POMA: The Consumer App

Who doesn’t love summer’s fresh produce season? Juicy ripe melons, strawberries, stone fruit and corn on the cob. Long, hot Napa Valley summers produce a wide variety of grapes. But when you fill your grocery cart high with expectations, and get home and find that rather than a juicy, ripe cantaloupe, your melon tastes more like a squash and your corn is old and tasteless?

Wondering why it has to be this hard? Well, now it doesn’t have to be

AppliColor Inc. has developed a new application that identifies the freshest, best product to purchase from those on display.

It’s easy to use

• Open the app in your Galaxy smartphone.
• Take a picture of the display.
• One or two circles will surround those products that are the freshest and/or ripest. Our app, POMA, identifies the best products in the display.

POMA works on produce where it is difficult to assess ripeness and freshness

While POMA is especially effective with melons, you’re going to like the way that POMA will help you identify the freshest fish or avocadoes—foods whose prices have soared.

• Pineapples can be hard to select. POMA finds the right balance between hard and overripe. Remember that pineapples will continue to ripen on your countertop.
• Who loves those little creamer potatoes? They all look the same, right? Scan them with POMA, and you’ll see that there’s a wide range of freshness and bruising represented in the potato display bins.
• Avocados: Identify those avocado that will be perfect for tonight’s salad vs those that will display browning pulp—a sign that the avocado is past its prime.

POMA works on seafood fillets and steaks

Salmon, albacore, halibut, swordfish and/or sole. The prices have soared on these products, so you can’t afford to make mistakes. You want the brightest flavors, the freshest products available. If you’re planning on making sushi, POMA becomes an essential tool. For a salmon filet, for instance, the POMA scan shows the striated texture of the richly flavored salmon in light gray. This is also the indicator of its freshness.