A new startup aims to revolutionize food storage and storage with technology that keeps meat, fish and other foods fresh at extremely low temperatures, without freezing or hardening them.
“More than a third of the food we produce now is simply wasted or lost in some way. This has a lot to do with how we store food and how we preserve it,” he says Paul Levins , co-founder of EverCase, this is the name of the company.
Fresh and elastic foods
EverCase's technology, in short, is able to keep the food, preventing it from becoming a piece of ice, even at temperatures as low as -12 ° C. The special containers that are the strong point of the startup can house anything from whole fish to steaks and berries, and can be stored in normal freezers.
Levins and his partner, CEO and co-founder Chris Somogyi, were intrigued by a technology developed by Soojin Jun, professor at the University of Hawaii. Jun's food processing lab studies ways to keep foods fresh through supercooling.
How does the system work?
As you know, when food freezes, ice crystals damage cell structures. This also makes a difference when we eat: it's the reason why a frozen steak tastes... frozen, it doesn't have the same flavor as fresh foods.
At low temperatures, Jun has discovered how to prevent ice crystals from forming in foods by using electric and magnetic fields to make foods "resist" freezing as they are cooled.
A result that required years of experiments with electric fields. And even when researchers found the right key to making this technology work, they didn't quite understand their exact influence on ice formation.
But there will be time to understand, right? Meanwhile, the system does what it's supposed to do. The cold chain for preserving fresh foods could be revolutionized. Take a look for yourself.
The next steps
Bringing this technology to large-scale industrial application presents several obstacles. For example, the strength of electromagnetic fields decreases with distance from the source. It might be worth a try, though: There's a major extension of the shelf life of fresh foods at stake. With similar technology we could have any food at any time of the year and with characteristics much closer to the original ones.
Before the future brings us home electromagnetic refrigerators, however, EverCase is ready for the corporate market. After testing over 20 prototypes, the startup has one ready for food producers and freight forwarders.
The advantages? Two come to mind. The first, immediate: another blow to food waste, which we would be able to reduce further. The second: who said that this technology only works for fresh foods? I have an idea (and so do the founders of EverCase themselves) that it could be very useful for preserving organs and tissues for transplantation.
If they are roses, they will freeze. Indeed no.
