Chapter 6 - Advances in assessing product quality

Abstract

Food industry is paying much attention to the development of reliable and rapid food evaluation systems over the years due to the most demanding consumer concern about the food quality and safety. The purpose of the present chapter is to develop an advanced tool for the assessment of the food safety and quality in different food products. The traditional techniques and methods for the evaluation and detection of food quality and safety are tedious, laborious, expensive, and time-consuming, while advanced techniques, that is, computer vision for quality assessment, three-dimensional technique, hyperspectral imaging, soft X-ray imaging, odor imaging, ultrasound, and nanotechnology, have successfully overcome some of these disadvantages and can supplement or replace them. There are growing interests in these tremendous techniques due to high specificity, convenience, nondestructive, noninvasive, cost-effective, and quick response. These advanced food-processing techniques have shown great potentials for the detection of pathogens, foreign contamination, protein structure changes, and lipid oxidation and for spoilage monitoring in different food commodities to confirm whether it is safe for consumption and international trades or not. Moreover, the advantages and limitations of these techniques are noted and some perspectives have been presented.