Detection
P&P Optica smart tech enhances food safety
WATERLOO — A $3.1-million investment from U.S. venture capitalists will help a local company deploy technology that detects foreign objects in food.
P&P Optica, located on Davenport Road, announced the investment from Kansas Citybased Fulcrum Global Capital on Tuesday.
P&P has developed a new generation of spectrometers, devices that show the chemical composition of objects by analyzing the light passing through them.
Founded in 1995 as a consulting firm, the company has 25 employees and had been developing spectrometers for bio-biotechnology and medical-related research.
It changed direction after realizing its technology spots contaminants in food moving quickly on a production line.
“We are changing,” said CEO Olga Pawluczyk.
P&P’s spectrometers and associated software work faster than anything else on the market and that makes it ideal for the food processing sector, she said.
“We were able to now look at every piece of food on a conveyor belt going at line speeds. Nobody had to slow anything down for us, and we could show chemical information for every piece of food on a conveyor belt.”
The application has roots in work P&P did for the oilsands industry. It realized technology it was using to analyze oil content in Alberta oilsands could be used to look at the fat content in meat. Soon after, it realized the spectrometers could spot foreign contaminants in food carried on a conveyor belt.
P&P launched a project with Ipolito Produce, the University of Guelph and Conestoga College.
“We were able to look at the chemical composition of spinach as it was going on a conveyor belt,” said Pawluczyk. “That was one of our first forays into the food industry.”
P&P is also working with a large meat producer.
“Because we can see food chemistry on a very precise scale, very quickly, we can look at things that shouldn’t be in the food, such as foreign objects like plastic,” said Pawluczyk.
Annual losses for recalls of contaminated food in North America are estimated at $5 billion, and that figure is increasing every year, said Kevin Lockett, partner and chief financial officer at Fulcrum.
“Food safety is an increasingly important part of the global food production industry, and current technology practices result in tremendous waste within the industry,” he said in a statement.
“We believe PPO’s technology and approach has the potential to solve these issues for global food producers and are excited to be a part of a team that will both make food safer and reduce needless waste,” said Lockett.
In the next year, P&P plans to hire up to 10 employees and install its imaging technology at food processing companies in this area. It is also talking with potential customer clients in the U.S.
“This is KW-grown technology,” said Pawluczyk. “It is a success that is long in the making and we are very excited about where we are heading.”
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