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Non-invasive assessment of food quality 
As a non-invasive approach to measuring food quality, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is fast, reliable and non-destructive. Flour mills in particular have taken advantage of the approach to control their processes, but its benefits could be realised more widely. Ascertaining the freeze-thaw status of meat has long been a problem. NIR offers potential here as the changes in physical structure associated with freezing could be determined with reasonable accuracy on thawed samples of chicken breast. Non-invasive assessment of staling of baked goods could exploit NIR detection of changes in starch gels during retrogradation. Flour particle size - including the distribution of different particle sizes within a batch - is an important aspect of flour quality. NIR offers a fast and effective way of monitoring this - and hence potentially controlling it - as flours with the same mean particle size but differing particle size distributions were shown to have different NIR spectra. This offers an extension to the range of flour quality parameters already assessed by NIR. Whilst some of the applications explored require further development, they demonstrate the potential for wider exploitation of this non-invasive method for the assessment of aspects of food quality. Contact: Dr Sam Millar |