With the growing focus on food sustainability, University of California (UC) Santa Barbara-founded food preservative developer Apeel Science is a particularly apt selection for the Technology of the Year award.
Apeel’s product range – consisting of plant-based coatings that stall the ageing of fruit and vegetables – directly confronts a concern troubling many food consumers, that preservatives deployed by industry cause more harm to the environment than intended.
The irony is that without such preservatives, the shelf life of produce would be reduced, thus creating further food waste – an outcome that contradicts sustainability goals.
Apeel has a cunning response to the dilemma. By mimicking natural skins with lipids and glycerolipids found in all fruit and vegetables, the spinout in effect adds an additional all-natural barrier to the fruit which retains moisture and locks out oxygen to stall spoiling.
In the sustainability space, veracity is often a key consideration. Apeel has made significant headway in this area, having ensured its coatings can be applied on organic produce as certified by the US Department of Agriculture without growers losing the right to use the organic designation.
Apeel has also worked hard on its distribution strategy. It entrusts production partners with the final leg of the manufacturing process, supplying them with a powder base that creates the coating when combined with water.
The coatings are the brainchild of James Rogers, who developed the approach while earning his PhD at UC Santa Barbara. Rogers retains the initiative at the spinout as chief executive while also acting as science director.
Apeel Science racked up $70m of series C funding in August 2018, attracting to the table an investment consortium led by hedge fund Viking Global Investors that featured Andreessen Horowitz, Upfront Ventures, S2G Ventures and a number of unnamed backers, according to Bloomberg.
The series C closely followed Apeel’s first commercial launch of a coating formulated for longer-lasting avocados, and the capital is anticipated to support capacity expansion as Apeel pursues further traction with fruit and vegetable producers.
That aim will no doubt have been helped by the appointment of Walter Robb, former co-chief executive of food retailer Whole Foods, to Apeel Science’s board.
Robb appears to have been impressed by Rogers’ vision, saying of him at the time of the series C round: “A great next-generation entrepreneur has come along using food itself to naturally extend the life of food, heralding a new era of possibility and promise. James and the team at Apeel Sciences are amazing and I am truly excited to be part of their efforts.”
Apeel’s earlier investors include philanthropic organisation Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which also supplied grant funding to develop the concept. The spinout had secured $33m in its 2016 series B round, which was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Bio Fund and DBL Partners, and backed by Upfront Ventures, Seed2Growth, Powerplant Ventures and Tao Capital Partners.
