Smart Sensors Help Monitor Food Freshness to Reduce Food Waste and Increase Revenue for Retailers
- 1 in 3 of food produced worldwide is discarded, and this costs retailers worldwide to lose more than $18.5 billion annually.
- Using smart sensors to detect food in modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) will reduce food waste, increase revenue for retailers and increase customer satisfaction.
The United Nations has announced that food waste will be the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Estimates suggest that 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are related to unconsumed food and 13% of food produced globally is wasted during harvest and retail sale. Meanwhile, approximately 17% of global food production is wasted in households as well as the food service and retail sectors. One of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is to halve global food waste per capita by 2030, both at the retail and consumer sectors. Significant effort has also been put into research & development on packaging to complement this endeavor.
The food industry is faced with a huge amount of food waste. This is because the current food sensitivity standard test which is MAP invades, penetrates, or comes into direct contact with food and has created a high risk of contamination. The passing bar is also quite low and is not efficient enough to safeguard the shelf life of food, and cause food to spoil before the indicated expiration date on their packages.
Senoptica Technologies is a high-end packaging sensor technology startup from Ireland with a goal to cut food waste in half by 2030. The company has developed a new sensor to monitor the condition of packaged and perishable food products using food-safe ink which can be printed directly on the inside of the package. This patented sensor measures oxygen levels within food packaging in real time to increase the probability of finding failed packaging by 11,000 times and help prevent good food from being discarded. These sensors can be read at any point in the supply chain, from cold storage to supermarket shelves which means the gas level inside the package can be monitored at every point. Meanwhile, defective packaging will be immediately returned to the packing line and repackaged. This will greatly save on total food costs, increase retailer revenue, reduce food waste and improve consumer satisfaction.
The technology from Senoptica can help identify defective MAPs by showing different colors when they scan depending on the oxygen level inside the package. The package is then accepted or rejected according to the product's specifications.
With this feature, Senoptica's smart sensor technology helps solve the problem of 5.3 billion defective MAPs on retail shelves which has been costing retailers worldwide more than $18.5 billion annually.
Over the past two years, the company has successfully produced advanced technology solutions on an industrial scale and has been tested for food safety by independent agencies. This smart sensor technology is currently being piloted with well-known global retailers and large food producers in Europe. It is likely to be widely adopted in the food industry around the world in the future.
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Sources
- https://senoptica.com/
- https://www.packaging-gateway.com/interviews/food-waste-packaging-sensor-technology/
- https://packaging.oie.go.th/new/admin_control_new/html-demo/file_technology/9342580671.pdf
- https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2023/senoptica-innovative-foodtech-startup-that-combats-food-waste-closes-funding-round/