Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Apeel acquired ImpactVision, enabling the company to quantify fresh produce quality from the inside-out, which can optimize global food supply chains.
ImpactVision’s hyperspectral imaging technology will integrate into Apeel’s application systems at supplier locations worldwide, according to a news release.
This new layer of insights can help fresh food suppliers and retailers further reduce food waste. Apeel’s new imaging technology enables suppliers to see inside and understand the interior quality of fresh produce by collecting quantifiable data on the stage of ripeness, freshness, nutritional density and other indicators of quality.
This marks Apeel’s first acquisition and a major step toward quantifying and digitizing produce quality data, with the goal of democratizing this new information for the benefit of Apeel’s partners and the global food system as a whole.
“Our journey began with Apeel’s plant-based protection, an invisible ‘peel’ that addresses the challenge of global food waste by bringing more time to fresh produce before it spoils. Now, we’re expanding our technology to bring to light the previously invisible characteristics of produce, including internal quality, phytonutrient content and environmental impact,” CEO James Rogers said in the release.
“Using the insights enabled by Apeel’s imaging technology, our partners will effectively be able to ‘see’ inside of every fruit and vegetable, quantifying quality as never before, so that the distribution of fresh food can be optimized.”
Apeel’s plant-based protection that doubles the shelf life of produce is currently applied to fruits and vegetables via application systems throughout packing houses and distribution centers across North America, South America and Europe. This new imaging technology will be added to these systems to collect data-rich images as produce travels along packing house conveyance lines.
Acquired images will then be processed through machine-learning models that can identify unique visual cues that relate to freshness, degree of maturity, phytonutrient content and other aspects of fruit quality.
“ImpactVision’s technology can predict internal quality of food products from hyperspectral images. When this ability to ‘see beyond the borders of human vision’ is combined with Apeel’s shelf-life extension technology, the potential to fundamentally transform produce supply chains to reduce post-harvest loss, optimize distribution and lengthen shelf-life is enormous,” ImpactVision founder Abi Ramanan said in the release.
For example, suppliers can now know the exact ripening window for each piece of fruit to then sort and ship to geographical locations that will ensure retailers are getting the highest quality produce, according to the release.
Today, Apeel has 30 supplier integrations on three continents with plans to double that number by the end of 2021.
