I am a Food Process Chemical Engineer with nearly three decades of global experience across academia, research, and industrial operations in North America and beyond. I hold a PhD in Food Process Chemical Engineering from the University of Manitoba and have worked in senior roles including research scientist, quality director, and operations leader, while also contributing as an adjunct academic. My career has focused on integrating chemical engineering principles with food science and large-scale commercialization.

I was driven by a fundamental scientific challenge: the long-standing belief that oxygen could not be reduced to absolute zero around biological materials. By applying thermodynamics, reaction kinetics, and material science, I developed the patented Zero-OxTech® process, which achieves absolute zero oxygen conditions and offers long shelf-life of centrally prepared retail-ready cuts.

Recognizing the global impact of food waste and supply chain inefficiencies, I founded Tewari De-Ox Systems to commercialize this breakthrough. My vision is to enable centralized processing and global distribution of perishable foods with minimal waste, reduced environmental impact, and improved economic efficiency—bridging deep science with scalable, real-world solutions. We recently won the "Tufts New Venture Competition 2026" under the General category, which shows we’re on the right track.

The core problem I am tackling is the short shelf-life of retail-ready, portioned meat, which creates massive inefficiencies and waste across the global protein supply chain.

Once meat is cut into retail portions, its surface area increases significantly, accelerating oxygen exposure, enzymatic activity, and microbial growth. Even under refrigeration and conventional packaging methods such as vacuum or modified atmosphere packaging, residual oxygen remains at ppm levels. This oxygen drives oxidation of lipids and proteins, discoloration, off-odors, and spoilage—limiting shelf life typically to 5–15 days. As a result, retailers face unsold inventory, frequent discounting, and product shrink, while processors are forced into decentralized, inefficient operations close to end markets.

This is a global, systemic problem affecting meat processors and packers, retailers and supermarkets, exporters and distributors, and ultimately consumers through higher prices and inconsistent quality.

The economic impact is substantial, contributing to approximately $3 billion in annual losses in the global meat distribution chain, alongside significant environmental costs from wasted resources and greenhouse gas emissions.

We do this by fundamentally re-engineering the role of oxygen in meat preservation through our patented Zero-OxTech® process. Instead of relying on partial oxygen reduction methods like vacuum or modified atmosphere packaging, our approach creates a controlled absolute zero oxygen (effectively 0 ppm) environment around retail-ready meat. This halts oxidative degradation, stabilizes natural biochemical processes, and significantly slows microbial activity—without chemical preservatives. The result is a step-change in shelf life (120+ days), enabling a more efficient, centralized, and globally scalable supply chain.

Large meat processors and packers seeking to centralize operations, global exporters aiming to access distant markets without quality loss, and retail chains looking to reduce shrink, discounting, and stockouts.

However, the primary beneficiaries extend beyond direct customers. Consumers for example get consistent quality and availability, and we help the environment by reducing food waste and emissions.

The innovation lies in combining chemical engineering, material science, and packaging system design into a patented process that overcomes a long-standing scientific limitation—achieving absolute zero oxygen at the product interface. Unlike conventional preservation technologies that attempt to slow spoilage, Zero-OxTech® addresses the root cause by eliminating oxygen-driven reactions altogether.

This enables a paradigm shift from fragmented, local processing to centralized production with global distribution, unlocking significant economic value (addressing ~$3B in annual losses) while delivering a scalable, sustainable solution for the future of food systems.

The core technology behind our work is the patented Zero-OxTech® process, a systems-level innovation in oxygen management for perishable food preservation—specifically retail-ready meat cuts.

At its foundation, Zero-OxTech® is a controlled-atmosphere engineering system that achieves absolute zero oxygen conditions (effectively 0 ppm) at the product interface. Here’s a video that demonstrates how sachets are added to the meat packages at a Canadian meat plant.

While conventional technologies such as vacuum packaging or modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) reduce oxygen partially, they still leave residual oxygen that drives oxidation and spoilage. Our process goes further by addressing oxygen as a governing reaction variable, not just a packaging parameter.

Our system is unique in that it challenges the long-held assumption that oxygen cannot be reduced to absolute zero in food systems without compromising product integrity. And unlike heat or chemical preservation, the process maintains natural enzymatic and biochemical structure while preventing oxidation-driven spoilage. This means shelf-life extension to 120+ days for retail-ready portioned meats without chemical preservatives.

The system is designed for integration into existing meat processing and packaging infrastructure, such as current cold-chain logistics.

If we successfully scale Zero-OxTech® globally, the impact would be significant across food systems efficiency, climate mitigation, and global food security.

First and most importantly, it will reduce food waste. Today, a large portion of retail-ready portioned meat spoilage occurs due to short shelf life and oxygen-driven degradation. By extending shelf life from about 5-15 days to 120+ days, Zero-OxTech® enables a dramatic reduction in retail shrink and supply chain losses, fewer emergency discounts and forced disposal of near-expiry products, and a shift from fragmented regional processing to centralized, optimized production. This targets the estimated $3B annual loss in the global meat distribution chain.

