Apeel Sciences

Overview

Apeel Sciences is an agricultural technology startup that has created a chemical coating that prevents fruits and vegetables from spoiling.  The coatings, (named Edipeel and Invisipeel) are made from purely natural plant parts (leaves, stems) that can't be seen, smelled, or tasted and is human edible.  Invisipeel is applied while the crop is still in the field and Edipeel is applied post harvesting.  The effect of this coating is to increase the lifespan and freshness of a plant by up to 5x.  The team has some amazing time lapse videos showing the effect of their products here.

Apeel's coatings have been FDA approved and the company is based in Southern California.

Why I like Them

I like them because the technology and concept is just very cool.  Roughly 1/3 of food grown is lost due to spoilage (estimated to be $1T in the US alone).  Spoilage is caused by water loss. bacteria, and oxidation of a plant, and their coating prevents all three.  To date most solutions to crop spoilage and storage involve expensive refrigeration, gases, or harmful pesticides.  Crops from international markets can take up to 30 days to reach consumers which is why much of the produce we eat tastes bland and has low nutritional content (intensity of taste is a strong signal of nutritional content in produce).  This type of innovative product cuts costs, improve the consumer experience, reduces waste, and reduces the carbon and environmental footprint that the existing spoilage prevention technologies cause.

Disclosure:  All information is from publicly available sources, I have not had any contact with a member of the company or its investors.