This week, the Santa Barbara–based agricultural technology firm Apeel Sciences officially released its product Edipeel, a natural, plant-based, and edible coating that can double the shelf life of avocados and many other types of produce even without refrigeration. The product, which is available for both certified organic and conventional farmers, is aimed to make the global food network more sustainable by fighting food waste and allowing fresh produce to reach markets more safely.
“We’re using food to protect other foods by applying materials science in a thoughtful way,” Apeel’s CEO, James Rogers, told the Independent in this article from 2016. “We’re not making something that nature has never seen before. We’re just moving it around.”
On Monday, the company also announced that it has moved into a new 105,000-square-foot facility in Goleta — 10 times the size of the original headquarters on Santa Barbara’s Eastside — and that they’ve doubled the staff to more than 80 employees, and are on the hunt for more.