Powder Extends Almost-Expired Food's Shelf Life, Could Be Key To Ending Hunger

When it comes to food, the world has two major, conflicting problems: Hunger and waste. But a new powder could help address both of those issues, simultaneously. Earlier this month, a group of students at Lund University in Sweden completed a successful, 219,786 Swedish krona (about $25,700) Kickstarter campaign to support the scaling up of their business model, which consists of receiving cheap, nearly expired fruits and vegetables from grocery stores, processing them into a food powder, called FoPo, and selling that powder back to the markets. The powder is innovative in that it extends the shelf life of garbage-bound produce from two weeks to two years while still maintaining much of its taste and nutritional quality. As Mashable notes, the powder is currently available in three flavors -- banana, raspberry and mango -- with a fourth, pineapple, coming soon. As noted by Springwise, FoPo would be the first freeze-dried fruit product to be sourced entirely by produce that would otherwise be discarded. "[We are] not into using a new product or new technology, [but] creating value out of the inefficiency of the food system," Gerald Marin, one of the students behind the product, told Mashable. "The innovation of our business is that we are getting the expired fruits and vegetables." The students are confident they are onto something good. In the months ahead, they plan to sell the powder directly to food manufacturers and restaurants as well as online, ...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news