Smart Choice
Problems with packaging
For the environmentally concerned fruit buyer, plastic packaging does nothing to spur a purchase, so ripeSense has done much to reduce their environmental footprint and customer preconceptions. The package was originally a rigid clamshell pack, but due to market feedback, ripeSense has now migrated to a flexible base, which is recyclable and uses an overwrap film.
The company also had to convince regulatory agencies that all the materials used in the sensor were food safe, something particularly difficult to do in the United States where Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards limit the materials that can be placed directly on food. Ultimately, ripeSense opted for a workaround, endeavouring to use materials already appearing on the FDA's generally recognised as safe (GRAS) list.
"If you can't find a solution using that list, you need to make an application to have a new compound approved. That's quite difficult – a hoop we'd rather not go through," says Dr Sharrock. Still, developing successful product and processes has taken over ten years, four years for HortResearch to come up with the concept, two years of prototype demonstrations, and a further six years to get the manufacturing processes running reliably. Jenkins Group had to design a bi-spoke piece of machinery specifically to manufacture the sensors.
But with the hard yards done, Mr McInness says the company now has programmes in place for the next generation of sensors. One of these, a label used for avocados, was released in 2008 after a further two to three years of development by HortResearch scientists.
"We've got a completely different chemistry for the avocado sensors than we used for pears, and that reflects the fact that they produce different volatiles as they ripen," says Dr Sharrock. The product clearly meets a need in the market when it comes to avocados – a product you only ever want to eat when it is ripe. For consumers to purchase ready-to-eat avocados without squeezing shows a high level of trust in the accuracy of the ripeSense label.
Market research shows that around 98 per cent of respondents say that they think the sensors are accurate. Mr McInness found that to start with people would buy the fruit when the label was red or orange, but after purchasing the ripeSense fruit and seeing how accurate the sensor is, people start to buy the produce at the yellow stage, ready to use as soon as they get home.
Not only is the ripeSense label winning over consumers, it has already won Jenkins Group two top print and packaging awards, including a gold medal in the World Label Awards and a gold medal in the Pride in Print Awards. But the work doesn't end there.
Dr Sharrock currently leads a team at Plant and Food Research called Active and Intelligent Packaging, which is continuing to investigate sensor labels. The team is simultaneously investigating several new approaches, one involving a sensor for inventory management to help retailers and people in pack houses know when to move stock. Another possibility is a sensor that can indicate when fruit is diseased or rotting, and they also plan to revisit the direct-to-fruit label idea.
"All of our current commercial labels are applied to the packaging. We're working on systems that will make them compatible with direct fruit contact."
As well as these new innovations, ripeSense is focussing on technology along the same lines as the pear and avocado packaging with a sensor for mangoes, melons and stone fruit. And why change a concept when it is a world-first in its field? From concept to commercialisation, ripeSense is worldleading science, and currently there is no other technology like it available.
Hazel Penfold is Writer/Editor at IPENZ.
This case study is reproduced with permission from e.nz magazine. Subscriptions to e.nz are discounted for schools and TENZ members.
