L2M NSERC - A novel high-sensitivity detector for smart food packaging and spoilage detection

食品服务业中的大多数食品商品都是以包装形式出售的，以确保更长的保质期，防止食品篡改，并限制易腐性。然而，缺乏一种普遍的方法来监测包装中的食品质量是一个重大问题，因为现有的方法，如有效期标签，并没有考虑到由于微生物污染而导致的食品腐败。微型传感器技术的发展为监测包装食品和检测微生物污染物提供了创新的解决方案，以保障消费者的健康和减少食品浪费。这种先进的传感器技术解决了缺乏检测包装食品质量的方法的问题，并通过促进简单和低成本的方法克服了与食品包装行业技术采用相关的障碍。将进行市场分析，以评估将一种新型微型传感器商业化的可行性，该传感器将允许低功耗，高灵敏度和快速检测食品和农产品包装和储存部门中的微生物污染物。该解决方案建立在专利技术的基础上，这些专利技术已结合到原型传感器中，目前正在受控环境室中进行测试，以检测与目标污染物相关的不同化学化合物。正在探索进一步的研发研究以改进这种传感器。还需要扩大生产实验，以支持进入市场。我们预计，评估将确认该技术的商业化范围，并确定影响采用的因素，关键利益相关者和商业化合作伙伴，以及对新方法的需求，以确定微生物污染物，以防止浪费和提高人们对高质量包装食品和农产品的可及性。

Majority of food commodity in the food service industry is sold in packages to ensure a longer shelf-life, prevent food tampering, and restrict perishability. However, the lack of a prevalent method to monitor food quality in packages is a significant concern, as existing methods such as expiry date labelling does not account for food spoilage due to microbial contamination. Developments in miniaturized sensor technology are providing innovative solutions for monitoring packaged food and detecting microbial contaminants for safeguarding consumer wellbeing and reducing food wastage. This developed sensor technology addresses the lack of methods for inspecting packaged food quality and overcomes barriers associated with the technology adoption in the food packaging industry by facilitating a simple and low-cost approach. Market analysis will be conducted to assess the feasibility of commercializing a novel miniaturized sensor that will allow for low-power utilization, high-sensitivity, and fast detection of microbial contaminants in the food and produce packaging and storage sector. This solution is built upon patented technologies that have been combined into a prototype sensor that is currently being tested in a controlled environmental chamber for detecting distinct chemical compounds associated with the target contaminant. Further R&D studies are being explored to improve this sensor. Scale-up production experiments are also needed to support market entry. We expect that the assessment will confirm the commercialization scope for this technology and will identify factors affecting adoption, key stakeholders and commercialization partners, and the requirement for novel methods to identify microbial contaminants for preventing wastage and enhancing people's accessibility to high quality packaged food and produce.