Reducing Fresh Food Loss with An Edible Coating Technology Derived from Seaweed: Application, Technoeconomic, And Environmental Analyses

An edible coating biopolymer-composite was created with a seaweed extract derived from farmed sugar kelp using a green biorefinery approach. Its potential to reduce food loss was holistically evaluated via food and material testing, technoeconomic analysis (TEA), and life cycle assessment (LCA). An electrospray coating method dramatically improved material pickup and drying metrics. This coating applied by electrospraying significantly reduced desiccation ( p  < 0.01) and fungal incidence ( p  < 0.01) in strawberries over 18 days in real-time shelf-life testing. Moreover, TEA revealed that coating could be cost viably manufactured in a 1 ton/h feed rate biorefinery with a minimum selling price of $0.25/kg. LCA estimated 21% reduction in greenhouse gas potential from environmentally sustainable manufacturing of the coating and food loss reduction resulting from coating strawberries, in the farm to end-of-life scenario. Together the findings offer the technical, economic, and environmental bases to evaluate commercialization of a novel seaweed derived food technology in reducing food loss in fresh produce