A university in the UK is seeking partners to bring to market new smart packaging based on nanoparticle technology that offers an innovative way to ensure food freshness throughout the supply chain.
Especially relevant to meat and seafood, the technology is said to have potential to help reduce the risks of food poisoning, avoid consumer dissatisfaction and ensure retailers maintain high standards, and could address the problem of food waste.
The freshness sensor developed by Prof Thomas Nann, a chemist and nanoscience expert at UEA is based on nanoparticle technology. It can be incorporated into packaging with no outward sign of its existence.
Suppliers and retailers can control the testing process by shining a readily available UV light such as a barcode scanner, onto the packaging. Luminescent colour clearly reveals the state of freshness or decay of the product. Unsatisfactory products can then be removed before being displayed, and before any colour change or smell becomes apparent.
The technology is highly sensitive to the detection of biogenic amines produced by bacterial decay of meat and fish, and is more sensitive than the human sense of smell.
According to UEA, other technologies being developed or on the market show obvious, visible colour change in response to indicators of decay. But market research has found supermarkets and food retailers prefer a controlled testing process that allows deteriorating products to be removed from display before any change in colour or other indication of loss of freshness in the product occurs.
'Sell by' and 'use by' dates are ‘merely indicative of time since processing and cannot validate the actual condition of a product at any point in time’. Tests such as smell depend on opening a sealed pack.
University of East Anglia is seeking partners interested in licensing the technology, or collaborating in a joint development of new packaging solutions.
A priority patent application has been filed in the UK, with the intention to file for PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) and international territories.
