Non-destructive wireless monitoring of food quality using near zero-cost printed electrical gas sensors

食物浪费是个大问题。仅在英国，我们每年就扔掉730万吨食物。这相当于130亿英镑。440万吨被浪费的食物完全可以食用。在不损害食品安全的前提下减少食物浪费是食品标准局的一项主要承诺。食品标准局主席希瑟·汉考克（Heather Hancock）最近对制定产品保质期的指南的出版表示欢迎，并解释了影响食品有效期的因素。食品标准局的这种干预表明他们支持和接受防止安全食品浪费的倡议。保质期指的是超市应该在什么时候停止销售食品。在肉类和鱼类等易腐食品中添加保质期，表明该食品需要在此日期之前食用，因为超过此日期可能对健康有害。法规（EU） No 1169/2011涵盖了使用截止日期的使用。大多数保质期和保质期是基于一次性实验室细菌测试和微生物模型的结果。可以理解的是，食品行业对产品的“生命周期”采取了一种故障安全政策，因为在产品的整个生命周期中，产品的处理方式存在多种变量。目前还没有商业上可用的技术来测量食品包装中的腐败，这意味着目前很少有技术主导的解决方案来解决和减少这一问题。鉴于英国50%的食物来自国外，减少食物浪费和更有效地管理资源对于建立一个有弹性的食物供应至关重要。黑熊公司制造新的化学传感器、电子产品和软件，帮助世界感知、理解和改进自己。在这个项目中，我们计划为鱼类和肉类产品开发超低成本的包装传感器，以减少浪费，防止变质食品引起的食源性疾病。该项目财团由三个合作伙伴组成：blackbear Ltd（业务领导），Imperial College（学术）和Coveris Flexibles Gainsborough Ltd（商业合作伙伴）。

Food waste is a huge problem. In the UK alone we throw away 7.3 million tonnes of food each year. This equates to £13 billion. 4.4 million tonnes of this wasted food mountain was perfectly edible.Reducing food waste, without any compromise to the safety of food, is a major commitment at the Food Standards Agency. Heather Hancock, Chairman of the Food Standards Agency has recently welcomed the publication of guidance on setting product shelf life, and explaining what factors affect the expiry date of a food product. This intervention by the FSA indicates their support and receptiveness to initiatives which prevent safe food from going to waste.Sell-by dates indicate when the supermarket should remove the food from sale. Use-by dates are added to perishable foods such as meat and fish to indicate that the food needs to be eaten by this date, as it could prove harmful to health past this date. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 covers the use of use-by dates. Most sell-by and use-by dates are based on the results of one-off laboratory bacteria tests and microbial modelling. The food industry has understandably adopted a fail-safe policy on product "life", due to the multiple variables on how the item will be handled through its life-cycle.There is no incumbent technology commercially available for measuring spoilage in food packaging, meaning that there are currently few technology-led solutions to tackle and reduce this problem. Given the fact that the UK sources 50% of its food from abroad, reducing food waste and managing resources more efficiently are of paramount importance for building a resilient food supply.BlakBear Ltd build new chemical sensors, electronics and software to help the world feel, understand and improve itself. In this project, we plan to develop ultra-low cost packaging sensors for fish and meat products, to reduce waste and prevent foodborne diseases arising from spoiled foods.The project consortium is made up of three partners: BlakBear Ltd (Business Lead), Imperial College (Academic) and Coveris Flexibles Gainsborough Ltd (Commercial Partner).