This Invisible Coating Makes Avocados Last Longer

A day or two can make all the difference — especially if you’re an avocado. 

According to the Department of Agriculture, between 30% and 40% of the food supply in the U.S. is wasted. Much of that waste is due to spoilage — i.e., your food going bad before you get to enjoy it. But that could all change if Apeel has anything to say about it. 

You’ve likely never heard of Apeel, but you’ve seen it in action. That’s by design. The California-based company’s mission is to reduce food waste by ensuring produce like avocados, oranges, lemons, apples, mangoes, and cucumbers stays fresh longer in grocery stores worldwide. The solution? An innovative, invisible, edible, protective coating you’re never meant to see or taste. 

Apeel’s Edipeel coating, which is used for conventional produce, is made of plant-based monoglycerides and diglycerides, the fatty acid chains commonly found in edible plant oils like olive oil. Organipeel, its coating for organic produce, also uses citric acid and baking soda. “Apeel didn’t create these ingredients,” says chemist Jenny Du, cofounder of Apeel. “These are existing ingredients in our foods. All we did was use them in a different way.” And yes, Edipeel and Organipeel are safe to eat and, in fact, intended to be eaten, but you can easily wash them off.

According to Du, the company’s chemists and engineers took these naturally occurring ingredients and created an unimaginably thin coating that protects produce from spoiling by reducing water loss and exposure to oxygen. “We use very, very small amounts,” Du says, noting the amount of product used on an average avocado (200 grams) is equivalent in weight to a tenth of a small raisin (20–22 milligrams). 

As for just how impactful this invisible coating is, Du says it can help avocados stay at peak ripeness for an additional three to four days, ensuring you have plenty of time to make that guacamole. And those days add up. In the four years since the company started keeping track, Apeel has helped divert about 166 million pieces of produce from going to waste, helped conserve 1.8 billion gallons of water, and kept more than 64 million pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. 

The beauty of Apeel’s solution is its simplicity. The company has reworked what Mother Nature already provided to keep fruits and vegetables fresh without overhauling a single piece of the supply chain. As Du adds, “It’s plants helping plants.” 

Editor’s Note: Apeel, the produce coating, should not be confused with the cleaning solution of the same name manufactured by a United Kingdom–based company. The identical names resulted in rumors — since debunked — that the produce coating was unsafe to consume.