Around the world, mounting pressure on food systems because of increasing food fraud, new consumer demands, and geopolitical crisis, has highlighted the need for transparency and traceability in the industry. In the age of digital technologies, the food industry has been using NIR (Near Infrared) technology due to its many advantages over traditional food analysis methods: cheaper, faster,...
Hyperspectral imaging is commonly used to estimate the quality of fruits and vegetables. Reflectance and transmittance are specific to each biological tissue, and their values are linked to its chemical composition and physical characteristics. However, these properties are influenced by other extrinsic factors, such as the instrumentation or the light source, which can reduce their...
Analytical chemistry is moving towards simpler, and less time-consuming methods. Progress in miniaturization of vibrational spectroscopy components (micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), solid-state lasers, optical components, wavelength selectors, and detectors) has allowed the development of portable or hand-held systems. These devices are simple to use, require minimal or no sample...
The Huétor-Tájar asparagus is regulated by a Specific Quality Denomination and by a Protected Geographical Indication within the European Union. In order to develop a qualitative model that allows discriminating this product from the commercial hybrids of green asparagus produced worldwide, NIRS spectra were collected from samples of freeze-dried shoots of 85 genotypes from Huétor-Tájar and...
Near Infrared Reflectance (NIR) spectroscopy is a user-friendly tool for analysing agricultural products. This tool currently uses a wide variety of purposes including single seed analysis. This tool is currently used to serve a wide variety of purposes, including single seed analysis. Single seed analysis is an important issue especially for plant breeders. Oil content determination is one of...
Dairy products are worldwide spread and have great commercial importance within the food industry. Rapid and reliable analysis of these products would be highly desirable both for the manufacturers and consumers. Near-infrared spectroscopy has been used as a method to predict the quality of different foods due to the speed of analysis and minimal sample preparation.
The results of several...
Smoking is one of the oldest methods of fish preservation, combining the effects of salting, drying, heating, and smoking. Smoke is a good preservative since it contains bactericidal and antioxidant properties. Depending on the smoking method, the amount of carcinogenic compounds in smoke varies. PAHs often function as a carcinogenic group found in smoked products and always be identified for...
Nowadays, companies are increasingly required to improve the control of industrial processes, in order to ensure a product of high and uniform quality and to reduce wastes for more environmentally friendly products. To this aim, thanks to the modern technological progresses, companies can install an increasing number of different type of sensors along the industrial plant. The huge amount of...
Plants are a very important source of bioactive compounds with applications in various domains, from health and wellness, cosmetics and pharmaceutics, to food packaging and agriculture. The large variety and complex composition of bioactive principles derived from plants offer important advantages compared with their synthetic counterparts (Stoleru and Brebu, 2021). However, they also have...
Production of a high quality gluten free bread is a big challenge due to the absence of gluten, which confers unique viscoelastic properties to dough (Houben et al., 2012). To overcome this challenge, different approaches are used in preparing gluten-free products, such as the use of different gluten-free flours (rice, maize), starches (corn, potato, cassava) and ingredients such as...
Iberian pork meat, which is considered a seasonal product, has exceptional organoleptic, sensory and nutritional characteristics, making it a gourmet product. The high prices and consumers’ demand are the main incentive for the Iberian pork products being exposed to frauds and mislabelling. This problematic raises the need to search analytical alternatives that enable to guarantee the...
Literature survey indicates a plethora of published research efforts over the decades to address VOO adulteration, an ever existing problem in the market (Casadei et al., 2021). Since early 90’s when FTIR spectroscopy was first applied to this field, its proof-of-concept was explored in many studies on substitution of VOO by cheap seed oils (e.g. sunflower, corn, soybean and canola oil) or nut...
The pandemic has boosted demand for durable foods such as dried egg-pasta. Due to the increased production capacity, continuous QA/QC is an important task, in which near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, as a rapid test methods, plays an important role. Because the shape of dried egg-pasta (e.g., penne, farfalle, fusilli, etc.) has a significant influence on egg content calibrations developed for...
Biscuit dough mixing is a critical stage in the breadmaking process that affects biscuit quality. The mixing step must ensure a uniform distribution of ingredients (water, sucrose, fat, and flour). Developing a monitoring sensor for the biscuit dough mixing process is crucial for effective quality control. Most online systems are based on the indirect survey of biscuit dough rheological...
The chemical composition of wine is highly influenced by the terroir, the viticultural area where vine interacts with the agronomic practices and environment (cultivar, geographic position, soil, climate conditions of a vineyard, along with the vineyard management). In accordance with EU Regulation (1308/2013) three viticultural areas in Dalmatia (Northern Dalmatia (ND), Dalmatian Hinterland...
NIR Spectra Simulation in Aid of Food Analytical Framework. Understanding of Matrix Effects and Improved Detection of Adulterants
Justyna Grabska1*, Krzysztof B. Bec1, Christian W. Huck1
1 University of Innsbruck, Institute of Analytical Chemistry and Radiochemistry, Innrain 80-82, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Multi-variate analysis...
Phenolic compounds contribute to some of the most important red and white wine quality attributes. These compounds are mainly involved in the colour and mouthfeel properties of wines. In red wines, phenolic compounds are extracted during maceration as the goal is to optimise the phenolic extraction and ensure optimal colour and mouthfeel properties. In white wines, the objective is to minimize...
Despite the huge amount of efforts invested in research into physic-chemical and sensory methods for determining the quality, purity and authenticity of virgin olive oils (VOOs), the adulteration of VOO with low-quality oil remains a major international problem. One of the main reasons for the recurrent frauds episodes is that the volume of VOOs officially inspected is low, due to reduced...
