Santa Barbara, California (CNN Business) Kroger will start selling longer-lasting avocados to reduce waste and save money.

This week the company will start selling avocados treated with a plant-based solution that helps slow down decay. The fruit will be available in about 1,100 of Kroger's nearly 2,800 stores. The grocery chain also plans to sell longer-lasting asparagus and limes in a Cincinnati pilot program.

When treated with the innovative coating — a colorless, odorless powder that is mixed with water and sprayed, brushed or otherwise applied to lock in moisture and block oxygen — the produce should last at least twice as long as regular avocados.

Kroger will sell the avocados, asparagus and limes at the same price as untreated versions of the produce. It is testing various marketing programs to determine how customers will know that they are buying something different.

Apeel avocados are hitting shelves at about 1,100 Kroger stores this week.

Apeel, which makes the coating, is a seven-year-old startup that raised $110 million from investors that include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Andreessen Horowitz, Viking Global Investors and others.

Read More