Remember the batteries that would display a color indicating how much life was left in them? Wouldn't it be nice to have a similar indicator for food freshness—without the peril of having to smell or taste something unpleasant?
Based in Minneapolis since 2005, It'sFresh! offers a line of products designed to help consumers and retailers determine whether their food is as it should be. The company's consumer line consists of adhesive food freshness indicators, dual-purpose food storage bags, and food-storage containers.
The containers detect gases that foods emit when they're no longer fresh, turning from pink to yellow after about eight hours to inform consumers when food has gone bad. For distributors and retailers, It'sFresh! features the TT Sensor(tm), a time and temperature indicator that can be applied to food products to indicate their freshness. The TT Sensor acts as a countdown clock that starts once the sensor is activated. When the color of the sensor reaches pink, that means the product has gone past its freshness date.
"It empowers the consumer," says Greg Pavett, president of It'sFresh!. "The idea is to create technology that works, but is easy to use."
If it sounds like magic, it's actually the product of five years of intense research, says Pavett, who worked on it with his technical partner, Johnson Matthey Plc. The company has launched a Web site designed to educate businesses and consumers about easy-to-use solutions to help them keep their fridge stocked with only the freshest food.
Products from It'sFresh! are already available in such international markets as Japan and the United Kingdom, with North American rollout plans in development.
"Demonstrations are the most fun," Pavett says. "People bring food over and we try it out for them. We get a lot of people elbowing their spouses and saying, 'I told you we shouldn't have given this to the kids'."
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It'sFresh! for more information.
