Fremont, Calif. – July 15, 2010 – Purfresh, a provider of clean technologies that purify, protect, and preserve our food and water, today announced its support of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Specialty Crop Research Initiative. The company is backing the project, titled Increasing Consumption of Specialty Crops by Enhancing Quality and Safety, through a donation of equipment, software technology, and technical expertise. The project, lead by the University of California, Davis and the University of Florida with collaboration by USDA ARS, aims to help producers of fresh fruits and vegetables remove post-harvest impediments that are keeping consistently great tasting produce from being marketed. The goal of the project is to show how fresh fruits and vegetables with enhanced flavor can be successfully handled, without compromising food safety, so as to improve consumer satisfaction and thereby change their buying habits to increase consumption.
In support of the program, Purfresh has installed a Purfresh® Cold Storage system, equipped with Intellipur® informatics software, as well as lab equipment at the University of California, Davis. In addition to donating the Purfresh Cold Storage system, Purfresh will donate up to five Purfresh Transport systems, and contribute technical support for the three-year project in order to demonstrate how new technologies can help deliver fresher and better tasting fresh produce to consumers without the use of traditional chemicals.
“Picking fruit when it has fully matured can lead to decay and over ripening by the time it reaches the consumer. Researchers are looking for new technologies to help delay harvest—to deliver riper, better tasting fruit to consumers without decay,” said Mr. Andy Smith, vice president of products for Purfresh. “Purfresh Cold Storage, Purfresh Transport, and Intellipur are innovative new solutions that are designed to combat these problems. We feel our technologies and technical expertise, will prove to be highly valuable for this project and are honored to be supporting these efforts.”
The rationale behind the project is that improved flavor will influence consumer purchase decisions to significantly increase consumption. The project team is taking a cross-disciplinary, systems approach by assessing consumer preferences, evaluating produce handling and quality changes, using the information during distribution, and developing and testing new technologies and procedures in real commercial conditions with industry collaborators. This project will demonstrate an approach that can be used to improve the total product quality of fruits and vegetables.
Used by growers, packers, and shippers around the globe, Purfresh Cold Storage and Purfresh Transport have been scientifically engineered to continuously deliver low concentration doses of ozone into refrigerated environments, providing superior protection while leaving the product’s taste, texture, and smell characteristics in their natural state. The systems are approved by the USDA and FDA and are certified for use with organic produce by the USDA, and can easily be integrated into existing refrigeration equipment in cold storage rooms and shipping containers, respectively. The systems are equipped with Purfresh’s Intellipur online informatics—a powerful information service that includes environmental sensing, web-based monitoring, alerting, data reporting, and analysis along with remote control and diagnostics.
Source: Purfresh Inc.