Akorn Technology focused on stemming post-harvest losses
Akorn Technology focused on stemming post-harvest losses
Akorn Technology Inc., an innovator in sustainable post-harvest solutions, has been named as a finalist for the prestigious 2025 FoodTech Challenge — a United Arab Emirates-based competition that brings together pioneering food and agriculture startups — for proposals to help small growers combat significant post-harvest losses and cold chain problems.
Currently in its final stages, the FoodTech Challenge focuses on identifying and scaling agri-food technologies capable of transforming arid, hot and increasingly challenging environments.
As revealed at the Clinton Global Initiative 2025 Global Meeting, which took place at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the 10 FoodTech finalists were selected from 42 semifinalists drawn from 1,215 submissions from 113 countries.
“We’re honored to be recognized as a finalist for the FoodTech Challenge,” said Anthony Zografos, CEO of Akorn. “Akorn’s mission is to create practical, nature-based solutions that make fresh produce last longer without relying on chemicals and single-use plastics. Being part of this initiative validates the global importance of our mission and serves as one more testimonial to the groundbreaking nature of our technology platform.
Up to 30 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables are lost after harvest, with smallholder farmers in the global south particularly affected. Reducing these losses with post-harvest treatments is essential to improving farmer livelihoods and ensuring year-round global access to healthy, nutritious produce.
The post-harvest sector has long been dominated by chemical-based solutions that, while effective, are increasingly at odds with tightening global regulations and consumer demand for clean-label, chemical-free food. In contrast, newer entrants have focused on “natural” solutions that often proved too costly, impractical, or ineffective at scale and ultimately failed. Major retailers such as Walmart and Whole Foods have recently instituted wide-reaching chemical bans which are now reverberating through the global supply chain.
Akorn is looking to bridge this gap. Its innovative products combine natural ingredients with proven performance — delivering solutions that are effective, easy to use and cost-competitive, without the addition of synthetic chemicals. Akorn’s solutions represent a new era in post-harvest protection: appealing to consumers, sustainable for the planet and profitable for growers.
“Our patented technology enables us to extract valuable compounds from agricultural byproducts and transform them into powerful, natural solutions capable of reducing post-harvest losses by up to 50 percent,” said Zografos. “We have already demonstrated the effectiveness of our technology on crops such as mangoes, stone fruit, pome fruit, sweet potatoes and more.
