Living packaging lets consumers pick fresh fruit at home

Nurture is food packaging that incorporates the living roots of fruit and vegetables to allow them to continue ripening until they're ready to eat.

It’s rare that the fruit and veg bought at the local supermarket is truly fresh. There’s a long journey — through picking, transporting, sorting, artifical ripening, checking, packaging and storing — that each item can go through before it arrives on the shelves. It’s a far stretch from the most nutritious form of consuming fruit and veg, which is to wait until it’s fully ripe before picking and eating. For those who can’t enjoy such pleasure, Nurture is food packaging that incorporates the living roots of fruit and vegetables to allow them to continue ripening until they’re ready to eat.

Created by UK design graduate Hyunhee Hwang, the packaging takes the form of a bowl made of organic material, that’s woven with the roots of plants bearing fruits such as tomatoes, cherries or figs. By keeping the bowl moist, the plants can continue to live even while they’re being transported. Although part of a Masters degree project at the University of Arts London, Hwang envisions a weekly delivery that sends the living fruits directly from growers to the customer’s home. The packaging includes extra tools and equipment, such as a holder for the basket, a spritzer for watering the fruits, and forceps and scissors for ‘harvesting’ that apparently prevent nutrition loss while collecting the fruit.

With consumers always looking for more authentic produce — whether organic or freshly picked — Nurture packaging goes one step further to connect city dwellers with fruit fresh from the vine. Are there other ways to deliver food straight from the farm to the table?