UB spin-off ColorSensing wins the Senén Vilaró Award for its smart packaging solution to reduce food waste
ColorSensing, a spin-off of the University of Barcelona (UB), has won the Senén Vilaró award from the Social Council of the UB and the Fundació Bosch i Gimpera for the best innovative company. Created in 2018 by Dr. Daniel Prades of the Faculty of Physics and María Eugenia Martín, CEO of the spin-off, ColorSensing helps manufacturers and distributors of packaged food to reduce food waste through a quality control and food safety tool that improves their profitability.
The solution offered by ColorSensing consists of a smart label that is placed on the trays of food products and allows three key aspects to be checked: the quality of the online packaging in a non-destructive way (without having to perforate the package to verify its good condition); to examine whether the cold chain has been broken; and the actual freshness of the product at any time during its shelf life and at any point in the supply chain.
This helps to ensure the quality and food safety of your products by avoiding returns and extending the expiration date by reducing uncertainty. At the same time, control costs are reduced thanks to its automation; it is estimated that manufacturers and retailers of packaged products that have the ColorSensing solution can increase their profitability by 15%.
The jury has valued very positively all the achievements of ColorSensing: from the protection of the intellectual property of the technology through the patent granted in the United States and Europe; the financing of 1.3 M€ obtained from both public and private funds; the consolidated technical team; the prototypes of smart labels developed and the pilot tests in companies; the alliances with potential customers and multiple recognitions, etc. All these factors make the company face a very promising future and make ColorSensing worthy of the Senén Vilaró 2022 award.