03 Aug You won’t buy spoiled food ever again
Have you ever bought spoiled food that surprised you by its smell or taste? Scientists developed technology that allows us to check whether the food is spoiled without overturning the packaging and checking the fine-texted shelf life.
Cooperation between science and industry, more precisely between Brazil’s company Braskem and several universities in America and Brazil, has led to the creation of food packaging containing pH indicators. This package uses pH indicators to determine whether the food has spoiled.
Apart from the fact that this invention could prevent consumers from buying spoiled food, this “smart” packaging could greatly reduce the amount of food thrown out. Statistics show that consumers throw out a billion pounds of food each year because of label confusion.
This is not the first attempt to find out whether the food is right using the packaging. In 2014, researchers at the University of Rhode Island developed heat-sensing UPC codes that changed colors when product became too warm, suggesting spoilage; meanwhile, researchers in China created tiny smart tags that could attach to packaging and notify consumers of spoilage.
Such technologies protect both merchandisers and consumers, and we hope that we will soon find these packaging on the shelves.