A former ICB CDT student, and co-founder of Fresh Check a startup combating food waste, met with the Prince of Wales as part of his visit to the I-Hub

The Prince of Wales made a visit to Imperial’s White City Incubator based at the I-HUB to visit the laboratories and learn about the cutting-edge research being undertaken. The Prince of Wales then spent time speaking with several Imperial-founded startups which are based at the I-HUB including Institute of Chemical Biology (ICB) Centre of Doctoral Training (CDT) student startup Fresh Check.

“Fresh Check began as a passion project, but that has led to much more now” John Simpson Fresh Check Co-Founder

Fresh Check are developing products which are revolutionising the way the world thinks about cleanliness. They have developed the first affordable test for surface contamination with a simple colour changing spray. Fresh Check was founded in 2015 by 3 ICB CDT students, Alex Bond, John Simpson and Robert Peach, while they were completing their PhDs. For the past year both Alex Bond and John Simpson have been working full time on Fresh Check, developing their business model and have already started to sell their product into the market. As co-founder John Simpson says, “Fresh Check began as a passion project, but that has led to much more now”.

Since the founding Fresh Check has won multiple awards and prizes, including Forbes 30 under 30 Europe and winning the CDT Dragon’s Den competition that the ICB CDT ran in 2017, providing the students with classes in business management, as well as capital to develop their product and bring it to market. Recently co-founder John Simpson made a TED^x talk on food waste and its impact on the world. Watch his talk here.

"His interest in our work towards improving food quality and reducing food waste was great to see." John Simpson Fresh Check Co-Founder

Speaking about the royal visit, John Simpson, co-founder of Fresh Check, said: “The opportunity to meet the Prince of Wales was a fantastic experience. His interest in our work towards improving food quality and reducing food waste was great to see. He wished to engage with all start-ups which were tackling the problems faced in the food industry, other guests included high level execs in the food industry with people from Sainsburys, Waitrose and other food companies. Such chances do not come up often and if it were not for the network that Imperial brings this meeting may have never occurred!”

The ICB CDT encourages student entrepreneurship through a variety of workshops, start-up accelerators and hackathon programmes, aimed at PhD students at any stage of turning their ideas into businesses.

For more information on the Institute of Chemical Biology
//www.imperial.ac.uk/chemical-biology/

For more information on Fresh Check
https://www.freshcheckuk.com/