Feb 7, 2012

New label dissolves and washes fruit at the same time

Every now and then, an idea comes along that’s so simple yet so radical you have to ask, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Scott Amron’s Vanishing Fruit Wash Labels might be just such an idea.

Amron is a master of the off-center revolutionary concept. A native of New York, he went to England to get his degree in electrical engineering.

“Nobody ever studies abroad to get a degree in electrical engineering,” he said. “I went over because Europe seemed interesting, and I was curious.”

That curiosity has led Amron into a full-time job as an innovator and inventor.

“I develop products for other companies, and I have a few startups myself,” he said. “One is coffee cups that ‘grow’ their own sleeves. When you pour hot coffee into them, you can see them grow a collar. The cups are coated with a heat expanding ink; the hot coffee triggers an endothermic reaction that causes the ink to swell and expand like a foam. It’s biodegradable and FDA approved.”

In the fruit industry, Amron has developed a new type of label that’s biodegradable, but in an entirely different way.

“I’ve always hated the plastic labels that come on fruit,” he said. “I didn’t know it, but recent press has shown that other people hate them, too. I just thought the labels should do something else besides convey information and be annoying to peel off and throw away.”

Amron started thinking about ways to have a label carry some sort of fruit wash along with it on the surface of the fruit.

“Originally, I had a blister that contained fruit wash,” he said. “But if two fruit banged together, the blister might leak.”

Then Amron thought about ways to integrate the fruit wash into the label, so that it wouldn’t be subject to damage during normal fruit handling.

“I realized that I could make the entire label dissolve, releasing liquid fruit wash as it did so,” he said.

From the time of that first “Eureka!” to the point that the label was ready for use, Amron said, was a couple of years. The process of developing the new label wasn’t simple.

“It was a long, drawn-out thing,” he said. “I knew I wanted the new label to help clean the fruit; it just seems silly to me that people buy an after-market fruit wash to clean their fruit or use soap and water, which is bad for the fruit.”

Although Amron hasn’t actively marketed the fruit label yet, word has leaked out, and a number of large growers are seriously interested in using it.

“They want to be the first to put our labels on their fruit,” he said. “They want to show their commitment to providing a clean product.”

Manufacturers are getting into the act as well.

“Some of the largest label printers in the world are looking to either partner with us, or work with us in some other way,” Amron said. “It’s really nice, because in my line of work sometimes it’s difficult to get industry to be receptive to what you’re doing. In this case, they’re actually coming to us and asking us what to do.”

Although Amron has no target release date, he believes printers will be able to start taking orders for the labels within the next six to nine months.

“We’re building our database and putting things together,” he said.

Lest growers think the labels might melt if they get the least bit of moisture on them, Amron said they aren’t that sensitive.

“They require a certain amount of mechanical agitation, which means you have to rub them,” he said. “That exposes the dissolvable components. We’re playing with the degree of required rubbing right now. We don’t want it to be too hard to rub so that it’s frustrating for the end user, but we don’t want it to be so soft that it breaks when fruit bump against each other.”

If the consumer doesn’t want to bother with washing a piece of fruit, or doesn’t have access to water, removing the labels is easy, Amron said. They use the same adhesive that existing fruit labels use, and can be peeled off in the same way.

“You can peel it off and throw it away just like you do any other label,” he said.

For more information, email Amron; or visit the website.

By Carolee Anita Boyles, FGN Correspondent