We allow consumers to make smarter choices when it comes to product life

Reducing waste to create a world that is able to efficiently use perishable resources in a sustainable way.

Our food

Nearly one third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted or lost each year. That amounts to about 1.3 billion tonnes per annum which is enough to feed 2 billion people or the USA ten times over.

The amount of land used to produce the food wasted is the equivalent to a country the size of China. We could use that land more efficiently, either as additional farming land to reduce intensive farming practices or preserving that additional land for the planet as a whole.

Our food waste

In developed countries, a lot of food waste happens in the kitchen from not storing the food at the correct temperatures, but much of this is also down to not using food labels effectively, or not knowing when foods are still good to eat. According to the European Commission an estimated 10% of food waste relates to date labelling, and in the US it is estimated to be 20%.

How can we help people change their behaviour to become more conscious of how we use our food, and change our habits to reduce waste?

Our diseases

Waste does not just happen in the food chain. Many of the vaccines that are produced for use around the world are wasted. This is because many vaccines need to be stored in refrigerated conditions to be effective.

Could we provide positive confirmation that vaccines have been stored within the correct temperature parameters, to improve delivery of vaccination programmes?

Our planet

We need to learn to use the resources we have more efficiently for the preservation of future generations.

Energy, transport and meat tend to be the face of climate change. However, food waste is responsible for 6% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, the third largest contributor after China and the US.

Food waste for each food commodity is excessive and is impacting on our planet’s resources, including: intensive farming practices; gas emissions; water supplies; degradation of soil; unnecessary deforestation, excessive fuel use, unnecessarily enormous landfills releasing methane, and more.

45%
of Fruits & Vegetables
Almost half of all the fruits and vegetables produced are wasted.
45%
of Roots & Tubers
In North America & Oceana 5.8 million tons are wasted at the consumption stage alone.
35%
of Seafood
Many fish caught are thrown back into the sea dead or dying- 8% of fish are wasted before even making to the processing stage!
30%
of Cereals
In industrial countries, consumers throw away 286 million tonnes of cereal products per year.
20%
of Dairy Products
In Europe alone 29 million tons of dairy products are lost or wasted through the year.

Source – Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations www.fao.org

Our responsibility

Governments around the world have signed up to an array of pledges to make us more efficient with our resources under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 [Responsible Consumption and Production initiative, including: the EU’s Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste; the US’s 2030 Food Waste and Food Loss Champions; the UK’s Courtauld 2025 and WRAPs extensive work in Food Waste; Singapore’s inaugural Zero Waste Masterplan; and many others.

Whilst we want to change things for the better, it feels hard (especially this year with the outbreak of Covid-19) to change habits. The environmental crisis and these world issues can feel overwhelming. How can we do something about it? How can small actions impact on such a staggering global problem?

We just need a nudge to help us in the right direction so we can translate the “big ideas” into everyday changes: the small steps to be the change.

Our idea for the nudge

The driving force and passion for developing the Oli-Tec™ label was to find a solution to help us manage our waste better.

We wanted to find a simple solution, that would help us change our behavior, so we start to recognize where we as individuals are wasting food.

It seemed like a winner! Reduce waste, and you get to reap the benefits of having extra money to spend on other items you want, and at the same time you are having a positive impact on the planet.

The more we developed our idea, the more we learnt that our label has much wider applications, such as with vaccines, medicines and supply chains.

Our dream

That people use what they need, significantly reduce wastage which improves the sustainability of food supply for the future. A socially responsible company wants to help others start their journey, individually or as a corporate, on becoming more efficient with our resources.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step

Lao Tzu

Working against food waste

Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year is wasted or lost. That’s approximately 1.3 billion tonnes!

All the natural resources used in producing, packaging, shipping and marketing the wasted food are also lost. Reducing, Reusing & Recycling are critical in minimizing the environmental impact of food production.

Oli-Tec™ was created as a solution to Reduce food waste by ending confusion over Sell By & Use By dates. The Oli-Tec™ labels offer clear guidance on when food items can be consumed allowing consumers to make informed decisions.

$96,000,000,000

economic cost of food waste per year

$1,425,960

per minute

These unique indicating labels not only end confusion over Sell By dates, but can help reduce the cost of wasted or lost food for producers and retailers. Oli-Tec™ labels can notify when foods are in the correct storage environments. Retailers, manufacturers and shipping companies can use these as tools to avoid spoilage along the food cold chain.

