Ideal for seeds, spices, nuts
Consumers suffer from a food safety and knowledge gap when it comes to eating raw food.
They don’t know it could hurt them.
It’s a gap that the start-up company Agri-Neo wants to fill.
Agri-Neo believes that processors and consumers will soon want guarantees that raw grains are as safe as cooked food.
“Anything that’s on there can make you sick,” said Agri-Neo president Rob Wong, who was promoting his company’s product, Neo-Pure, at the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance’s annual convention Nov. 18.
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Neo-Pure is a sanitizer that kills microscopic pathogens that can cause food poisoning.
Most pathogens are killed when food is cooked, but raw food, such as hemp and other seeds and salad ingredients, aren’t heat-treated.
Wong said most consumers don’t realize how dangerous raw foods can be.
“What we saw is a lot of issue with respect to potential contamination by bacteria and fungi that could be harmful if people ate it,” he said.
Neo-Pure is made from natural ingredients that are refined into a powder and mixed with water. The solution is then sprayed onto seeds as a mist.
Wong said the product kills pathogens on the surface and inside the seed, making it safe to eat.
“Once it does that, it biodegrades right away, which is obviously very important. You don’t want to leave any residues on your food product,” said Wong.
The company has tested the product on “hundreds of tonnes” of pathogen-laden hemp seed and returned it to food-grade status.
Wong said his company thinks it would be as effective for any raw seed products, such as chia, flax, spices and nuts.
Wong and Agri-Neo chief executive officer Nick Dillon also attended the recent Agri Innovation Forum in Winnipeg to pitch their company to venture capitalists.
They were looking for $2 to $3 million to commercialize Neo-Pure and research two other products: Neo-X, a biopesticide designed to replace synthetic pesticides, and Neo-Boost, a bio-fungicide.
Wong said Neo-Pure is well positioned to sell to healthy food and ethnic markets because it is organic, halal, kosher and hazard analysis and critical control points certified and leaves no residue.
