MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019
THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD — 3B
HOME & LIVING
Shelf-life science: Making produce last longer
By Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
Chicago Tribune
Imagine bananas that
never go bad. To Aidan Mouat,
CEO of Chicago-based Hazel
Technologies, it’s not so far-
fetched.
His company makes a prod-
uct that extends the shelf life
of all sorts of produce — avo-
cados, cherries, pears, broccoli
— by slowing the chemical
process that causes decay.
Some of the world’s largest
growers are using it to send
their produce longer distances
or reduce how much retailers
throw away, and Mouat says
a consumer version could be
next.
“I envision, in the next 18
months or so, literally selling
a banana box to consumers,”
Mouat said from Hazel’s
growing office space at Uni-
versity Technology Park, a
startup innovation hub on the
Illinois Institute of Technology
campus. “You keep it on your
counter, put a (Hazel) sachet
in there once a month, and
you have bananas that last
forever.”
Hazel Technologies is part
of a new wave of innovation
seeking to slow spoilage of
produce and other perish-
ables, which experts say is
a key weapon in the battle
against massive food waste in
the U.S.
As much as 40% of food
produced annually in the U.S.,
and nearly half of produce,
goes uneaten, according to
government estimates. While
the waste happens through-
out the supply chain, the vast
majority of the $218 billion
worth of uneaten food annu-
ally gets tossed at home or
at grocery stores and restau-
rants, according to ReFED,
a Berkeley, Calif.-based
nonprofit that seeks solutions
to reduce food waste.
The average American
family throws away 25% of
groceries purchased, costing
a family of four an estimated
$1,600 annually, ReFED said.
U.S. supermarkets lose $15
billion annually in unsold
fruits and vegetables, accord-
ing to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture. Meanwhile,
uneaten food is the No. 1
component of landfills and
squanders the water and
energy used to grow and
transport it.
Routing unused food to
charities can help keep it out
of the garbage, but solutions
to prevent waste at the source,
such as by extending its shelf
life, “have some of the greatest
economic value per ton and
net environmental benefit,”
said Alexandra Coari, director
of capital and innovation at
ReFED.
Spoilage prevention pack-
aging has the potential to di-
vert 72,000 tons of waste and
330,000 tons of greenhouse
gas emissions, plus save 44
billion gallons of water a year,
she said.
Technology that extends
shelf life has been around
for a long time, but there has
recently been a “huge uptick”
in innovations that expand
the options, helping to drive
the $185 million in venture
capital invested in combating
food waste last year, Coari
said.
Hazel, founded in 2015
by a group of Northwestern
University graduate students,
has raised $18 million so far,
including nearly $1 million in
grants from the USDA. It has
100 clients in 12 countries in
Camilla Fine/Chicago Tribune-TNS
Post harvest Scientist Fang Tham, 23, tests the firmness of a chayote with a durometer
at Hazel Technologies in Chicago.
“You keep it on your
counter, put a (Hazel)
sachet in there once a
month, and you have
bananas that last forever.”
— Aidan Mouat, Hazel
Technologies
North and South America.
The company makes small
sachets, the size of a salt or
pepper packet included with
a takeout order, that can be
thrown into a box of produce
to shut down the food’s re-
sponse to ethylene, a chemical
naturally emitted by many
fruits and vegetables that
triggers the loss of firmness,
texture and color. The sachets
continuously emit a small
amount of an ethylene inhibi-
tor, changing the atmosphere
in the storage box but not the
food itself.
While ethylene manage-
ment technology isn’t new,
Hazel’s sachets are gaining
fans because they are easy to
use, whether in okra fields in
Honduras or avocado packing
houses in the U.S., Mouat
said. The company also is
working on anti-microbial
reactions and will soon bring
to market anti-microbial lin-
ers for packages of berries, to
ward off the white fuzz.
“We can extend the shelf
life of practically any perish-
able by targeting the specific
mechanism that causes it to
go bad and integrating it with
the packaging that already
exists today,” said Mouat, who
graduated from Northwestern
with a doctorate in chemistry
in 2016.