Our Team

Nik Richardson

Print production and business management have been in Nik’s blood since 1985. Having worked in every facet of the Label Industry from starting out as a hot foil press operator, to building a multi-million-pound label converter company with 45 employees. Nik has been at the forefront of label and printing innovation, and has extensive experience with flexography, offset lithography, CMYK, holograms, metallics, digital inkjet, sublimation printing and today, the development of the next generation of Time Temperature Indicators (TTI). Nik’s extensive contact list of both customer, supplier and experience assures our partners are truly the world leaders in their field.

Suzanna Hawkes

Suzanna started in Retail and Marketing and was part of the team that restructured the Habitat Group after it was bought out by Ingvar Kamprad. She re-trained as a trade mark attorney believing the combination of commercial experience with trade mark knowledge would be valuable in the workplace. She worked in a specialist IP firm.
Suzanna has been Project Manager for Oli-Tec, with overall responsibility for keeping track of all developments for five years.
“I enjoy the mental challenge of this Project which requires Science, Technology to work together while having the opportunity to work on a project which has a positive impact society, and working with a Team that all have a can-do attitude.”

Peter McSorley

Peter started his career at United Biscuits, moving on to General Foods in the 70s and then becoming Managing Director at Dana Sunquick in 1976 where he led the management buyout of Dana Sunquick, changing the name to Anglo Brokers in 1987.
Anglo Brokers supplied a wide range of finished goods sourced from around the world to every major grocery retailer in the UK, and among many other products was responsible for launching Haribo confectionary into the UK market along with Danish Butter Cookies.
In 1997 Peter became chairman of Berwyn Bakeries, and with Mike Hawkes was also a
co-founder of Orient Trading Ltd, importing Pop Pan biscuits to the UK, where Peter was in charge of selling them to M&S, Tesco, Asda, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s. Peter has maintained his contacts in retail to enable Oli-Tec to form strategic ambassadors for the project.

Our History

About us

Oli-Tec™ Technology has been developed by a team of experienced, and highly creative people who joined forces to develop a technology to solve the problem of monitoring the shelf-life of products.

Rigorous scientific development, determination and significant investment have refined our unique patented technology. Oli-Tec™ has sales offices and R&D capabilities in the US and the UK.

Our idea…

Oli-Tec™ was created to fill a gap in the market for time and temperature indicator labelling, allowing consumers to make smarter choices when it comes to product life.

2022
Market Launch
Oli-Tec™ engage Resource Label Group for converting Tests & Trials. Please contact us for samples.
2021
Manufacturing Prototype
Oli-Tec™ team develop first prototype Olitec Convert and start to look for a partner licensee

2021
2020
Gen 3 Media
Oli-Tec™ team develop Gen 3 media which allows for longer shelf-life, and printing process is improved to achieve small sample label print runs of circa 2000 labels.
2019
Test Machine
Oli-Tec™ team build a small test machine to build first generation labels. Media development continues as well as improvement on the printing process.

2019
2018
Government Funding
Oli-Tec receive £500k support funding from Innovate UK to further the media development with CPI and Mexar Limited.
2017
Inkjet Technology
Oli-Tec team partner up with Integrity Industrial Inkjet Integrations to continue development and design of the manufacturing process incorporating inkjet technology (as opposed to flexo).

2017
2016
Science Breakthrough
After a substantial breakthrough relating to the Sciences of the label in 2016, the Oli-Tec™ team started working on preliminary design of manufacturing process for a far superior, simple, Oli-Tec™ label as compared to other TTIs in the market.
2015
The Beginning
Primary research conducted to determine media formulations/principals for the Oli-Tec label.
R&D focused on developing media formulations that could be easily integrated into manufacturing process considerations.
A key factor in our development process has been putting simplicity and ease of use as key to our technology. We wanted our product to be easy to integrate into other manufacturing and distribution processes making this a key USP.

2015

A Greener World

November 23, 2020

Every year, according to estimates, Europe wastes up to half…

A simple visualization of food waste

November 3, 2020

About a third of all food for human consumption is wasted. Not…

We are here to help you create a unique labelling solution for your brand.