Spray this invisible, edible coating on produce and it could last five times longer
Rogers said Apeel will likely offer Edipeel to consumers in the future. "We don't want to be afraid of tackling the world's challenges using science and technology," he said.
Rogers began thinking about how to protect produce the same way that the carbon and iron barrier on stainless steel keeps it from rusting. "That was the genesis of Apeel," he said.
Rogers came up with the idea for Apeel's products while pursuing a PhD at the University of California in Santa Barbara. On trips from campus to a lab in Berkeley, he passed many farms.
Rogers said Apeel creates more opportunities for produce to be grown in untapped areas, like Peru, that have lower land values and labor costs than, say, California.
It could allow grocery stores and restaurants to source items from farms that are farther away.
For example, it takes 30 days for blueberries grown in Chile to travel to US grocery stores. To keep them fresh, farmers sometimes coat them in wax and pick them before they're ripe. Trucks also need to heavily refrigerate the berries (which requires energy and money).
Since Apeel's plant-based products control the rate of decay, they offer a less costly and slightly more natural way to preserve produce.
The coating could help stores and farmers reduce waste from produce that has ripened too quickly.
The coating is are made of discarded materials from organic produce — anything from pear stems to leftover grape skins to grass clippings. "We don't discriminate," Rogers said.
The untreated green beans on the left shrivel up after a few days, while the Edipeel ones stand strong:
Here's what ripe bananas look like over the course of 10 days. The pair on the right is coated with Edipeel:
Apeel is testing Edipeel on all kinds of fruit and vegetables. Below is a timelapse comparison the company created to show the effect on ripe strawberries. (The bottom row was treated with Edipeel.)
Edipeel's formula differs for each fruit or vegetable.The startup has so far developed Edipeel products for three dozen crops, including avocados, asparagus, peaches, lemons, pears, and nectarines.
Farms and food packing houses are now able to buy Apeel's products. Edipeel is usually sprayed on produce during the wash cycle, before produce is sorted and packed to go to retailers.
After the coating dries, it acts as a shield to natural gases (e.g. oxygen and ethylene) that make produce decay.
Edipeel is engineered to keep water from leaving a fruit or vegetable and prevent oxygen from entering. Apeel is also working on a second product called Invisipeel that's designed to keep insects away but is not yet widely available.
Edipeel is a transparent coating that you spray on produce or dip items into.
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