Multispectral Wavebands Selection for the Detection of Potential Foreign Materials in Fresh-Cut Vegetables.

Salma Sultana Tunny,Moon S Kim,Hanim Z Amanah,Mohammad Akbar Faqeerzada,Byoung-Kwan Cho,Collins Wakholi,Insuck Baek

doi:10.3390/s22051775

Abstract

Ensuring the quality of fresh-cut vegetables is the greatest challenge for the food industry and is equally as important to consumers (and their health). Several investigations have proven the necessity of advanced technology for detecting foreign materials (FMs) in fresh-cut vegetables. In this study, the possibility of using near infrared spectral analysis as a potential technique was investigated to identify various types of FMs in seven common fresh-cut vegetables by selecting important wavebands. Various waveband selection methods, such as the weighted regression coefficient (WRC), variable importance in projection (VIP), sequential feature selection (SFS), successive projection algorithm (SPA), and interval PLS (iPLS), were used to investigate the optimal multispectral wavebands to classify the FMs and vegetables. The application of selected wavebands was further tested using NIR imaging, and the results showed good potentiality by identifying 99 out of 107 FMs. The results indicate the high applicability of the multispectral NIR imaging technique to detect FMs in fresh-cut vegetables for industrial application.

Highlights

Fresh-cut fruits and vegetables refers to ready-to-eat or ready-to-cook plant products that have been slightly physically modified by slicing, cutting, peeling, or trimming and packed as 100% edible products
The results indicate that the new models were able to differentiate the vegetables from the foreign materials (FMs) with 100% accuracy
The results obtained from the Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models confirm that NIR spectroscopy has good potential for distinguishing FMs from fresh-cut vegetables with almost 100% accuracy

Summary

Introduction

Fresh-cut fruits and vegetables refers to ready-to-eat or ready-to-cook plant products that have been slightly physically modified by slicing, cutting, peeling, or trimming and packed as 100% edible products. The International Fresh-Cut Produce Association (IFPA) reported that since 1930, fresh-cut products have been available in retail supermarkets [1]. Fresh-cut production companies were established for supplying products to hotels, restaurants, and catering services. This industry has become popular in the last few years because of the growing need for fresh fruit and vegetables for consumption [2]. Fresh-cut fruit and vegetables are among the most popular commodities in industrialized countries’ food markets, remaining the most demanded plant-derived products to meet the needs of modern consumers. In the last decade, because of technological advancements, this specialized industry has been successively growing and is better organized [3]

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