Sufresca Accelerates Its Green Solution to Reduce Waste and Plastic
- Published: November 20, 2021
AgriTech start-up Sufresca, Ltd. is breathing new life into the global pursuit for combatting food waste and plastic use. The company optimized its novel invisible edible coating designed to extend the shelf-life of fresh produce and expanding its use to fit a range of fresh fruit and vegetables. Sufresca also shares the business model for its simple plug-in system to benefit retailers and growers.
Sufresca developed an edible, biodegradable, water-based emulsion composed of wholly natural food ingredients and inbuilt with advanced modified atmosphere properties. When applied to a fresh fruit or vegetable, the solution creates a breathable coating. Minute disruptions within the coating acts as a partial barrier that allows for optimal gas exchange. This slows down the post-harvest maturation and ripening processes and subsequent degradation and decay. It also solves the problems that come with using impermeable sealants.
This sustainable solution can reportedly extend shelf life by up to several weeks, saving plastic packaging and extending shipment time. This drastically reduces loss of fresh produce on-route as well as in-shop waste.
Sufresca developed a high-feasibility business model for straightforward application of its solution into existing systems. This makes the coating solution an attractive, highly scalable, and convenient option for producers, distributers, and exporters of fresh produce in the early stages of the supply chain but can also be applied at the later stages.
Founded in 2020, Sufresca, Ltd.’s green solution is the result of a 15-year R&D effort led by the start-up’s CSO, Prof. Amos Nussinovitch, in his lab at the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The research team collaborated to develop a sustainable solution for fresh produce, notoriously challenging to coat. The team achieved its first proof-of-concept for highly perishable peppers known to be sensitive to weight loss.
The start-up recently closed US$3.5M in seed investment led by OurCrowd VC, Israel, followed by the food and agriTech focused group FEAT Investments plus other investors. The round supports an initial US$1.3M previously raised from Agrinnovation and Rimonim.
For more information, visit https://www.sufresca.com.