The Clever Reason You May Soon See Avocado Scanners At The Grocery Store

When selecting an avocado at the grocery store for your morning avocado toast, you might find yourself poking, prodding, and squeezing the fruits, and you could also notice some awkward stares from other shoppers. Choosing a ripe avocado is a process no one can quite nail down, and it often makes for one of the most labor-intensive points in a shopping trip (per Parade). It's not an exact science, yet their finickiness is one of the major reasons you should never buy avocados in bulk. And honestly, it's why some people avoid buying the fruit altogether.

Of course, there's no need to be afraid of the unknown. The best things take practice and picking an avocado is no exception. But with one startup company's unveiling of a new genius device, your avocado shopping game could change forever — for the better. According to Food & Wine, a startup based out of California has that solution to all of your avocado-picking woes. Meet the new "facial scan technology" for your avocados.

Per Food & Wine, the food tech company Apeel is unveiling a brand-new machine for grocery stores that can actually detect the ripeness of an avocado for you. Simply place the fruit on top of the scanner and say goodbye to the era of poking, squeezing, and attempting avocado ripening hacks. And even though this is a machine, there's no need to worry about complex technological jargon. The device speaks to shoppers in simple terms like "your avocado will be ready in about four days." 

They call the machine "Apeel RipeFinder" and it will be officially unveiled in one week at the International Fresh Produce Association's Global Produce & Floral Show in Orlando. Once the RipeFinder is ready for a wider launch, the device could detect the exact ripeness level of any kind of produce. But, at least for now, it is only available for avocados. 

So, how does a device like this even work? Apeel made the RipeFinder using machine learning which collected data on avocados in various stages of ripeness. Thousands of species of avocados were tested through each of its different seasons, stages, and more. The machine uses a bright light to look beneath each avocado's skin and sends a reflection onto the censors where AI makes a conclusion on its ripeness. According to Fast Company, Apeel started with a mission to reduce food waste. This is just one small step toward that goal.