighting food waste with second skin for fragile fruit made from… food waste
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