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

食品服务行业中的大多数食品都是包装出售的，以确保更长的保质期，防止食品被篡改，并限制易腐烂。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令人严重关切的问题，因为现有的方法，如有效期标签，不能考虑由于微生物污染而导致的食品变质。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，以保障消费者的福祉和减少食物浪费。这种开发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，并通过促进一种简单和低成本的方法克服了与食品包装行业采用技术相关的障碍。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，这些专利技术已被组合成原型传感器，该传感器目前正在受控环境舱中进行测试，以检测与目标污染物相关的不同化合物。进一步的研发研究正在探索中，以改进这种传感器。为了支持市场进入，还需要进行扩大生产试验。我们预计，评估将确定这项技术的商业化范围，并确定影响采用这项技术的因素、主要利益相关者和商业化合作伙伴，以及对识别微生物污染物的新方法的需求，以防止浪费和增加人们获得优质包装食品和产品的机会。

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.