How much Hazel can ex-
tend the shelf life depends on
the type of food. For example,
tests show an unripened pear
gets an extra seven to 10 days
after being treated with a Ha-
zel sachet, plus an extra three
to four days once ripe, Mouat
said. Testing on packaged
chicken, beef, fish and pork
suggests the sell-by date could
be pushed back by four to six
days, he said.
Mission Produce, the
largest grower, packer and
shipper of Hass avocados in
the world, found that ripe
avocados, which normally
would have to be sold in two
to five days once in stores,
lasted seven to 10 days when
treated with Hazel’s product,
said Patrick Cortes, senior
director of business develop-
ment at California-based
Mission. Once they’d achieved
maximum ripeness, some
treated avocados kept at room
temperature were still good
when they were sliced two
weeks later, he said.
Mission, which has devel-
oped a branded product with
CRUNCHY
Continued from Page 1B
3. Turn out the dough onto a dry wooden
board; you won’t need to flour it. Knead until
dough has a springy consistency, about 5 min-
utes. Transfer to a bowl, cover with a kitchen
towel, and leave to rest in a warm place until
nicely risen, about 1 hour. (It will gain about
50% in volume.)
4. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Turn dough out
onto a dry board. Flatten slightly with your
hands. Using a bench scraper, section dough
into 4 long portions. Cut those into 8 pieces
each, about the size of a whole walnut. Roll a
piece into a log about ]-inch wide and 12 inches
Hazel called AvoLast, has
completed one retail trial and
is about to launch two more,
as well as a food service trial,
Cortes said. So far he prefers
it to other shelf life extension
treatments the company has
tested because it is easy to
use.
Mission is investing in
the technology to help retain
the freshness of avocados
that travel long cross-ocean
journeys and help U.S. retail-
ers save money by throwing
fewer avocados away, Cortes
said. On average U.S. retailers
waste 5% of avocados, which
also has an environmental
impact, he said.
“We took a retailer we sell
to and said, if we can reduce
their shrink (wasted produce)
by 2% it would be the equiva-
lent of powering 26 homes for
a year,” Cortes said. “It just
makes perfect sense to do the
right thing.”
It also makes business
sense, and investors are start-
ing to take notice, said Coari
at ReFED. California-based
Apeel Sciences, which has
created an all-natural coating
that gives produce a spoilage-
resistant skin, last year
landed a $70 million funding
round that included Andrees-
sen Horowitz, a prominent
venture capital firm that has
backed some of the biggest
tech companies.
Apeel installed its coating
equipment along Kroger’s
avocado supply chain and this
year rolled out longer-lasting
avocados at hundreds of
Kroger stores. It is also start-
ing retail tests on asparagus,
which are the produce indus-
try’s biggest carbon emitters
because their shelf life is so
short they have to travel by
air.
Other movers in the indus-
try include Massachusetts-
based Cambridge Crops,
which makes an edible protec-
tive coating from natural silk
proteins and recently got $4
million in seed funding from
MIT’s venture fund; and U.K.-
based It’s Fresh, a maker of
ethylene filters that last year
sold a 15% stake in the com-
pany to AgroFresh, a longtime
maker of freshness products,
for $10 million.
Yet adoption by the indus-
try has a long way to go. Sup-
pliers pay for the technology
but the benefit is felt down-
stream at retail, complicating
the business model, Coari
said.
It is unclear if shoppers
will be willing to pay more
for longer-lasting produce or
will respond to branding of
products long considered com-
modities, she said. It’s also un-
clear how much more it might
cost them. Prices vary so
long. Cut the log in half. Shape each log into
a ring, twisting ends into a loose knot (really
just turn the ends over each other). Transfer to
a baking sheet, leaving a little room between
them. They don’t expand much. Sprinkle with
a little coarse salt. Continue with remaining
dough.
5. Bake until nicely golden brown and crisp,
20 to 25 minutes. The taralli keep in a covered
container for a couple of weeks and freeze
beautifully.
