Over half of all supermarket customers prefer to buy fruit ready-to-eat, and often customers will handle the fruit to test its ripeness before making their selection which can result in damage and wastage – a major source of lost revenue for the vendor. RipeSense™ labelling removes the need to handle produce to determine ripeness, resulting in a significant reduction in wastage, as well as increased customer service and satisfaction, and therefore increased sales. Developed by New Zealanders, ripeSense™ is a sensor that changes colour to indicate the ripeness of specific fruit. It was named as one of TIME magazine's 30 greatest inventions of 2004.

Nature of Technology

• Commercialisation of scientific research
  Technological Systems
• intelligent packaging

For focus questions for classroom discussion topics, see the Curriculum Links section of this case study.

• www.ripesense.com
• www.ripesense.com/pdf_store/
  Product_Overview_old.pdf

Curriculum related questions:

• Collaborative commercialisation of scientific research
• The influence of regulatory restrictions and consumer preferences
• Growing importance of active and intelligent packaging