Hazel Technologies is looking to expand in Latin America and also open up a new office in California, as the company continues to undergo strong growth.

The USDA-funded startup company develops new technologies to extend the quality shelf life of fresh produce.

Founded in 2015, Hazel Tech works with over 100 of the largest fresh produce companies and retailers in the Americas to reduce food waste, reduce inventory shrink, and increase sales.

At PMA Fresh Summit in California, FreshFruitPortal.com caught up with chief marketing officer and co-founder Patrick Flynn to hear about what the company has been up to.

"A lot of our customers have just been finishing up with their summer seasons in the northern hemisphere. The major markets are in California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Texas, Arizona," he said.

"We're now going be moving more into some southern hemisphere programs were focusing on areas like Peru and the Dominican Republic."

He explained that Hazel Tech would be working more and more in Latin America "in the short-term" as well as opening a new U.S. office.

"We're bringing on personnel that are going to be focusing on Latin America and international operations," he said.

"We're also going to be opening an office in California in the Central Valley in 2020, so that's an exciting development for us.

"And after that, we're just going to continue to grow. I think when we were at the show last year we had something like 10 or 11 employees in total and we just hired our 23rd employee earlier this week."

The impressive growth the company has seen over the last year has come amid numerous announcements of partnerships with leading fresh produce companies.

These include Mission Produce - one of the world's biggest avocado grower-distributors - and more recently, WP Produce, the Dominican Republic's largest green-skinned avocado grower.

Flynn added that the company was focusing a lot on academic validation and collaboration.

"We have a lot of really exciting partnerships with leading agricultural research universities in the U.S, such as UC Davis University, Cornell University, Oregon State University," he said.

"People in the industry can look forward to seeing more collaborations with those universities in our technologies."