TAPS™ · Investor Deck

A first in 160 years of food preservation

This food spread sat in a fridge for 365 days.

Same nutrition as day one. Same taste. Same texture.
No preservatives. No freezer. No compromise.

NSF SBIR Phase I AwardeeSeries Pre-Seed · 2026Confidential
TAPS™ · Investor Deck

01 · The Problem

Shelf life is not a packaging problem. It is a microbiological ceiling.

High-pressure processing is the most advanced method in commercial use. It inactivates bacteria — not their spores. Those survivors cap refrigerated shelf life at 50 to 100 days, and every prepared-food company in the world prices around it.

$380Bthrown out every year in America alone

$157B
Restaurants
$141B
Families
$30B
Grocery
Shrink

Unsold inventory

Short-dated product is marked down or discarded. Shrink is a direct hit to operator margin.

Working Capital

Cash tied in inventory

Short shelf life forces tight, frequent runs and limits batch efficiency.

Distribution

Range constrained

Limited shelf life caps how far and how wide a product can be distributed profitably.

Markdown

Price erosion

Approaching code dates trigger promotional markdowns that erode realized price.

TAPS™ · Investor Deck

02 · The Breakthrough

TAPS™ breaks it.

In a single refrigerated step, TAPS™ inactivates bacteria and their spores — the step conventional HPP cannot complete. Curcumin-anchored bioactives, formulated into the recipe, carry through cooking and activate under roughly 6,000 atmospheres. The bioactives sensitize the spore. The pressure finishes it.

More than a year of refrigerated shelf life. No preservatives, no freezing, no thermal sterilization. Clean label intact.

Three paradigms in 160 years

1864Pasteurization
1920sThermal sterilization
1990sHigh-pressure processing
NowTAPS™ — the fourth.
TAPS™ · Investor Deck

03 · How It Works

One added ingredient. The machine and the production line stay the same.

Today: High-Pressure Processing alone

Food
Package
HPP machine
Safe product

Kills bacteria, but not spores. Refrigerated shelf life of 50 to 100 days.

With TAPS™

Food + TAPS™ blend
Package
Same HPP machine
TAPS™ accessory

Kills bacteria and spores. Refrigerated shelf life of one year and beyond.

TAPS™ is equipment-agnostic. No machine to sell, no plant to build, no line to retool — adoption is a formulation change and a validated protocol. The installed base is our go-to-market.

TAPS™ · Investor Deck

04 · How It Works

The TAPS™ process leaves food exactly as it was.

01

No taste

02

No color change

03

No chemicals

04

Nutritional benefits

TAPS™ · Investor Deck

05 · Defensibility

Three layers, and they compound.

Patents

An allowed US method patent

A continuation-in-part extends coverage across food matrices. Designing around the method is difficult and legally risky.

Execution IP

Codified, and held as trade secret

The blend, the process windows, the protocols. None of it is published, and none of it is inferable from the patent alone.

The Validation Wall

A barrier, not a hurdle

Spore-safety work runs roughly $20,000 per product and is restricted to a few qualified facilities. Every category we validate raises the wall behind us.

For a Tyson, a Hormel, or a Nestlé, licensing is faster and cheaper than building around all three.

TAPS™ · Investor Deck

06 · The Market

One platform, many categories.

The same science that holds a refrigerated meal holds seafood, raw protein, and beverages. Each new matrix is a validation exercise on existing IP, not a new invention.

Phase One

Refrigerated prepared meals, Food as Medicine, seafood

Phase Two

Raw protein

Phase Three

Beverages and color-sensitive applications

$308B
Ready-to-eat meals by 2030
Global Industry Analysts
$11.5B
Food-as-Medicine by 2031
DataM Intelligence
$1.63T
Cold chain by 2035
Future Market Insights
$50B+
DoD ration modernization
Verified Market Research
TAPS™ · Investor Deck

07 · Competitive Landscape

Four ways to extend shelf life. Only TAPS™ keeps food fresh, spore-safe, and stable past a year.

Pasteurization (1865), thermal sterilization (1955), HPP (1990s), and now TAPS™: the fourth paradigm.

PreservativesRetort / canningFreezingConventional HPPTAPS™
Shelf lifeDays to weeksYears, ambientMonths, frozen50–100 days, refrigerated1 year+, refrigerated
Spores inactivatedNoYes, by heatNo, dormantNoYes
Fresh quality retainedReducedNoReduced on thawYesYes
Clean labelNoYesYesYesYes
Core limitationLabel and efficacyQuality destroyedThaw quality, costSpores survive: ceilingThe fourth paradigm
TAPS™ · Investor Deck

08 · Validation

Validated, not asserted.

Federal, third-party, and commercial evidence — across labs, the government, and the shelf.

Federal

NSF SBIR Phase I

Award FAIN 2507388. Peer-reviewed federal scientific validation of extended refrigerated shelf life.

