The end of best-before dates?
New ‘smart packaging’ tests for foodborne bacteria
The researchers say thatnsdmart packaging would save hundreds of billions of dollars each year, including outbreak-related costs such as health care and lost time.
We’ve all heard the adage, “When in doubt, throw it out.” But what if that carton of slightly squishy berries or less-than-fresh bag of bread could signal to you whether it should be tossed or eaten? Mcmaster University researchers have developed a set of tests that do just that. They say that swapping “arbitrary and far too conservative” best-before dates with “smart packaging” has the potential to curb food waste and reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses.
In an article published in the journal Nature Reviews Bioengineering, the researchers say that smart packaging would save hundreds of billions of dollars each year, including outbreak-related costs such as health care and lost time. Though the tests would only cost a few cents per package, food producers are reluctant to add them because they would mean higher prices.
“On the one hand, people want to have safe food to eat. On the other, they don’t want to pay more for their food because prices are high already and seem only to be climbing higher, ” said biomedical engineer and entrepreneur Tohid Didar, the paper’s corresponding author.
“We are eager to make people aware of the challenges that exist and start a conversation between researchers, policymakers, corporations and consumers (to) work together to come up with solutions for such challenges.”
In its Food Waste Index Report 2024, the U.N. called food waste a “global tragedy.” Households toss at least one billion meals each day and millions face food insecurity. While food waste is a worldwide issue taking a toll on the environment and personal finances, Didar highlighted that Canada outpaces the U.S. and the U.K. per capita by wasting $40 billion worth of perfectly good food every year.
A recent study from Dalhousie University’s Agri-food Analytics Lab showed that high prices have led Canadians to take more chances with safety, eating items close to or past their best-before dates, unaware of the risks.
As a result, the Dalhousie study found one in five reported getting sick, with millennials and Gen Xers hardest hit.
Over the past six years, Mcmaster engineers and biochemists have invented several packaging-based methods to signal or stop food spoilage, including a transparent patch that monitors pathogens such as E. coli and Salmonella, a sprayable gel that eliminates foodborne bacteria and “lab-on-a-package,” a tray that signals when pathogens are in sealed packages of raw or cooked food such as fish, meat or poultry.
The researchers say that moving from the lab to store shelves has proved a challenge. They’ve been working with food producers in North America and Europe and government regulators such as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to implement their inventions.
“It’s one thing to do research in the lab, publish papers and file patents, but it’s another to have a product that’s tangible — that people can use,” says the paper’s lead author, Shadman Khan, a PHD candidate and Vanier Scholar in Didar’s lab. “We are building a collaborative network with government regulators and industrial partners. That is allowing us to see the big picture issues and adapt to what we learn will and won’t work.”