Figura Analytics

Today at least two-thirds of the global population, over 4 billion people, live with severe water scarcity for at least one month every year, according to a major new analysis by the Twente Water Centre. Companies that heavily rely in water for their products or services are constantly encouraged to implement solutions that can address the reduction of water wastage whenever possible.

This drives the development of new technologies that can offer such solutions. Our proposition here is to develop a low-cost technology that can be part of such solutions.

Soft drinks can naturally get infected with a range of bacteria, moulds and yeast, some of them are harmful to human consumption. A well-established route to screening for bacteria is the use of microbiology testing which can take anything between 3-5 days to get results back. Such waiting times can carry significant delays in getting the product to the shelves.

Also, current microbiology methods provide information to manufacturers late in the manufacturing process where not much can be done for that specific batch, but can be adjusted for future batches. Therefore, a contaminated batch will go straight to waste and valuable resources will be lost.

Figura's approach will enable soft drink manufacturers to have a rapid quality control device that allows them to take corrective measures during a batch production of product. The technology allows for the drinks to reach shelves quicker and limits the amount of waste that occurs from the drinks industry as a result of contamination. The technology can work with dirty samples with no sample preparation required.

It is non-destructive analysis platform that can measure contamination regardless of the solution turbidity -- currently not possible with optical techniques. The technology's small footprint would enable easy integration into current manufacturing workflows with minimal disruption.

The business potential is significant -- In 2019 the drinks and juice markets estimated to be worth £16bn a year in the UK (statistica,2019). While the global food and drinks microbiology testing market totalled 1.14 bn tests in 2016, growing at approximately 5.0 percent annually (statistica. 2020).

The innovation and project are timely. Figura's technology can strongly position itself to disrupt a well-established market, while also reducing the environmental load of water wastage in drinks production transportation reflected in carbon footprint.