At BlakBear, we’re pioneering smart label technology and real-time food spoilage sensors to transform how food freshness is measured across the cold chain. Our sensor technology, validated by labs like Campden BRI, provides a digital, pack-level and low-cost solution for food waste reduction, shelf-life testing and quality control.

Before BlakBear, our founders were researchers at Imperial College London, working in the Güder Research Group. There, they developed a new way to detect food spoilage gases using paper-based electrical sensors – a highly sensitive, low-cost technology that could tell you when food is fresh (or not), without relying on expiry dates. That research turned into a peer-reviewed scientific paper published in ACS Sensors, one of the world’s top journals in the field and became highly cited. The paper was picked up by media around the world and sparked serious interest from food companies facing the global challenge of food waste.

This was the signal the founders needed. So they dropped everything to focus on this full-time, building smart labels and software for the food industry, tell you how fresh food really is.

Their core belief is what powers BlakBear – that the existing system of printed expiry dates on food cannot last. Most food is still good to eat or cook at the expiry date, but is wasted unnecessarily. Instead of a fixed date, food should tell you how fresh it is.

Read the original paper here:

Cellulose Fibers Enable Near-Zero-Cost Electrical Sensing of Water-Soluble Gases