Food waste is also a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions because wasted food represents wasted water, feed, land use, refrigeration energy, and transportation emissions. Scaling Zero-OxTech® would reduce methane and CO₂ emissions from decomposing meat waste, lower demand for redundant production caused by spoilage, reduce cold-chain intensity, and much more.

Our business model is B2B, centered on the commercialization and supply of patented Zero-OxTech® components, specifically Zero-OxTech® films and Zero-OxTech® oxygen-control sachets, which are integrated into existing meat packaging and processing workflows.

We generate revenue through sale of consumable and system components, enabling customers to directly adopt the technology without requiring full infrastructure replacement. This model allows for rapid scalability and easy integration into current packaging lines used by meat processors and exporters.

As mentioned before, our primary customers are large meat processors, exporters, and protein supply chain operators who need to extend shelf life of retail-ready portioned meat, reduce spoilage, and expand access to long-distance markets. These customers benefit immediately from reduced shrink, improved product stability, and longer distribution windows.

Early industry engagement and validation have come from customers such as Riz Global Foods and Rowe Beef, who have worked with us to evaluate and implement Zero-OxTech® components in real-world production environments. Their feedback highlights strong commercial interest driven by operational efficiency and waste reduction benefits.

Our revenue model is primarily recurring, driven by ongoing consumption of Zero-OxTech® films and sachets, creating a steady demand-based stream as products are used in continuous production cycles.

The market opportunity for Zero-OxTech® is significant, spanning both a large global protein industry and a highly targeted, high-value segment within retail-ready meat. The global protein packaging and distribution market — beef, pork, poultry, and seafood — is worth $385B. We target retail-ready beef portion cuts, and that alone is a $3B market. This is aa segment where shelf-life limitations and spoilage create the highest economic losses and immediate adoption potential.

Key competitors include e.g. Cryovac (vacuum packaging systems) and Multivac / Reiser (modified atmosphere packaging – MAP systems). These technologies are widely adopted but fundamentally limited in oxygen control. They typically achieve only partial oxygen reduction (and not elimination), shelf life of up to ~30 days for retail-ready portioned meat, continued oxidative degradation over time, and dependence on decentralized, short-cycle distribution models.

Zero-OxTech® represents a step-change rather than an incremental improvement, as we achieve zero oxygen conditions (effectively 0 ppm), extend shelf life to 120+ days for retail-ready cuts, enable centralized processing and global distribution models, eliminate oxidation-driven spoilage rather than slowing it, and deliver via patented films and sachets that integrate into existing workflows.

Over the next 2–3 years, I see Zero-OxTech® evolving from early commercial validation to scaled industrial adoption across global protein supply chains, with parallel growth in team, product platform, and geographic expansion.

In the near term, the focus is on standardizing and scaling our patented Zero-OxTech® components—films and oxygen-control sachets—into a robust, high-volume industrial product line. The goal is to move from proven innovation to a plug-and-play global packaging standard for retail-ready proteins.

We also expect a transition from pilot and early adopter engagements (such as Riz Global Foods and Rowe Beef) to multi-site commercial rollouts with large processors and exporters. Our key markets will be North America, Asia-Pacific, and the MiIddle East.

Our team will also expand from a deep R&D-led team into a commercially scaled engineering and deployment organization.

We’ll move from being viewed as a “novel preservation technology” to becoming a category-defining infrastructure platform for centralized protein distribution.

So far, the company has been self-funded by the founding team with approximately US$500K of capital invested internally. This funding has been used to move Zero-OxTech® from concept through to full process development, patent protection, and early commercial validation, including production of patented components (films and sachets) and initial customer deployments.

We are now raising a US$1.5M seed round to accelerate the transition from early commercialization to scaled industrial adoption. Our current valuation is US$20M.

The funding will enable manufacturing and scale-up, commercial expansion, product and technical refinement, and team expansion.

We are currently raising a US$1.5M seed round to accelerate the commercial scale-up of Zero-OxTech®, and we are actively looking to connect with aligned partners across capital, industry, and talent.

We are looking to engage with seed and early-stage investors who have experience in FoodTech, AgriTech, or DeepTech infrastructure, ClimateTech and sustainability-focused investing, and industrial B2B platforms with consumable-driven revenue models

We are especially interested in investors who understand scalable supply-chain technologies with recurring revenue potential.

In addition, we’re seeking partnerships with large meat processors and protein companies, global food distribution and export businesses, and packaging and cold-chain ecosystem partners. This will help accelerate real-world deployment of Zero-OxTech® films and sachets at scale.

Finally, we’re looking to connect with high-caliber talent in food and chemical process engineering, packaging and industrial manufacturing scale-up, commercial sales and global business development, and supply chain and operations leadership.

I can be reached via LinkedIn and email.