BANNER ELK — Greenlife Tech Corporation, dependent in Banner Elk, obtained a Little Business enterprise Innovation Investigation grant from the Environmental Security Company to aid the enhancement of its automatic foods preservation program.
Bruce Roesner, president of Greenlife Tech, claimed the grant is just about $98,000 and will go toward acquiring and creating his FreshDefend solution aimed at cutting down foodstuff squander.
The unit is a countertop container which attracts out oxygen in buy to keep foodstuff fresh new and lessen food stuff squander, Roesner stated.
“I obtained the plan about two many years in the past. I was tired of seeing my spouse toss wine out, to be genuine — she’d open a bottle, have a glass, probably a glass the future day, and then the bottle obtained tossed,” Roesner explained.
He claimed he researched and found that oxygen is what can make wine start off to style undesirable, and he obtained to work producing a unit that will displace oxygen and maintain products clean for longer.
Just after about six months of prototyping, Roesner stated he landed on a style and design that worked properly and submitted some patents of his engineering. Meanwhile, he started to elevate revenue and appear for buyers.
The FreshDefend gadget is a countertop container that does not involve refrigeration or any chemical compounds. In accordance to Roesner, it can lengthen the shelf lifetime of refreshing generate fivefold.
Greenlife Tech Company has partnered with Enventys Associates, a company based mostly in Charlotte.
“They favored our technologies and agreed to just take on our product or service development for us, and basically are taking element of their service fees in stock in the business, which is really strange for them, or any person else for that matter” Roesner claimed.
By Nov. 18, Roesner mentioned he experienced lifted $293,000 through crowdsourcing for his FreshDefend, and not even a 7 days later on he received the EPA grant for $98,000.
“We’re actually form of shocked we bought this EPA grant,” Roesner mentioned. As a 1st-time applicant, Roesner explained he knew the likelihood of getting the grant was reduced. With the income, he claimed Greenlife Tech is seeking forward to establishing, prototyping and producing its FreshDefend item.
This is not Roesner’s initially working experience with a startup business. Prior to Greenlife Tech, Roesner participated in a few other startups in the technologies sector and has raised thousands and thousands of bucks by way of enterprise capitalists.
Roesner explained he carries on to appear for new thoughts for his business. This 12 months, Greenlife Tech Company sponsored an applied design course at App State where by learners ended up creating items. A single of the group projects was equivalent to one particular of Roesner’s fascination locations, and Roesner mentioned that he and the college students are in the system of making use of for a few of patents.
Output for Greenlife Tech’s patent-pending food items preservation process will commence around August 2022, Roesner reported.
Going forward, Roesner claimed he will look for a wide variety of traders and is thinking about solution crowdsourcing, like Kickstarter, where providers pre-provide their merchandise. The 1st massive drive for fundraising will be at the commence of the new yr in January and February.
Like quite a few other businesses, Roenser claimed he much too is having difficulties with provide chain issues and the growing selling prices of elements, but he is devoted to holding the selling price stage for his solution at $199.
“We are also performing on some other SBIR contracts as a result of the USDA and other folks, the place we hope to expand our products extra into the professional line for in all what I’ll say is pre grocery keep or heading into the grocery retail store more substantial containers and so on,” Roesner reported.
To master far more about the FreshDefend and Greenlife Tech Corporation, click to greenlifetech.com.
Marisa Mecke is a Report for The usa corps member for Mountain Moments Publications. Report for America is a national nonprofit assistance program which sites journalists in local newsrooms to report on under included difficulties.