Nutrition information per piece: 42 calories, 2
g fat, 0.5 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 5 g
carbohydrates, 0 g sugar, 1 g protein, 75 mg
sodium, 0 g fiber
much because of weather or
other production issues that
consumers may barely notice,
Hazel’s Mouat said. Apeel, in
its pilot with Kroger, found no
price increase was necessary
because sales increased and
waste declined.
In addition, it can be
complicated and expensive to
introduce shelf life extension
technologies into the supply
chain if it involves install-
ing equipment or training
seasonal workers.
That’s where Hazel has a
leg up. Growers and suppliers
that have tried numerous al-
ternatives say they have been
attracted to the flexibility and
user-friendliness of Hazel’s
technology.
“It has to be simple to use
or may not be worth doing,”
said David Ortega, direc-
tor of packing operations at
Orchard View Cherries in
Oregon.
Orchard View conducted
a small trial with Hazel two
years ago and this year has
more than doubled its use,
primarily for cherries embark-
ing on ocean trips to Asia that
can take up to 23 days.
It found cherries treated
at the end of the packaging
process were firmer than un-
treated cherries after 20 days,
and had fewer indentations
and greener stems. Consum-
ers often reject produce that
doesn’t look perfect, even if
it is still perfectly good, so
aesthetics matter.
“It was definitely noticeable.
The fruit looked fresher, more
appetizing,” Ortega said. “It
allows us to feel more confi-
dent in where we can ship our
product.”
That could mean exploring
new markets, such as India
and Africa, which is a 35-day
transit.
At WP Produce in Mi-
ami, the largest grower and
importer of tropical green
skin avocados in the Western
Hemisphere, Vice President
Chris Gonzalez hopes using
Hazel will allow it to increase
market share in the U.S. Trop-
ical avocados, currently less
than 1% of the U.S. avocado
market, have a shorter shelf
life than the much more com-
mon Hass avocado, though
they last longer once they are
cut open because they don’t
oxidize as fast, he said.
Treating tropical avocados
with Hazel adds an additional
four to five days of shelf life,
and “that’s going to help us
out shipping to Malaysia,
to California, to the West
Coast,” said Gonzalez, whose
company grows avocados on
500 acres in the Dominican
Republic. As U.S. consum-
ers get to know the larger,
firmer alternative to Hass,
he believes there will be fans,
especially among millennials
who like to try new things.
“There’s a lot of market
share to be gained there,”
Gonzalez said.
Mouat declined to disclose
Hazel’s revenues, but said
sales have grown threefold
over the past year. The compa-
ny, which is not yet profitable,
started 2019 with 14 people
and will more than double to
30 employees by the end of
the year. Hazel also will have
increased its office space by
more than a third, to 14,000
square feet, by year’s end.
Four of the five original
founders — who were gradu-
ate students in engineering,
law and chemistry when
they met at an interdisciplin-
ary course at Northwestern’s
Farley Center for Entrepre-
neurship and Innovation —
occupy Hazel’s C-suite.
The company has grand
ambitions. India, for ex-
ample, grows more mangos
than anywhere in the world
but exports only 10%, leaving
many to go to waste, Mouat
said. Using Hazel’s sachets to
extend shelf life in countries
that lack stable supply chain
infrastructure could allow
them to sell their fruit to new
markets without invest-
ments in pricey equipment,
he said.
Mouat also hopes to create
a consumer-focused sachet
that people can throw into
the veggie crisper in the
fridge, or the aforementioned
banana box.
And then there’s the booze.
An irony of operating an
anti-food waste tech compa-
ny is that food is tested in a
lab to ensure the technology
works, creating waste of its
own. Mouat has addressed
that by taking discarded pas-
sion fruit and making a sour
IPA, and discarded bananas
and making a banana rum.
He has a fridge full of drag-
onfruit and is considering
making a dragonfruit beer.
The company sends bottles
to investors and customers
as gifts for the holidays, but
they have proven so popular
that Mouat is looking into
working with distillers or
brewers to transform Hazel’s
food waste into alcohol.
“There is a surprising
amount of appetite among
our investors to add it as a
legitimate arm of the Hazel
business model,” he said.
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