Monitoring strategies for quality control of agricultural products using visible and near-infrared spectroscopy: A review

Abstract

Background The increasing demand for quality assurance in agro-food production requires sophisticated analytical methods for in-line quality control. One of these techniques is visible and near-infrared (VIS-NIR) spectroscopy, which has low running costs, does not need sample preparation, and is non-destructive, environmentally friendly, and fast. Despite these advantages, only a limited amount of research has been conducted on VIS-NIR in-line applications to measure, control, and predict quality in fruits and vegetables. Scope and Approach The applicability of VIS-NIR spectroscopy for the off-line and in-line monitoring of quality in postharvest products has been addressed in this review. The document focuses on the comparison between the two processes for the same agro-food product, highlighting the main advantages and disadvantages, problems, solutions, and differences. Key Findings and Conclusions VIS-NIR techniques, combined with chemometric methods, have shown great potential due to their fast detection speed, and the possibility of simultaneously predicting multiple quality parameters or distinguishing between products according to the objectives. Being able to automate processes is a great advantage compared to routine off-line analyses, mainly due to the savings achieved in time, material, and personnel. However, in numerous cases, in-line implementation has not been accomplished in the corresponding studies, hence the scarcity of real in-line applications. Recent demands, together with the advances being made in the technology and a reduction in the price of equipment, makes VIS-NIR technology an analytical alternative for continuous realtime food quality controls, which will become predominant in the next few years.

Agricultural Land-Use Optimization by Farms Based on Quality Management: Lines of Research

“…The aspects of economic returns from the use of agricultural land have been considered in the works of such researchers as (Reddy & Amarender, 2013;Reddy & Amarender, 2012;Gurmanpreet, 2013). Issues related to quality management of agricultural products are discussed in a number of publications (Bogoviz et al, 2019;Cortés et al, 2019;El-Mesery et al, 2019;Jödicke et al, 2019;Morozova et al, 2018). For the first time, a research was carried out by means of analysis of indicators for the development of the model of agricultural land-use optimization in the European northeastern part of Russia.…”

Roadmap of cocoa quality and authenticity control in the industry: A review of conventional and alternative methods

“…Several optical alternatives are available for infrared spectroscopy: “reflectance,” “transmittance,” “transflectance,” and “interactance” (Alander, Bochko, Martinkauppi, Saranwong, & Mantere, ; Cortés, Blasco, Aleixos, Cubero, & Talens, ). The majority of studies for cocoa powder (Quelal‐Vásconez et al., ) or cocoa beans (Caporaso et al., ) use reflectance (Table ), but transflectance has been used for semisolids and liquids like cocoa butter or chocolate (Bolliger, Zeng, & Windhab, ).…”

Performance of Fluorescence and Diffuse Reflectance Hyperspectral Imaging for Characterization of Lutefisk: A Traditional Norwegian Fish Dish

“…Although considered as reference methods, most of these techniques are costly, laborious, time-consuming, and destructive, and therefore, cannot be applied online during production. On the other hand, the rapidity and non-destructive nature of measurements obtained by spectroscopic techniques, such as fluorescence spectroscopy and visible/near infrared spectroscopy, have become a driving force to encourage the food industry to move away from offline/at-line quality assessments to online/inline processes [6,7]. Fluorescence spectroscopy has shown its potential in many applications, such as monitoring quality changes in frozen horse mackerel (Trachurus japonicus) fillets [8] and spotted mackerel (Scomber australasicus) fillets [9], investigating the impact of different cooking methods of hairtail (Thichiurus lepturus) fillets on the formation of Maillard reaction products [10], and demonstrating the effect of different storage conditions on the freshness of whiting (Merlangius merlangus) fillets [11].…”

“…Fluorescence spectroscopy has shown its potential in many applications, such as monitoring quality changes in frozen horse mackerel (Trachurus japonicus) fillets [8] and spotted mackerel (Scomber australasicus) fillets [9], investigating the impact of different cooking methods of hairtail (Thichiurus lepturus) fillets on the formation of Maillard reaction products [10], and demonstrating the effect of different storage conditions on the freshness of whiting (Merlangius merlangus) fillets [11]. Visible/near infrared spectroscopy has been widely applied for a wide range of agricultural products due to many desirable features, such as rapid preparation and analysis of samples, low cost, and non-destructive measurements [7]. Performing the measurements in the diffuse reflectance mode provides many advantages, such as homogenous illumination of the sample without shadow on the surface or the background material, thus enabling robust and reliable spectroscopic results to be obtained [6].…”