Food technology company Evigence announced the close of an $18m series B funding round this week. The company, which makes real-time food freshness detecting sensors, plans to use the money to further develop its system’s data collection and analytics capabilities and launch additional commercial partnerships in the US and Europe
Evigence’s sensors, which are small enough to be incorporated into a sticker that goes onto produce packaging, can detect the temperature and time passage and uses that data to calculate the current and projected freshness of produce. Retailers, distributors, and consumers can use them to determine the real-time freshness of a product. Evingen’s sensors can give visual cues such as through color change on the sticker or have an hourglass empty to let the consumer know when a product is no longer fresh.
You can watch the Evigence system in action below:
“At Evigence, we aim to redefine the way the world manages fresh food”, said Evigence Founder & CEO Yoav Levy. “Today there is no objective way to measure freshness. Small variations in temperature during transit or storage can lead to waste of perfectly good food on one end of the spectrum, or problems with food safety on the other end. Date codes don’t account for these fluctuations. We want to change the paradigm.”
The company recently announced it is working with meal kit delivery company Marley Spoon by Martha Stewart. Marley Spoon implemented the Evigence solution, wich allows it and consumers to ensure freshness of meal kit ingredients when they arrive to customers’ homes. Evigence’s sensors track time and temperature exposure over the course of the meal kits’ shipping journey, from packing to the customers’ doorstep. When the meal kit arrives at home, customers can scan the sensor upon receipt of the meal kit to confirm freshness.
According to Levy, “tens of millions” of Evigence sensors have been deployed across a variety of food and beverage markets which has collectively resulted in 20% shelf life extension and 33% reduction in waste.
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