Breast milk is the first source of human nutrition. It contains a lot of bioactive components and nutrients for infants’ growth. It is extremely important for immune systems, affecting a child’s health for life. It is well established that the ideal nutrition is a mother’s own milk, however, sometimes it is not possible. These reasons justify that milk banks as a specialized service integrated...
Project In4Food studies plant production in highly controlled environments, and NIR spectroscopic methods are developed for future quality control and monitoring as well as optimization purposes.
Small NIR sensors have become increasingly available. Also, readily available single-board computers such as the Arduinos, Raspberry Pis or similar that can be connected to normal PC hard- and...
Due to the complexity involved in obtaining robust NIR agri-food applications, it is crucial to reinforce the links between the academia and instruments and software developers., in order to exchange knowledge and practice about the opportunities offered by the different instruments and accessories available in the market for each food and feed application as well as optimize sample analysis...
The acquisition of high quality spectra and the optimization of the spectra taking process are crucial for the success of the non-destructive quality characterization of horticultural products by near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), during their growing period in the field and in the industrial processing lines. The aim of this research was to assess various alternatives related to the mode of...
Pork belly firmness is an important quality trait because it determines the processing aptitude and consumer acceptability. Firmness is partially modified by the ratio of unsaturated to saturated fatty acids (FA), where a higher ratio produces softer bellies and is less favourable. A common method to assess this ratio is the iodine value (IV). The objectives of this study were to assess the...
Sucrose production consists of many different unit operations and one of the most critical unit operation in the sucrose production is crystallization; which is a separation of sugar molecules from beet syrup. Sucrose crystallization is performed mostly by evaporation under vacuum in refined sugar industry. This operation is a considerably time-consuming step-in sucrose production, which...
In the food industry, smart in-line sensor systems are under constant development, aiming to effectively handle massive streams of food raw materials and products. Raman spectroscopy is gaining increasing interest for its chemical specificity. Recent feasibility studies show how the technique can be used to quantify fatty acids in muscle foods, water holding capacity in pork meat and mineral...
The animal origin from which some types of foodstuffs are produced is a determining factor leading to a higher or lower quality of the product. As a consequence, these foods can be subject to fraud and require adequate authentication. In this sense, dairy products such as cheese are susceptible to fraud. The main ingredient is milk, which can be obtained from cows, goats, sheep or buffalo,...
Calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) are two important minerals in milk, playing an essential role in human nutrition (Manuelian et al., 2018). Concentration of Ca and P in milk is then extremely important in the coagulation process, as they bond together to the casein micelles, influencing curd structure and stability and eventually to the quality of cheeses (Malacarne et al., 2014). Milk is...
Andrographis paniculata (Kalmegh), is a popular medicinal plant in India, which is expansively used in Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha medicines as home remedy for various diseases like upper respiratory infections, fever, sore throat, hepatitis and other chronic and infectious diseases(Jayakumar et al., 2013) . The main active constituent is andrographolides and its quantitative determination is...
The authors’ group, in close cooperation with the rendering industry, has scientifically demonstrated the feasibility of NIRS technology for the determination of chemical and nutritional parameters of Processed Animal Proteins (PAPs) meals, using instruments with very different hardware and software, installed either at line or on-site. However, based on our experience, the availability of...
Worldwide, postharvest losses have been estimated to be 40%-50% of the harvested crop, mostly due to rots caused by microorganisms (Okawa, 2015). Plants emit various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into their surrounding environment, and the VOC profiles of healthy crops are altered upon infection. Therefore, monitoring these changes will allow the identification of infected crops at an...
The use of Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) for the determination of quality in oranges has been previously assessed in different research works. However, since this technology provides both spectral and spatial information, it is essential the reduction of data for the implementation of this technology at industrial level. Nevertheless, an excessive reduction can cause a loss of important data,...
During every growing season, pre-harvest germination of malting barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), leads to major economic losses globally. Culminating toward a breaking point, where a new, unbiased and rapid detection method, capable of early stage germination is required to fill a gap in industry. Indeed, malting barley is cultivated for the purpose of controlled malting, where barley grain...
Trends in the use of Near Infrared Spectroscopy sensors (NIRS) in the agri-food industry are moving towards the use of small size and low-cost spectrometers, suitable for on-site use. However, most of the existing commercial portable NIRS spectrometers were designed for process control within the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, and not for food applications. Therefore, before providing...
The usefulness of methods based on VIS/NIR for nondestructive assessment of maturity and quality of plums (‘Presenta’, ‘President’ and ‘Tophit’ cvs) at harvest and after storage was evaluated. Nondestructive measurements were performed using DA meter (Sintéleia, Italy) and CP Pigment Analyzer PA1101 (Control in Applied Physiology GbR., Germany). The DA index (DA meter) was calculated as...
Handheld NIR spectrometers can be used for on-site and in-the-field analysis, have a high acquisition rate and, in most of the cases, do not require sample preparation. However, some shortcomings are also noteworthy in industrial settings such as variability on signal-to-noise ratio, low reproducibility induced by movement, changes in luminosity and temperature, to mention just a few. Hence...
Fruit preservation can cause texture alterations which may affect consumers acceptance if conditions are not appropriate. Hence, fruit classification based on texture alterations can be of interest for food industries. Whereas artificial vision systems have been used to detect external quality of fruit, detection and classification based on texture cannot be done accurately using external...
