AvantGuard, Inc. is pleased to announce a $1 million Phase III award from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to demonstrate the continuing antimicrobial benefit of AvantGuard247™ in real world food processing environment and identify the gaps for adopting AvantGuard247™ in the food safety market. This award will allow AvantGuard to demonstrate the broad-spectrum antimicrobial function of AvantGuard247™ against poultry/meat related pathogens as well as perform trial studies to determine the in-field antimicrobial performance of HaloFilm in two small or mid-size poultry and meat processing facilities.
AvantGuard247™ is a spray-on product that, when dried, leaves a thin transparent film on a surface and turns the surface into a chlorine battery. A chlorine-based disinfectant applied to a surface protected by AvantGuard247 will leave behind the same level of chlorine found in a pool for days, weeks or months. That chlorine is active against pathogens and will dissipate over time, but can be re-charged every time a chlorine-based disinfectant is used again. AvantGuard247™ is the only product that can pass EPA testing protocols as the supplemental residual antimicrobial coatings and films against bacteria and an enveloped virus surrogate for SARS-CoV-2. In fact, the EPA tested 20 products and none of the spray-on products passed. AvantGuard247™ is AvantGuard, Inc.’s first product and is protected by exclusively licensed patents from Auburn University and Cornell University.
In the US, about 500,000 people are hospitalized every year suffering from food-borne illnesses. It is estimated that these food-borne illnesses cost society about $18B a year. In poultry and meat manufacturing, microbial cross-contamination is a major concern for food safety, which can occur on food-contact as well as non-food contact surfaces. AvantGuard’s technology is well aligned with USDA MPPRI Priority Area 3: “food safety tools and technologies that reduce the incidence of foodborne illness and provide safe food”.
About AvantGuard
AvantGuard is a chemistry-based technology and product company creating innovative solutions that provide long-term protection against viruses, bacteria, and fungi/mold, in a wide variety of applications. The company's unique proprietary combinations of specialty molecules and polymers are customized to provide prolonged antimicrobial efficacy to a wide range of surfaces and materials. AvantGuard's revolutionary solutions can not only protect against pathogens for weeks or months, but also make surfaces easier to clean, resist adhesion, prevent fouling, and inhibit the formation of biofilms.