Food traceability firm SafeTraces receives $10m in financing round

US food traceability company SafeTraces has secured $10 million in a funding round led by S2G Ventures and Bunge Ventures, the venture capital arm of Bunge. Other participants in the round included UL Ventures as well as Spero Ventures.

SafeTraces produces invisible, edible and flavourless barcodes that are applied directly on or with food, enabling producers, processors and distributors to trace the food, not the just packaging. 

The California-based company said the technology provides “an immutable, invisible way” to protect products against adulteration, fraud, and intentional substitution.

Anthony Zografos, SafeTraces founder and CEO, said: “We are excited to close this round with the support of such an outstanding group of investors. The growing demand for our suite of food safety solutions provides both validation and direction for our future growth.”

The company intends to use the proceeds from this round to scale the deployment of its solutions platform. It also plans to launch its second food safety solution, SaniTracers, by the end of this month.

SaniTracers are food-grade pathogen surrogates that are used in food processing and plant and equipment sanitation to verify that sanitation was performed as planned. The company said they enable processors to improve food safety and reduce foodborne illness and inventory costs.

Chuck Templeton, managing director of S2G Ventures, said: “Given how complex the food system has become, it was expensive and nearly impossible for manufacturers and retailers to trace the source of their ingredients.

“Now with SafeTraces, they can trace a product, not only back to the grower, but to the lot or batch, giving them confidence they are getting what they ordered.”

Bunge Ventures managing director Nanda Kumar Puthucode added: “Traceability of food and feed ingredients is an increasingly important issue for participants all along the value chain.

“The digital barcode technology of SafeTraces provides source transparency at the physical product level, helping strengthen value chain integrity.”