Now you will be able to use a machine to tell how ripe the fruit is.
Three of the UK’s biggest retailers are planning to incorporate scanners that predict the shelf life to within a day.
Customers will only have to pick an item and put it under a machine that scans it through an infrared beam.
In under a second, a screen above will flash up with a score out of 100 and estimate the number of days until it goes off.
The ‘ripeness checker’ will be used for soft, exotic, and stone fruit and vegetables.
Dutch company OneThird has stated that this invention will prevent massive food wastage that costs retailers and consumers billions of pounds every year all over the world.
The machine employs infrared to scan the product on a molecular level, for example, its water, sugar, and starch content.
The accuracy of the machine – which is expected to be able to predict the shelf life of ten fruit and vegetables by the end of the year – depends on what is being tested.
For avocados, a score will appear on the screen from zero to 100 – ones scoring more than 70 are likely to go off in four to five days for example, and those in the mid-range around two to three days.
For strawberries, however, the machine will narrow its estimate down to a day.
The device is ready to work with avocados, tomatoes, strawberries, and blueberries. By the end of 2023, the company is extending it to grapes, bananas, mangoes, and raspberries.
At the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mr. Snikkers said: ‘The astronomical volume of food that goes to waste each year is heartbreaking, particularly since so much is wasted in affluent countries.”
‘We’ve worked hard to create technology that helps to address this persistent, global challenge which directly impacts food scarcity.’