End of the best before date? Food label made from gelatine becomes bumpy when meat is no longer safe to eat
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Use-by and sell-by dates have been heavily criticised for being inaccurate, especially when it comes to meat - resulting in tonnes of food being thrown away unnecessarily.
To solve this problem of wastage, a more accurate method has been devised by a student from London that uses food labels filled with gelatine.
The Bump Mark label is smooth to the touch to begin with, but as the food inside the packaging decays, the label becomes bumpy.
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The Bump Mark label (pictured) was designed by London student Solveiga Pakstaite for the James Dyson Award. It contains gelatine set over a plastic sheet and as the food begins to decay, so does the gelatine. When the gelatine decays it revels a bumpy layer. The smoother the gelatine, the safer the food is to eat
This means all anyone, including blind people, can quickly identify when food is safe to eat, and when it should be thrown away.
HOW DOES BUMP MARK WORK?
The Bump Mark label is filled with gelatine, set over a bumpy plastic sheet (pictured)
The Bump Mark label is filled with gelatine, set over a bumpy plastic sheet.
Because jelly is solid when it sets, the bumps cannot be felt at first, but as the gelatine decays, it becomes a liquid.
This means that the bumps underneath the plastic sheet can be felt, letting users know it has expired.
Gelatine is protein, so it decays at the same rate as protein-based foods.
The label simply copies what the food in the package is doing, so the expiry information is said to be far more accurate than a printed date.
Designer Solveiga Pakstatie is currently in discussions with retailers and technology development companies to sell the label, and has a patent pending for the design.
Bump Mark was invented for the James Dyson Award by Industrial Design and Technology student Solveiga Pakstaite from London's Brunel University.
'Using gelatine to model the decay process of food, Bump Mark is able to tell you exactly the condition your food is in, simply by running your finger over the label,' explained Pakstaite.
'If it's smooth, then you're good to go, but if you start to feels bumps as the gelatine breaks down, be cautious.'
Earlier this month, the UN food report stated 40 per cent of all the food produced in the US is never eaten, and in Europe, residents throw away 100 million tonnes of food every year.
Part of the issue was blamed on bad shopping habits and throwing away food even when it's safe to eat.
Pakstaite's label is filled with gelatine, set over a bumpy plastic sheet.
Because jelly is solid when it sets, the bumps cannot be felt at first, but as the gelatine decays, it becomes a liquid.
This means that the bumps underneath the plastic sheet can be felt, letting the user know it has expired.
Gelatine is protein, so it decays at the same rate as protein-based foods.
The label simply copies what the food in the package is doing, so the expiry information is said to be far more accurate than a printed date.
Gelatine is protein, so it decays at the same rate as protein-based foods.The label (pictured) copies what the food in the package is doing, so the expiry information is more accurate than a printed date. This means all users, including blind people, can quickly identify when food is safe to eat, and when it should be thrown away
'I wanted to create a solution for enabling visually impaired consumers to gain expiry information about their food, as currently the only indication is a printed date,' continued Pakstaite.
'From the start, I knew that the solution must appeal to sighted people also, because the sad reality is that new solutions only get implemented by companies if the benefits are useful to the majority.
'This is why I worked to create a cheap solution that could be applied to existing food packages and also provides information that even sighted people haven't had access to before: information about the actual condition of food.'
The label design went through more than 20 iterations, each of which were tested for user perception and technical performance.
This graphic reveals how the layer is created. Gelatine is solid when it sets, meaning the bumps cannot be felt at first, but as the gelatine decays, it becomes a liquid. This means that the bumps underneath the plastic sheet can be felt, letting users know it has expired
The technology is similar to patches unveiled earlier this year. These patches (pictured) contain gel that starts out red but changes colour over time, as its ingredients react with each other. The rate of the colour change corresponds with the speed of growth of the food poisoning bug E coli at different temperatures
Pakstaite is currently in discussions with retailers and technology development companies to sell the label, and has a patent pending for the design.
Her design recently won the Inclusive Design Award, awarded by Made in Brunel and sponsored by Crown Packaging.
Pakstaite was previously winner of the James Dyson Foundation scholarship at Brunel University.
The national winners of the James Dyson Awards will be announced on 18 September.
It is open to any university-level student of product design, industrial design or engineering studying across Europe, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the US.
Other finalists include a plant-powered radio and a rotating bed called Flipod.
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