Prism helps restaurants reduce food waste with innovative preservation technology

While there are ways to extend the shelf life of bulk produce moving through the supply chain, from cold plasma and refrigerated storage to edible coatings, there are few options once the produce arrives at a restaurant's back door, according to the founders of Utah-based startup Prism.

Hunter Lindsay and Jacob Zundel of Prism, one of six grant recipients funded through the new ReFED Catalytic Grant Fund designed to address restaurant food waste, say innovation tends to stop there.

We often think of restaurant waste as food left on customers' plates, but Prism, a startup out of a business accelerator at Brigham Young University, targets food that goes bad before chefs even get to use it.

While better inventory management can minimize this, Lindsay says restaurants will always waste some unused ingredients because they can't predict with laser precision what customers will order on any given day, so they need to keep some supplies on hand. [so they can offer every dish on the menu].

After surveying hundreds of Utah restaurants, Lindey and Zundel found that many were dealing with the problem by relying on frequent shipments from suppliers to ensure they always had what they needed, a costly and carbon-intensive approach.

Lindsay said, “When we tell them about food waste, they say, 'Oh, it's not a big deal,' but then they realize their solution is to contact US Foods or Sysco and get daily or every-other-day deliveries. If they can cut deliveries to weekly or every-other-weekly, they can save money and reduce their carbon footprint.”

Our hope is to address pre-consumer food waste, reduce costs for restaurants, and reduce food waste and its associated carbon impact. Hunter Lindsay, Co-Founder, Prism

Image credit: Prism shelf life increased by 2-3 times

Prism's patent-pending solution is a controlled atmosphere container that can be stored in a restaurant's walk-in refrigerator, allowing restaurateurs to extend the shelf life of produce, reduce waste and reduce the number of fresh food deliveries made per week.

Lindsay says, “I can't go into too much detail about the technology itself just yet – we've only just filed a provisional patent and are also currently applying for a utility patent – but we've developed a device that uses different atmospheric conditions to put produce to sleep. By miniaturizing the industrial technology and putting it inside a container, we can make fruits and vegetables last two to three times longer, and in some cases more than eight times longer.”

While Seattle-based startup Ripelocker creates a near-vacuum inside large drums designed to transport produce in bulk through the supply chain, Prisms' containers remain at one atmosphere of pressure, swapping in and out different gases just like large warehouses would, he claims.

In a restaurant, it's not practical to connect the carbon dioxide and nitrogen and remove the oxygen like in an industrial environment, so we developed a way to extract all the different atmospheric conditions from the air. Each device has technology that separates these different gases and places them in the right amounts within a small space. [container].

Our technology is in the white part underneath the container – that's where the magic happens: Once you put your produce in and close the lid, the air inside is constantly monitored and optimized for each type of produce.

When filling the container, you can specify the type of fruit or vegetable you have in the container in the app and adjust the settings remotely over Wi-Fi. If you don't want to use the app, you can use the dial on the container itself to sort your fruits and vegetables into five categories and choose the one that best suits the fruit or vegetable you have in the container.

Prism also has technology that can “remove ethylene” [a substance naturally produced by plants that triggers ripening] Capture biomolecules and other molecules from the air without the need for replacement parts [eg. without needing ethylene scrubbers such as 1-MCP, activated charcoal etc]”The air passes through a chamber that uses specific wavelengths of light to break down the ethylene,” Lindsay claims.

He adds: “We have gas filtration technology and light-based ethylene decomposition technology. In addition to these two technologies, we also have a humidification system and a set of sensors that measure different elements. All these components together make up Prism.”

Restaurants have low profit margins, labor-constrained resources, and other challenges that make reducing food waste costly, inconvenient, and inaccessible for most restaurants. The goal of this Catalytic Grant Fund call is to help restaurants access more sustainable, climate-friendly solutions while still providing a unique dining experience. Angel Veza, Senior Manager of Capital, Innovation, and Engagement at ReFED

Our hope is to address pre-consumer food waste, reduce costs for restaurants, and reduce food waste and the carbon impact that comes with it. Hunter Lindsay, Co-Founder of Prism Business Model

As for the business model, Lindsay says Prism is looking at a model where restaurants can buy or lease the bins. They're currently testing them with restaurants, and the retail price will be $700-$800 per bin. They're still testing the lifespan, but they don't want to ask customers to maintain them, so they buy them once and they'll last a long time.

Our model predicts that a small to mid-sized restaurant implementing the five-bin system could recoup or save $2,500 within one year through reduced shipping frequency and reduced food waste.

As for the feedback from restaurateurs Prism has spoken to, Lindsay maintains it has been fairly positive, as this is an untapped market segment: there are plenty of solutions for industrial-scale applications, from sprays to controlled atmospheres, but nothing really targeted specifically at restaurants and potential end consumers.

So far, Prism has received funding through a variety of grants, but is now looking to raise capital to help commercialize the technology, said Lindsay, who will graduate in December 2023 as a molecular biology major, and Zundel, who will graduate in April 2024 as an entrepreneurial management major.

We've been talking to a few different manufacturing partners and we believe we can start production fairly quickly because we've tested and validated the system on a small scale. We've been doing prototype testing for six to eight months with a variety of produce types.

The latest grant recipients to receive funding through the ReFED Catalyst Grant Fund include:

Afterlife Ag: Provides a circular solution that allows restaurants to keep food waste out of landfills and buy mushrooms grown from food that would otherwise be discarded. Center for EcoTechnology (CET): Provides technical assistance to food businesses on reducing, recovering and recycling food waste. ConnectedFresh Company: Uses sensors and AI to help restaurants manage inventory and track waste. Food Rescue US: Facilitates food donations for restaurants via an app. Green Dining Alliance: Helps restaurants implement and track food waste reduction strategies. Prism: Develops a storage system for restaurants that uses controlled atmospheres to extend the life of fresh produce.

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