The technology will enable suppliers to see inside and understand the interior quality of fresh produce by collecting quantifiable data on 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.
"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," said James Rogers, chief executive officer of Apeel. "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. For our partners, this will mean less waste and an immediate bottom-line improvement, and ultimately, the ability to one day differentiate produce by making freshness and nutritional content 'visible' to the consumer."
Apeel has 30 supplier integrations on three continents with plans to double that number by the end of 2021. With its imaging technology and positioning in the fresh food supply chain, Apeel’s goal is to develop the largest and most comprehensive database of objective fresh produce insights for the global food industry.
"ImpactVision's technology can predict internal quality of food products from hyperspectral images,” said Abi Ramanan, Founder of ImpactVision. “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.”
