Abstract
Minced meat is a vulnerable to adulteration food commodity because species- and/or tissue-specific morphological characteristics cannot be easily identified. Hence, the economically motivated adulteration of minced meat is rather likely to be practiced. The objective of this work was to assess the potential of spectroscopy-based sensors in detecting fraudulent minced meat substitution, specifically of (i) beef with bovine offal and (ii) pork with chicken (and vice versa) both in fresh and frozen-thawed samples. For each case, meat pieces were minced and mixed so that different levels of adulteration with a 25% increment were achieved while two categories of pure meat also were considered. From each level of adulteration, six different samples were prepared. In total, 120 samples were subjected to visible (Vis) and fluorescence (Fluo) spectra and multispectral image (MSI) acquisition. Support Vector Machine classification models were developed and evaluated. The MSI-based models outperformed the ones based on the other sensors with accuracy scores varying from 87% to 100%. The Vis-based models followed in terms of accuracy with attained scores varying from 57% to 97% while the lowest performance was demonstrated by the Fluo-based models. Overall, spectroscopic data hold a considerable potential for the detection and quantification of minced meat adulteration, which, however, appears to be sensor-specific.
Highlights
In the last decade food fraud has become a major issue, which, among others, is reflected on the exponentially increasing number of pertinent studies published in the scientific literature (Figure 1)
Specificity scores for multispectral image (MSI) data were over 87.50% but for Vis data were over 58.33%
Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has been investigated as a potential indicator of offal adulteration in minced beef samples with high (0.85–0.95) values of coefficients of determination being reported for validation datasets [44,45]
Summary
In the last decade food fraud has become a major issue, which, among others, is reflected on the exponentially increasing number of pertinent studies published in the scientific literature (Figure 1). Food fraud scandals such as milk adulterated with melamine in China (2008), horsemeat in beef products (2013) and fipronil in eggs (2017) have had a negative credibility and financial impact affecting authorities, industries and consumers worldwide [1]. The motivation of most fraudulent practices is economic gain, the consequences are restricted to the deception of consumers but may affect public health (e.g., allergies or food poisoning) or lead to the consumption of undesirable food commodities for religious or cultural reasons [2,3]. Food fraud mitigation, especially through the prevention of such practices by the implementation of frequent inspections, is of major importance.
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