1 Beavers St.
Newnan, GA 30263
Product Info
Fresh Produce Sustainability Challenge
Getting food to our tables uses 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, 50 percent of U.S. land, and swallows 80 percent of freshwater consumed in the United States. Globally, about one-third of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste. Each time food is wasted all the resources that went into producing, processing, packaging, and transporting that food is wasted too. This means the chemicals, energy, fertilizer, land and freshwater used to produce food is wasted. Additionally, wasted food rots in landfills where it accounts for almost 25% of U.S. methane emissions. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is 21 times more harmful to the environment than CO2. Collectively, food spoilage organisms, human pathogens, and mycotoxin producing organisms represent huge, but preventable, losses to global food production systems.
Who is FoodDefend® LLC and why FruitGard®
One-third of food produced around the world, approximately 1.3 billion tons, is lost before it can be consumed and, at the same time, close to one billion people go undernourished or have limited access to safe food. Fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food. FoodDefend® LLC was formed to bring intervention experience and new solutions to address this challenge. At its core is FruitGard® technology – a novel food intervention product mix that provides business, consumers and global communities longer-lasting, better quality, safe and secure food.
Who Uses It
Where can you use FruitGard®
FruitGard® products can be deployed from farm to fork with proven scalability and safety for use in
- Packing houses
- Grain bins
- Cold or MAP storage rooms
- Shipping containers
- Retail and fresh-cut processing facilities
The unique fumigant functionality and an array of product formats make FruitGard® a robust and cost-effective option for growers, shippers, processors and retailers seeking methods to improve profitability/sustainability by reducing shrink or looking for new opportunities to increase the safety of their products. FruitGard® is currently registered by US EPA for the treatment of potatoes and has an FDA food contact notification for the treatment of all processed fruits and vegetables.
How It’s Used
How does FruitGard® work?
FruitGard® has the potential to treat any fresh produce item and grain type; extending shelf life and/or increasing food safety (as defined by reduced pathogen levels or microbial by-products like aflatoxins) often in a single intervention. FruitGard® technology is uniquely designed for controlled release of dry chlorine dioxide fumigant; a valuable antimicrobial with no known organism resistance issues.
As a produce fumigant, FruitGard®, without leaving harmful residue, effectively condenses on
- Produce surfaces
- Uniquely penetrating blemishes
- Small wounds
- Stem scars
This behavior provides superior antimicrobial outcomes when compared to more traditional liquid washing interventions. FruitGard® interventions can be used alone or in a combination of other interventions like fungicides and MAP gases.
