Indicators For Perishables
INDICATORS OF JP LABS FOR PERISHABLE AND PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
PERISHABLE INDUSTRY AND INDICATORS
Perishables, such as foods and pharmaceuticals have a limited shelf-life. They expire due to many parameters, such as time, temperature (including freezing and thawing), time-temperature, humidity and oxygen. Dr. Gordhan Patel, president of JP Labs is one of the early few pioneers of indicators for perishable industry. JP Labs has developed a complete package of color changing and self-reading intelligent indicators, such as temperature, time, time-temperature, freeze, thaw, and radiation indicators in form of labels/stickers for the perishable industry.
TIME-TEMPERATURE INDICATORS (TTI)
All foods and pharmaceuticals degrade faster at higher temperatures and slower at lower temperatures. Dr. Patel patented color developing solid state time-temperature indicators (TTI) based on the solid state polymerization of diacetylenes for monitoring shelf-life of perishable in 1976 (USP #3,999,936) which is the basis for time-temperature indicators of Temptime, Morris Plains, NJ. At JP Labs, we have developed several classes of TTI, such as color changing (e.g., two tapes, UV cured and diacetylene based), self-reading (e.g., Fresh/Not-fresh, based on the etching of metals) and paper thin moving boundary for monitoring the shelf life of perishables. Commercially available TTI devices have one more of the following drawbacks, e.g., require cold storage and shipment, sensitive to humidity and UV sensitivity, use of liquid or gels, bulky, complex designs and expensive. TTI of JPL have none of these drawbacks. Some of JPL’s TTI can be machine read (e.g., the appearance of barcode). The time for the service life of the TTIs can be varied from hours to years at room temperature or equivalent time at other temperatures (from minus 20 o C to 70 o C) and activation energy from 15 kcal/mole to 60 kcal/mole. Some patents are issued while others are pending. Current estimated market is about $40M/years and expected to grow at the rate of about 15%.
FREEZE INDICATORS
A large number of perishables, such as fresh produce/vegetables, flowers, fresh blood and many vaccines should not be frozen. During the winter in cold countries, these perishables can get frozen during shipment. Our indicator labels change from blue-to-red if the perishable is frozen.
THAW INDICATORS
A variety of frozen foods are used today. Many countries do not have a well-developed and reliable cold chain from manufacturers to consumers. Frozen foods can expire if they remain thawed for a prolonged period of time. There is no simple way to know if frozen food has been thawed and refrozen. JP Labs has developed color changing and self-reading indicators for monitoring the thawing of frozen foods. This is a huge untapped market.
HUMIDITY INDICATORS
The shelf-life of many moisture sensitive products such as dry foods (e.g., potato chips), electronics and pharmaceuticals shorten or become unusable if exposed to high humidity for a prolonged period of time. Our self-reading and color changing indicators monitor total exposure to humidity. The humidity indicators change color faster at higher humidity and higher temperature and vice versa.
RFID INDICATORS
RFID (Radio Frequency ID) devices are used for monitoring inventory. However, they do not monitor the shelf-life of perishables. By destroying or creating the antenna of RFID devices with parameters such as time, time-temperature and humidity, we monitor quality and inventory simultaneously. Upon expiration of shelf-life, the RFID device either becomes non-readable or readable depending upon the design of the RFID device.
PATENTS:
All these indicator products have one or more patents issued or pending in the USA and many industrialized countries such as Canada, Japan, China, Korea, Russia, India, and Europe.
MARKET:
The current market for these color changing and self-reading indicators, such as TTI, temperature, thaw, freeze, blood radiation and humidity for perishables and healthcare industries is very large (from about $100 to $300 million per year). Because of the quantity of perishables used worldwide, the potential market is much larger. These smart indicating devices can be manufactured using commercially available equipment. These labels cost less than a cent and are sold for five cents to a dollar per piece. These indicators save many lives and people can receive quality food. We offer essentially complete a package of smart indicators for perishable industry.
CONTACT:
For additional information, contact Dr. Gordhan Patel, gnpatel@jplabs.com, (1) 732 469 6670