ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 14, 2026--
N&E Innovations, a Singapore-based SME, has been announced as the winner of the 2026 Zayed Sustainability Prize in the Food category. This recognition honours the company’s pioneering efforts to combat food waste and enhance food safety through sustainable, circular innovation.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260114978757/en/
Founded by Didi Gan, N&E Innovations upcycles food waste into biodegradable antimicrobial coatings and packaging that extend food shelf life and reduce post-harvest losses. The company’s patented ViKANG® technology is the world’s first food-safe, biodegradable antimicrobial made entirely from upcycled food waste. It provides a cradle-to-shelf system for coatings and packaging that is both compostable and effective in maintaining freshness.
Field trials have shown that N&E Innovations’ solution delivers 99.9% antimicrobial effectiveness, achieving 4.5 times lower bacterial counts and 90% freshness retention. To date, more than 400,000 sustainable packs have reached consumers, benefiting over 80,000 people. Since its founding, the company has upcycled two tonnes of food waste and helped retailers and producers reduce spoilage and extend product shelf life.
Dr. Lamya Fawwaz, Executive Director of the Zayed Sustainability Prize, commended the company’s achievement: “The Zayed Sustainability Prize honours creative solutions that uplift communities and protect the environment. N&E Innovations is turning food waste into packaging solutions that reduce pollution and improve health, demonstrating how innovation can advance a circular economy.”
Didi Gan, Founder and Managing Director of N&E Innovations, said: “As a woman founder in deep tech, this award is not just a win for N&E Innovations-it’s a win for every woman who dares to dream big, build boldly, and drive change through science. We upcycle agricultural waste into the world’s first antibacterial compostable food packaging and coatings that extends the shelf life of food, closing the circular loop toward a more sustainable future. From our humble beginnings in Singapore, this recognition reaffirms that with purpose and perseverance, impact knows no boundaries.”
The US $1 million Prize fund will enable N&E Innovations to scale production and expand its ViKANG® technology across Asia and the Middle East. The company plans to establish localised micro-manufacturing hubs using regional food waste, expand B2B partnerships in markets such as Malaysia, The Philippines, and the UAE, and subsidise initial deployments in rural and underserved communities. These efforts aim to reduce unit costs by up to 30%, reach more than 1.2 million beneficiaries and prevent an estimated 10,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions through the adoption of sustainable, biodegradable packaging.
Each year, the Prize rewards organisations and high schools for their groundbreaking solutions to global challenges. Over the past 18 years, through its 128 winners, the Prize has positively impacted over 400 million lives worldwide. By recognising these innovators, the Zayed Sustainability Prize inspires countless others to amplify their efforts and create a ripple effect of positive change.
*Source: AETOSWire
2026 Zayed Sustainability Prize Awards Ceremony (Photo: AETOSWire)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported Tuesday, as tensions flared in Israel's separate but related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The halt in communication was likely meant to increase pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it. Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not address the reported cutoff in communications as he testified at a congressional hearing in Washington. Instead, he sounded an optimistic note about the nuclear dimension of the negotiations, while cautioning that there's no guarantee of reaching "a deal that’s acceptable.”
The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, come as the conflicts in Iran and Lebanon have increasingly become conjoined. Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon, where Hezbollah remains one of Iran's chief allies in its self-described “axis of resistance” against Israel.
A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.
Israel and the U.S. maintain the fighting in Lebanon is separate from the Iran war talks.
Meanwhile, year-on-year inflation in Iran reached a level in May unseen since World War II, underlining the economic pain average Iranians are facing. While the U.S. is eager to ease the Islamic Republic's grip on the strait — through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed in peacetime — Iran faces economic challenges as its oil-backed economy remains under a U.S. naval blockade.
Economic pressure touched off nationwide protests in Iran in 2017 into 2018, when rising food prices sparked demonstrations that killed over 20 people and saw hundreds arrested. The next year, an increase in government-subsidized gasoline prices caused protests that saw over 300 people reportedly killed.
Then came the protests over the collapsing value of Iran's currency, the rial, at the start of this year. They were the most intense demonstrations to shake the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution and the chaotic years that followed. Iran's theocracy met January's protests with a crackdown on demonstrators in January that killed over 7,000 people, according to activists' estimates.
Now, even as hard-liners hold gun-handling workshops and organize marriages under the shadow of a ballistic missile to bolster spirits, experts note there could be new demonstrations if people find themselves priced out of feeding their families.
“I have no doubt that if Trump leaves (Iran without a formal peace deal) ... most probably, we will see something like January by the end of summer because of the economic and social situations," analyst Mohsen Jalilvand said in a video published by Iran's Fararu news website.
Iran's Central Bank said the consumer price index, which measures a basket of goods and services, reached 77.2% in May compared with the year before. The rate is 8.5% higher than in April, the bank added. Inflation in daily and general needs — like medicine, taxi fares, tobacco and communication fees — rose 113.8% from the year before.
A private economic think tank in Iran, the Bamdad Institute of Economic Studies, described the current figures as “an unprecedented rate since World War II.” Iran’s Central Bank did not acknowledge the significance of the figures.
The previous record came in 1942. During the war, the British and Soviets invaded Iran and took over its railway, disrupting food supplies. The lack of food, worsened by a poor harvest, sparked hyperinflation and a famine. Hunger and a typhus outbreak killed many.
Airstrikes this year have greatly damaged Iran's businesses and its oil industry, Meanwhile, the U.S. blockade has been targeting Iranian crude oil shipments trying to reach the international market, a key source of hard revenue. Tax revenues have been depressed by businesses struggling even after the fighting paused.
The rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 in 2015, now trades at over 1.7 million to $1.
“We will definitely have higher prices," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in May. "We are fighting, and we must accept this hardship.”
Tehran-based economist Saeed Leilaz, speaking to the AP, warned that annual inflation in Iran could reach 80%.
"Iran’s society cannot tolerate above 25%” annual inflation, he said.
Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Qlaileh village, as it seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A destroyed building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike is seen through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo)
A nurse looks through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital into a destroyed building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
People gather on paddleboards in shallow water as cargo and service vessels are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
People walk at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pedestrians and vehicles cross an intersection around Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Men sit at the gate of a mosque at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People carry packages at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
