https://phys.org/news/2024-04-date-food-packaging-smart.html
'The inventors of a suite of tests that enable food packages to signal whether
their contents are contaminated are working to bring producers and regulators
together to get their inventions into commercial products, with the goal of
preventing illness and reducing food waste.
Though the tests would cost just a few cents per package, food producers are
reluctant to add costs that consumers will ultimately have to bear, say the
McMaster researchers behind an article published in the journal
Nature Reviews
Bioengineering.
A system based on smart packaging, the researchers say, would save producers
from reputational and practical costs associated with outbreaks, dramatically
reduce food waste and reduce health care and lost-time costs associated with
outbreaks. In all, the paper says, society would save hundreds of billions of
dollars globally each year, more than justifying the cost of adding the
technology to food packaging.
"On the one hand, people want to have safe food to eat. On the other, they
don't want to pay more for their food, because prices are high already and seem
only to be climbing higher," says the paper's corresponding author Tohid Didar,
a biomedical engineer and entrepreneur. "We are eager to make people aware of
the challenges that exist, and start a conversation between researchers, policy
makers, corporations and consumers work together to come up with solutions for
such challenges."
The researchers write that public agencies recognize the value of the new
technology, and though they'd like to put it into play, they also know that
introducing it would require sweeping changes to food regulations and packaging
practices—changes that may face resistance.
It's a challenge the researchers recognize, but with so much potential benefit
at stake, they say everyone will ultimately win once the technology comes into
broad use.
The current practice of marking fresh foods with a "best before" or "consume
by" date is arbitrary and far too conservative, the researchers say, often
causing perfectly safe food to be wasted, which imposes huge costs that
producers and consumers are already paying for, whether directly or
indirectly.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