Third-Party Lab

Eurofins panel

Five-meal panel pathogen-negative at eight to thirteen months refrigerated.

Third-Party Lab

Certified Labs

500-day Tikka Masala study. Microbial counts below 10 CFU/g. The strongest single data point.

Commercial

In market today

180-plus stores, three brands, KeHE / UNFI / C&S. ~$475K 2025 YTD across 100-plus SKUs.

One boundary, stated plainly: that evidence is under refrigerated cold chain. Full ambient validation is scoped and funded as the next milestone. We are not claiming shelf-stable today.

TAPS™ · Investor Deck

09 · Unit Economics

We license the method the way a manufacturer franchises a dealer network.

The processor owns the plant and the capital risk. TAPS™ owns the recurring economics: a fee on every pound of food processed, on infrastructure that already exists.

75¢

Adoption fee
per pound processed

45¢

TAPS™ cost to serve
per pound

=
30¢ · 40%

Gross margin to TAPS™
per pound processed

Cost to serve = 12¢ formulation · 13¢ validation · 10¢ training · 10¢ infrastructure. Plus up to +10¢/lb in Year 3 license milestone step-ups.

They adopt because the operator math is immediate. Roughly $1,800 in annualized shrink savings per SKU per store, reaching $10–20M across a converted account footprint. We are not asking a processor to believe a story. We are asking them to run a number.

~$1.9M

Annual revenue per licensee at steady-state throughput

30+

Licensing partners across four food categories at maturity

~$100M

Net revenue at maturity, at a ~40% gross margin to TAPS™

Licensing model only · additional verticals not included

Asset-light by design. Each licensee consumes only a fraction of one HPP vessel's annual capacity, so platform volume scales across licensees, not across TAPS™ capital. TAPS™ builds no factories. · Base-case unit economics. Full model with conservative, base, and upside cases in the data room.

TAPS™ · Investor Deck

10 · Financial Model

Revenue, margin, and operating profit scale on the licensee ramp.

Mature-state anchor: roughly $100M net revenue at a 50% gross margin and a 44% EBITDA margin by Year 5.Projections, not results. Two numbers to track every quarter: licensees signed, and pounds treated.

Metric ($M unless noted)Y1Y2Y3Y4Y5
Net revenue3.627.361.990.9106.3
Gross profit1.512.931.045.453.2
Gross margin41%47%50%50%50%
EBITDA(0.6)10.326.940.146.9
Signed licensees720324040
EBITDA-positive

Operating profit from Year 2

50% gross margin

Up from 41% in Year 1

$2.7M per licensee

Revenue per licensee at scale

TAPS™ · Investor Deck
12 / 14 · Team

11 · Team

Operating depth across science, command, and capital.

General John Michel

Chief Executive Officer

USAF (Ret.). Commanded NATO's Afghan Air Force program. Founder, Soulcial Kitchen (380,000-plus meals).

Priya Ranjan Dass

Founder & CTO

Inventor of record. NSF SBIR principal investigator. MBA, Ross School of Business.

Matthew Sheppard

COO (incoming)

Two decades scaling operators across technology, consumer, and industrial sectors.

Raj Pandey

Head of Business Development

Co-Founder & CEO, Fresh N Fast HPP Inc. Leads fundraising, go-to-market, and investor positioning for TAPS-enabled refrigerated foods.

Rajan Gosain

Head of Manufacturing

30+ years in global hospitality operations and luxury-hotel openings. MBA (Cardiff); Executive MBA (Cornell-ESSEC, Paris).

Navnita Dass

Co-inventor of record

Named co-inventor on the foundational TAPS™ patent family.

Ritu Gosain

Head of Innovation

Leads R&D and matrix-extension formulation work.

Sanjay Tiwari

Director, Data & Analytics

PMP, ASQ. Owns model integrity and KPI instrumentation.

Advisor: Mike Rizkalla. Patent counsel: Cygnet IP Law. SRAB: in formation.

TAPS™ · Investor Deck
13 / 14 · The Ask

12 · The Ask

$6,000,000 Series Pre-Seed

at $24,000,000 pre-money. 20.0% to the round.

Deal Terms
Round
Series Pre-Seed
Structure
Phase One platform-build round
Strategic option
Early licensee access and co-development
Closing condition
IP assignment, TD-preserving
What the $6M Delivers
First-mover access

Priority licensee position as the platform converts the RTE and seafood co-leads.

Validation fortress

Ambient challenge initiated, confirmatory C. botulinum in the lighthouse pilot, SRAB stood up.

IP closed

Inventor-to-company assignment executed; prosecution funded.

Runway to Series A

24-plus months to a Series A underwritten on signed licensees.

TAPS™ · Investor Deck
14 / 14 · Contact

13 · Join the Round

The next century of food
runs on TAPS™

That is not a better package. It is a different ceiling.
And it is already on the shelf.

NSF SBIR Phase I Awardee

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