A fresh approach to food safety
In a laboratory in the University’s Kelvin Building, two scientists have been cooking up a plan to make packaged food safer for consumers and increase its shelf-life.
Dr Declan Diver and Dr Hugh Potts from the School of Physics & Astronomy have devised a way to reduce food-spoilage organisms such as mould and germs by temporarily rearranging the molecular bonds of the oxygen trapped inside food packaging.
After months of testing at some of the UK’s top food safety laboratories, their invention is ready to be brought to market via a spinout company called Anacail.
The power of ozone
The revolutionary product takes the form of a portable device which is briefly applied to the outside surface of plastic or glass food packaging.
‘The device generates a plasma, which splits the bonds between oxygen molecules, or O2, inside the packaging,’ explains Dr Diver. ‘The oxygen reforms as ozone, or O3, which is a powerful germicide, even more powerful than chlorine. It’s very effective in getting rid of any mould, fungi or bacteria which may be lingering on the food surface. Our testing has shown the ozone treatment produces a major reduction in the presence of many pathogens and spoilage organisms in poultry including Campylobacter, Pseudomonas, and E.coli. ’
‘The ozone naturally decays back to its original state after just a couple of hours, leaving the contents of the packaging with a much lower bacterial count, making it safer to eat. There is no chemical residue on the food because all that has been used to treat it is the oxygen it was packaged with.’
Reducing waste
But the system isn’t just very efficient at killing germs – it could also have a positive impact on the environment. Seven million tonnes of food is wasted in the UK each year.
‘The ozone treatment extends the shelf life of many foods by at least one day, and significantly more than that in some types of food, such as bread and muffins’, says Dr Potts. ‘Households and businesses across the UK create more than seven million tonnes of food waste each year, much of it because the food has passed its use-by date.
‘Making food last longer on the shelf and in the home could go a long way to helping reduce the amount of waste we create. The average household throws out £480 of food every year, so it could also save us all quite a bit of money.’
A safe solution
Anacail, which means ‘protect’ or ‘shield’ in Gaelic, was founded in January 2011. The company’s push into commercialisation is being led by Dr Ian Muirhead. He has helped raise £750,000 in seed funding from leading technology commercialisation company, IP Group, and the Scottish Investment Bank, a division of Scottish Enterprise.
According to Dr Muirhead, there’s a lot of exciting aspects to the product, which should make it appealing to industry. ‘It’s easy to use and very safe – you can touch the plasma head while it’s switched on without any danger. It works with today’s food packaging, so most companies would need to make only limited changes to their production line. Perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t require any chemical additives – the sterilisation effect comes directly from oxygen already in the package which is treated by our plasma head. That means users won’t have to concern themselves with the storage and handling of chemicals to make their food safe.
‘Although it’s true that ozone can be harmful to humans, it has a very limited lifespan before it returns to oxygen and it doesn’t leave behind any dangerous residues so it’s perfectly safe to use in food decontamination. It’s a very effective way to destroy or inhibit the growth of bacteria and viruses.
‘We have a number of manufacturing trials about to commence,’ he says, ‘however we’re currently seeking manufacturing partners in additional food types to evaluate the technology.’
Although the team are initially focusing on promoting their product to the food industry, the product has potential applications for other sectors which require sterilised equipment.
‘The process could easily be adapted to allow manufacturers of dental or medical equipment to sterilise their products, and we’ll definitely be looking more closely at expanding into those areas in the future. It’s possible to imagine handheld versions of the device becoming available for home use, too.’
Find out more
- Anacail, visit www.anacail.com
- Dr Declan Diver
- Dr Hugh E Potts