Page 4 - BusinessWest April 1, 2024

Planting the Seeds
Clean Crop Technologies Is Changing the Greentech Landscape
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
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an White calls it “turning back the clock on decomposition of food and seeds.”
That’s how he chose to describe the technology created by Clean Crop Technologies, a
Holyoke-based company that has become one of the foundations of that city’s emerging clean- tech and greentech sector and one of the more intriguing regional entrepreneurial success sto- ries in recent years.
Elaborating, White said there have long been technologies that will prevent the decomposi- tion that results from molds, fungi, toxins, and pathogens that attack seeds and crops. But until recently — in fact, until the technology developed by the team at Clean Crop — there was little if anything to reverse that decomposition, or turn back the clock, as he put it, once those foods were in the supply chain.
“What we focus on at Clean Crop
is developing our Clean Current technology to solve the tradeoff; we’re targeting applications where we can achieve the same or better decontamination as things like hot water and chemical treatments, but without harming germination in the process.”
Getting more specific, he said that, when it comes to seeds, which have increasingly become the company’s focus, Clean Crop has been able to address a long-standing tradeoff when it comes to addressing decontamination.
“You can choose between killing the contami- nant, and in so doing harm the germination of
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Co-founder and CEO Dan White