Innovation & Technology Supply Chain

Food Protecting Food:
How Apeel Keeps Produce Fresher for Longer

Apeel’s plant-based coating and RipeTrack platform are helping growers and retailers reduce spoilage, extend freshness and build a more resilient food system.

By Scarlett Buckley | Published 3 months ago | About a 8 minute read

Image: Apeel Sciences

Nearly 800 million people — one in eleven globally — go to bed hungry each night. At the same time, a third of all food produced is lost or wasted before it can be eaten, costing the global economy over $1 trillion every year. Once discarded, that waste contributes 8-10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions while depleting precious natural resources including freshwater, soil nutrients and energy.

By 2050, food production will need to increase by 60 percent to feed a projected population nearing 10 billion — a demand our current systems, weighed down by inefficiencies and waste, are not equipped to meet.

For decades, preserving fresh produce has relied on a small set of tools: refrigeration, synthetic waxes, fungicides and single-use plastics. While these can extend shelf life, they also come with serious environmental trade-offs.

There’s no shortage of innovators working to address this: One group has worked to make use of the food and agricultural waste our system generates — upcycling it into everything from skincare ingredients and biobased packaging to animal feed — and another helps hotels, retailers and restaurants redistribute excess food before it becomes waste.

A third group aims to protect the longevity of food before it even reaches the market. One such innovator — California-based food tech company Apeel Sciences — uses plant-based coatings to keep fresh produce fresher longer, without relying on plastic or synthetic chemicals.

James Rogers founded Apeel in 2012, shortly after he won the UCSB New Venture Competition while completing his PhD in Materials Science at UC Santa Barbara, and soon recruited fellow UCSB lab mates Dr. Jenny Du and Louis Perez. Although the team didn't have any prior background in food or agriculture, they had learned about the global food waste issue from UN FAO reports and wanted to apply their science and engineering knowledge in skills to trying to help solve the problem. But they wanted to take inspiration from nature — using materials and mechanisms already used by plants — to develop solutions.

“Apeel Sciences began with the promise of developing safe, sustainable solutions that extend the quality and life of fresh produce — making produce more enjoyable and accessible to consumers, improving supply chain efficiency and resilience, and reducing food waste worldwide,” CEO Luiz Beling tells Sustainable Brands® (SB). “It has been our mission from the beginning to do so in a way that sustains our health and the health of our environment for this and future generations.”

Slowing ripening, naturally

Apeel keeps fruits and vegetables fresher for longer by adding a protective, plant-based layer that slows down spoilage. Now applied to fruits including avocados, citrus fruits, cucumbers and mangos, Apeel’s thin, edible coating is made from ingredients naturally found in the peels, seeds and pulp of plants — the same kinds of substances already present in foods including avocado oil, butter, bread and even infant formula.

“Our ingredients are non-GMO, responsibly sourced, free from regulated allergens, and free of trans fats,” co-founder and head of regulatory Jenny Du explains. “These are common food ingredients with a long history of safe use — reviewed and approved by the US FDA, the European Food Safety Authority and many others.”

Apeel’s invisible barrier works by slowing down dehydration and oxidation — the two natural processes that cause produce to spoil. The result? Less waste, better texture and flavor, and more time for consumers and retailers to enjoy what they’ve paid for.

“Our products keep produce fresh and nutritious for longer,” Du adds. “That extra time helps reduce food waste, save consumers money and cut down on the use of plastic packaging.”

Since 2021, Apeel says its solution has helped save 166 million pieces of fruit from going to waste, avoided 29,100 metric tons of CO₂-equivalent emissions (the same as planting 485,000 trees) and conserved 6.96 billion liters of water — enough to fill 2,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Getting closer to the source

When Apeel first brought its product to market, the team focused on working directly with retailers. The goal was to show that keeping produce fresher for longer could reduce in-store shrink, improve customer satisfaction and help retailers cut unnecessary waste. Over time, however, the company realised that its greatest opportunity for impact was earlier in the supply chain.

Today, Apeel partners closely with growers, packers and shippers. These are the people handling produce right after harvest, and they have the most influence over how long that produce will last by the time it reaches consumers.

“We work with a wide range of grower, packer and shipper partners across the globe,” Beling explains. “Many are using our product to extend freshness, reduce shrink and improve operational efficiency.”

By focusing upstream, Apeel can help protect more of the harvest before it enters the complex web of transport, storage and retail environments — which has made it easier for supply chain partners to integrate Apeel’s coating into their operations and get clearer results. When produce arrives at retailers in better condition, everyone benefits.

The company’s expansion has largely been driven by performance and word of mouth. Early adopters who see fewer rejections, longer shelf life and better quality often share their results with others in the industry.

Addressing misinformation

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text Image credit: Wicked Leeks

Despite its proven safety record, Apeel has faced disinformation campaigns — amplified by its decision to publicly label treated produce. Unlike traditional post-harvest coatings, which are largely invisible, Apeel made the intentional choice to disclose its process.

“We believed consumers would want to know what’s on their produce,” Beling explains. “However, that public-facing brand visibility has had the downside of making ourselves an easy competitive target to ‘take down,’ compared to other post-harvest technologies (whether legacy players or new market entrants).”

The company now pairs transparency with education — not just relying on facts, but working to build trust. That effort is bolstered by experts including Toby Amidor, MS, RD, CDN — a registered dietitian who has studied Apeel’s ingredients.

“Mono- and diglycerides are building blocks of fat, but the amount used in Apeel is so minute that you get minimal calories from it. These types of fats naturally occur in all fruits and vegetables. For example, an avocado contains 21 grams of fat, and Apeel adds just 0.06 grams,” Amidor tells SB. “Fruits and vegetables with Apeel are 100 percent safe to eat — they just have a microscopic layer of lipids applied to the peel to keep the fruits and vegetables fresher for longer. This means you get a few days extra to bite into or prepare your favorite produce and minimize food waste in your own home.”

RipeTrack: Making freshness measurable

Apeel has also developed RipeTrack — an AI-powered digital platform that gives retailers, suppliers and packers the ability to measure ripeness and quality with precision. The platform uses a handheld optical scanner, or spectrometer, to assess internal characteristics of produce without having to cut it open — avoiding the waste typically caused by manual quality checks.

The data collected (on firmness, dry matter and ripeness stage) is sent to a cloud-based platform, where AI models analyze and predict how the fruit will ripen over time. This gives buyers and merchandisers actionable insights into when to move inventory, how to plan displays and the quality consumers can expect at the point of sale.

“At its core, RipeTrack is about turning freshness into a science,” Beling says. “It’s one more way we’re helping the industry reduce waste, increase access to high-quality produce, and deliver on the promise of better food for more people.”

According to a study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Applied Research Institute, Apeel’s method of testing avocado ripeness is up to three times more accurate than current industry testing mechanisms — giving retailers a far clearer picture of fruit quality. Early RipeTrack users have already reported improvements in quality consistency, less shrink and stronger category performance.

A more resilient food system

As climate change intensifies and global food demand rises, Apeel sees its work as part of a broader movement to build resilience into the food system. From making fresh produce more accessible in markets with limited refrigeration to supporting growers with more reliable quality tools, the company’s vision reaches far beyond the supermarket aisle.

Beling asserts: “If we’ve done our job right, Apeel will be known not just for extending shelf life — but for extending the impact fresh food can have on health; on sustainability; and on creating a smarter, fairer, more abundant food system for everyone.”