Laser backscattering imaging as a non-destructive quality control technique for solid food matrices: Modelling the fibre enrichment effects on the physico-chemical and sensory properties of biscuits

Abstract

This work focused on modelling the effect of fibre enrichment on the physico-chemical and sensory properties of biscuits by an image analysis of laser backscattering patterns. The study was done on four formulas where, besides the control, three fibre enrichment levels were included (5%, 10% and 20% w/w). The impact on the physico-chemical and sensory properties of biscuits was characterised according to analyses of texture, thickness, area, mass increment, density, flux of solvents (water and milk), colour, taste, mouth texture, etc. Moreover, the image analysis was carried out to collect information from the interaction of a laser with two different biscuit production chain matrices: after the mixing and forming phase (doughs) and after baking (end biscuits). That information was obtained according to the image descriptors generated from the morphology of the observed laser patterns. Both studied matrices offered different, but complementary, information about isolating the variance produced by fibre enrichment for doughs, while the variance generated by heat treatment was also recorded for biscuits. The quantitative prediction of the physico-chemical and sensory properties of biscuits improved when combining both information blocks. The impact of fibre enrichment on biscuits can be modelled by this imaging technique, which could be the basis to develop new non-destructive systems for online inspections made during cookie processing to quickly and non-destructively report physico-chemical and sensory information.