Trace on: Biodegradable sensors monitor food status in real-time

What began as a concern for a young woman from a small coastal town, witnessing producers' struggles to preserve and market their goods, has blossomed into Trace on. This innovative project utilizes biodegradable sensors designed to monitor the real-time condition of food during its distribution.

Trace on, a winner of the National Entrepreneurship Competition hosted by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (Mescyt), seeks to develop sensors that can be integrated into any packaging for sensitive products like food. These sensors would provide continuous updates on the product's state, addressing issues like meat spoilage or fruit ripening without constant manual checks.

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That worried me as a young person, because I knew those people, I knew the effort of those people, who were losing their sustainability.

"The most innovative aspect of our idea is that there is nothing on the market that provides you with an update every minute, every second, of the current state of that food," explained César Peña, a Chemical Engineering student and part of the Trace on team. The sensors offer a significant advantage by enabling rapid assessment of product conditions, facilitating informed decisions about distribution routes or even halting shipments to prevent losses.

The technology is particularly suited for products like dairy, meat, and fish. The team's primary goal is to establish a laboratory for manufacturing these smart labels. Trace on functions as an intelligent tag with pre-defined analyzers that collect data at set intervals. This information is then sent to a platform for analysis, helping companies make crucial decisions. Beyond just location tracking, the sensors will reveal the conditions throughout the product's journey, pinpointing when and why spoilage occurred, thus preventing entire shipments from being rejected.

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The most innovative aspect of our idea is that there is nothing on the market that provides you with an update every minute, every second, of the current state of that food.