by Jessica Nelson, Auburn University

As a shopper paying today’s prices for meat at the grocery counter, you want something a little more definitive than a “sell buy” date to know if the product is fresh. An Auburn University researcher might have just the sticker.

Burak Aksoy, associate research professor in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment (CFWE) at Auburn University, was awarded a patent for a packaging solution aimed at reducing waste in the human food supply. Today, the annual economic loss in the United States due to food spoilage is $161 billion from 40 million tons of discarded food.

The primary cause of food spoilage is bacterial growth, says Aksoy. The current standard is the familiar “sell by” date, which can be inaccurate on either side — food going bad before or after the date. In the first case, a customer buys a spoiled product. In the second, the store must discard a product that is still safe for consumption.

Aksoy has developed an inexpensive solution for real-time freshness monitoring. All meats give off certain basic volatile compounds as they break down. His product is a gas-sensing coating that detects those compounds and is applied to a sticker that adheres directly to the packaging of meat products. The sticker monitors the presence of compounds that indicate spoilage and progressively changes color to indicate the freshness level of the product.

“Everyone — consumers and retailers — will know the level of freshness or spoilage at a glance and be able to act accordingly,” Aksoy says.

Aksoy says there has already been a great deal of industry interest, and he anticipates the products will have global appeal.

Aksoy was awarded another patent for an aquafeed binder based on soybean hulls. These binders help the pellets stay intact in the water until fish and/or shrimp can consume them, improving feed efficiency, water quality and fish health while reducing feed costs.

“Everyone — consumers and retailers — will know the level of freshness or spoilage at a glance and be able to act accordingly.” — Burak Aksoy

“These two innovations have great economic potential alongside their promise for advancing sustainability and reducing waste,” says Janaki Alavalapati, the Emmett F. Thompson dean of the CFWE. “Both of his solutions are scalable, affordable and can easily be manufactured by adapting existing machinery, so there are fewer infrastructure costs at the start.”

The products were developed in collaboration with the Mediha Yildirim-Aksoy and Benjamin Beck from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), and Zhihua Jaing from the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering (ACPBE). Navid Etebari Alamdari of the ACPBE was also involved in developing the gas detectors.

To learn more about the CFWE’s sustainable biomaterials and packaging research, as well as its academic programs, click here. 

Editor’s note: Jessica Nelson is a communications specialist for the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment at Auburn University. [Lead photo by Jack F from Getty Images.]