Kang Huang, an assistant professor in Washington State University’s Department of Biological Systems Engineering, has secured three National Institute of Food and Agriculture grants to cut microbial spoilage and improve food safety across production stages. The projects target pre-harvest protection, sanitation in processing plants, and post-harvest shelf-life, and they combine lab work with grower and industry outreach. Raj Khosla, dean of WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences, said the grants reflect the university’s drive to deliver practical solutions that reduce spoilage and protect consumers.
Huang’s newest project aims to develop food-safe antimicrobial coatings that extend shelf life on packaging and other surfaces by slowing microbial growth after harvest. Researchers will adapt concepts from biomedical coatings but reformulate them to meet food-grade safety and regulatory needs. $650,000 coating grant will fund three years of material development and testing on plastics, glass and metal packaging.
The team links reduced microbial spoilage directly to lower food waste, noting that a large share of U.S. food production is lost to spoilage during storage and distribution. Coatings will be evaluated for effectiveness against common spoilage organisms and for compatibility with existing packaging processes; success would allow wider deployment without changing packaging lines. Huang said the work will include shelf-life trials and assessment of how coatings perform under typical retail and household conditions.
Processing sanitation
Another grant supports an AI-enabled approach to verify sanitation in food processing facilities using surface-applied stickers and non-contact spectroscopy. After sanitation, a sticker is peeled from the cleaned surface and analyzed with a vibrational spectroscope; an AI model then predicts how much bacteria were eliminated. The project aims to cut reliance on time-consuming swab tests that can take up to two days for results.
Huang and partner Meijun Zhu of WSU’s School of Food Science project that the technology could lower testing frequency and labor costs while keeping facilities compliant with food-safety regulations. $650,000 AI grant will fund sensor integration, model training with real-world samples, and trials at processing sites to compare the sticker method against standard swab-and-culture tests.
Pre-harvest protection
WSU researchers are also working to improve field-stable biopesticides to protect crops before harvest, with a focus on fire blight in apples. The team is testing natural agents — including plant extracts and microbial antagonists — and developing formulations that resist degradation from sunlight and dry conditions. Huang said the goal is formulations that deliver antimicrobial activity comparable to current antibiotics but without driving antibiotic resistance.
That project is backed by $1 million biopesticide in NIFA funding over four years and includes collaboration with WSU’s Department of Plant Pathology and grower partners for on-orchard trials and Extension outreach, with field testing designed to validate efficacy under typical outdoor conditions.
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