Jenny Du

They're literally finger-shaped, and when you cut them open, the pulp is in the shape of beads like caviar.

They are delicious, and they're super fragrant.

But once they're picked, that grower had maybe about seven days before their organic limes would start to dry out and the skin would start to change color, and that was even with refrigeration.

So we took a test batch of material that we made using leftover tomato peels, since those are rich in these fatty acids and glycerides.

We dipped those limes in a bowl of these ingredients in water and set them aside to dry.

And then we waited.

And we saw that we could add an extra week of freshness to these limes.

And when we saw that for the first time, we were like, shut the front door.

Oh my God, this might actually work.

So we then went and wanted to apply this little bit of extra peel to all other kinds of fruits and vegetables.

Bananas, avocados, limes, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, berries, like you name it.

And what we saw amazed and, quite frankly, still amazes us.

This concept works for dozens of categories.

Things that need to ripen before you eat them, things that don't, things that have edible peels, non-edible peels,

We even saw that with protected blueberries, we could retain vitamin C levels at higher levels for longer than unprotected blueberries.

And tomatoes could be harvested later, not when they were green and tasteless, but when they were red and actually ripe, and they'd still have enough time to get into your homes.

And we love that it really takes so little material.

The little bit of extra peel we add to an average avocado, for example, that's equivalent in weight to a tenth of a small raisin.

And even though these materials are, of course, edible, you can wash them off by just rubbing under running water.

We also, the more that we learned about the fresh produce supply chain today, we realized we could integrate into how these are processed in these packing houses before they're sent to grocery stores.