There’s not much you can do with spoiled food except throwing it away or converting it into compost if you have a garden. But here’s a brilliant plan to avoid the food getting wasted. A company has created a sticker for food items that will make it last upto 14 days longer.
The food sticker is edible. You don’t need to remove it, you can eat it along with your food. Initial studies showed the sticker can extend the freshness of certain fruits by up to 50%.
The stickers work best on mangos, avocados, papayas, dragon fruit, start fruits, apples, and pears. You can place the stickers on fruit to help keep them firm, sweet, and juicy.
The stickers are 100% natural. They are coated with a mixture of sodium chloride and beeswax which slows down the ripening process by removing ethylene, which is the hormone responsible for the ripening of food items, from the air. It’s simple chemistry.
The sticker is called Stixfresh and also inhibits mold activity. It is developed by a Malaysian company. Malaysian inventor Zhafri Zainudin grew up in a rural community an hour south of Kuala Lumpur and wanted to help a friend who owned sold tropical fruit whose product would often spoil before it was all sold.
The company launched in the U.S. in November 2018 and is trying to partner with fruit growers. Stixfresh wants to design a similar concept in the future for berries and vegetables.
If proved successful, this product can significantly reduce the food wastage. Nearly one third of the world’s food go waste on a daily basis. An estimated 52% of harvests go bad before reaching customers.
Food wastage needs to be curbed at the individual’s level but these technologies can sure help. It’s harmless and sustainable.