Wellington
I’m always a bit of a sucker for innovations and improvements that add value to our biologicalindustries.
After all, as a country we’d be fools not to play to our major strength in producing food andfibre.
An innovation’s appeal is also greatly increased when it solves a problem – and in thisparticular case it is instantly identifying the presence of bacteria in food products.
It’s one reason I’m keen on seeing
The Christchurch based startup has proven its ultraviolet light and florescence readingtechnology to detect (usually faecal) contamination on meat carcasses – working with ANZCO toprove its concept. (Bacteria emit back a slightly different wavelength of light – a cleveralgorithm can interpret the mass of light information obtained from a scanner, showing whetherbacteria are present).
Particularly with fresh, chilled meat, bacterial spoilage is a major challenge on what isessentially a sterile product as the animal’s pelt is pulled off. The United States (with otherssure to follow) has a Zero Faecal Tolerance on its importing borders, and detecting and remedyingbacterially compromised meat is a multi-million dollar problem for the meat industry.
The current bacterial detection method is to take selected swabs from the carcass and meat plantsurfaces, and grow these swabs on petrie dishes over three days.
As you can imagine, such a method is pretty hit and miss, and even with hygiene standards thatmatch hospital operating theatres, meat companies find it difficult to detect and remedy bacterialcontamination.
Hence, the potential attractiveness of a real-time, non-contact bacteria detector.
Not only can it assess all of a carcass (compared to selected swabs), but surfaces can bemonitored as well. Remedying contamination is also, obviously, much quicker and easier.
Having proven its concept, Veritide’s looking to finish its prototype development and testingbefore the end of the year, and then take a sellable portable device to market. From that point ofview, it is building on the initial investment made by Endeavour i-cap, Ngai Tahu Equities andPowerhouse Ventures.
While its initial target is the meat industry, it is a disruptive technology which has thepotential to be a game changer within the meat and wider food industries. Apparently (thoughthat’s always difficult to believe), there’s little competition from a real-time non-contactpoint of view.
Poultry and shellfish share exactly the same bacterial detection and mitigation problems – forwhich an instant ID would also be heaven sent.
So, as said at the beginning of this blog, Veritide solves a problem in our biological industries– it doesn’t have to go hunting for a market; there’s an obvious need. Compared to many otherinnovations it is what it commonly referred to as a no-brainer.
And, to mangle a metaphor…..the world’s their oyster.