Food waste is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and fruit and vegetables are especially problematic, as about 52% of them go bad before     1    （eventual） reaching consumers. But one Malaysian company has come up     2     a simple solution(解决方案)to this problem — a tiny sticker that keeps fruit from     3     (go) bad for up to weeks.

You've probably seen stickers on fruit before,     4     not like the ones created by the Malaysian company. Those common stickers are typically     5     (use) only to provide consumers with     6     (inform) about the growers and how the fruit was grown, but Stixfresh has a completely different purpose. It contains something special and all-natural that slows down the ripening(成熟)process, keeping the fruit fresh and juicy for much     7    (long).

Stixfresh founder Zhafri Zainudin says that he thought of the idea for the stickers after visiting a friend     8     ran a fruit store. The man was worried about losing money every day because of bad fruit, but he knew that there was no way to stop nature from taking     9     (it) course. The Malaysian businessman worked with many     10     (university) to develop and test his sticker.

At first, Stixfresh stickers were only used to lengthen the shelf-life of mangoes, but the company later worked on other fruit, like dragon fruit, star fruit, apples and pears.