SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Food waste is a critical challenge in the agricultural economy. To meet the EnvironmentalProtection Agency's goal of reducing food waste by 50% by 2030 substantial changes arerequired in the food system where 30% of food is never eaten. Here we target the potato cropthe 4 -largest crop in the United States by volume and a highly efficient per-acre generator ofcalories. A key driver in loss of potato marketability is sprouting a challenge that increases overthe 10-month storage of potatoes and is extremely damaging in organic potatoes. Changes inconsumer acceptance are reducing the tools available to farmers to control sprouting and organictreatments require multiple treatments. To address this challenge we propose a product thatslowly-releases of botanical sprout inhibitors to stop sprouting from the farm to the consumer tableusing only food-grade organic actives.This project will screen different formulations of slow-release matrix materials for ideal vaporrelease properties in known volatile sprouting inhibitors while establishing efficacy and total dosetargets over the course of a storage season in multiple varieties of organic potato. Successfulformulations will be subjected to rigorous taste panel analysis to confirm that no organolepticeffects are observed. Following this commercial partners will assist Hazel Technologies in supplychain deployment in highly relevant commercial conditions in multiple real-world shipment tests.
