Does it work? Shelfy promises to help produce stay fresh twice as long

HOUSTON - Don't you just hate having to throw away fruits and veges when they go bad?  Feeding America reports that households toss about $1,600 worth of produce each year.

A device called Shelfy says it can help make your produce last twice as long in your fridge.

So we put it to the test.  Does it really work?

What is Shelfy?

Big picture view:

We all know one of the biggest wastes of money when it comes to groceries is that produce doesn’t last very long.  If you don’t eat it, you end up throwing it out.  

Shelfy is a smart air filter that goes in the fridge.  It says it can make your produce last twice as long by filtering out the bacteria in your fridge that causes produce to go bad.  

What they're saying:

Vitesy, the company that makes Shelfy, says that it eliminates the bacteria, odors, and pollutants from other decaying foods in the fridge that can make produce go bad.

"Like with apples that are going bad, they affect all the other apples.  So with our technology, we’re able to clean the air in the refrigerator and able to increase the shelf-life of produce," explained Paolo Ganis, Vitesy CEO and co-founder.

"Overall, we can say we can double the shelf-life of produce," he said.

Does Shelfy work?

The experiment:

Before we tested it, we wanted to see how long produce will last in my fridge.

I set out fresh spinach, sealing some in a Ziplock bag as well, a fresh tomato, iceberg lettuce in its wrapper, some fresh strawberries, and cut broccoli.  

One week later, most of the produce was going bad, especially the strawberries and spinach. Only the bagged produce still looked fresh.

Next, we put Shelfy to the test. I bought the same type of fresh produce, rinsed the filter according to the directions, turned it on and sat it on the refrigerator shelf next to the produce.  

After the first week with Shelfy, most of the produce still looked pretty fresh.  

Then we checked after two full weeks.  Our results?  Some of the top strawberries are getting mushy, but the berries underneath actually still looked and tasted pretty fresh.  The broccoli still looked crisp.  The tomato was a little softer, but not soft on the inside.  The open spinach wilted right away, but the wrapped spinach and iceberg lettuce appeared to be fresh as well.  

Overall, in our test, it appeared Shelfy helped our produce stay fresh in the fridge for about twice as long.

Is Shelfy right for you?

Dig deeper:

The Shelfy retails for about $150 right now, but also comes with an app that gives you a lot of information, such as the air quality in your refrigerator, and even how often you open the door.  

One way to determine if Shelfy might be right for you is to compare the price to the amount of money you lose each year on produce that goes bad before you can eat it.