Engineering news
Design and technology graduate Solveiga Pakstaite has won the James Dyson award, and £2,000 in prize money, for her innovative food labelling system - Bump Mark.
The gelatine-filled label lets consumers feel with the swipe of a finger exactly how fresh an item of food is.
The gelatine is set over a bumpy plastic sheet. If the label is smooth, the food is fresh. However, as the gelatine decays the bumps underneath can be felt, telling consumers the food is unsafe to eat.
Pakstaite said she chose to use gelatine as it is a protein and 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 going to be far more accurate than a printed date,” she explained.
Bump Mark labels can be adapted to match the expiry period of the food by altering the concentration of gelatine. The higher the concentration, the longer the gel will stay solid.
The design was inspired by her work on developing products to improve life for blind people. Pakstaite said: “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.
“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. ”
Pakstaite's design will also help to address food waste. Last year a report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers blamed use-by dates for the waste of edible food.
It found up to half the food we buy in supermarkets goes in the bin despite much of it being perfectly edible.
The report said: “There is confusion over labelling and sell-by dates, with many people opting to throw away perfectly good food.”
The Bump Mark will now progress to the international stage of the award as Pakstaite works on commercialising it. She is liaising with retailers and technology developers and applying for a patent.
The award is run by the James Dyson Foundation, a registered charity set up by the British inventor to support design, technology and engineering education.
This year's contest attracted more than 600 entries from 18 countries, spanning four continents. Other winners include the Japanese-designed Qolo, a vehicle for people with disabled lower limbs that allows them to move while both sitting down and standing up, and a device from Canada that can 3D print complex structures that mimic human skin.