How Can We Improve Food Quality and Reduce Waste?

Specim Hyperspectral Imaging Cameras are available exclusively in the UK and Ireland from Quantum Design UK and Ireland

Spectral imaging provides sorting machine builders and system integrators a technology which obtains chemical information across the full product stream. Most widely used technologies in such food inspection environments are metal detection and x-ray to ensure safety of the produced food. Unlike the traditional colour, metal, or x-ray cameras, spectral cameras can reliably identify product stream materials based on biological and chemical content which enable the food industry to optimise product consistency, improve yield, reduce waste and deliver quality.

Applications include:

Meat, Fish and Poultry

Identify and remove bone, cartilage, plastics, wood, rubber, metal, or parasites. Hyperspectral imaging can also measure the product chemical composition, including fat, protein and water content and meat tenderness.

Dried Food – Nuts and Cereals

Detect discoloration or mould, identify and remove foreign objects like shell pieces, wood, stones, and insects. Spectral imaging can identify nut types such as almonds, cashew, walnuts, pistachio, peanuts.

Fruit, Berries and Vegetables

Detect blemishes and bruising under the skin, measure ripeness and chemical quality, independent of the fruit colour and size. It can also identify foreign materials such as wood, paper, metal, or insects. Achieve better quality, ripe products with optimised shelf life, and reduce losses and waste.

Food Packaging – Heat Seal Inspection

Detect any contamination between the seal and the transparent or colour printed package to identify if it is no longer airtight. Where undiscovered, air and contaminants such as moulds, fungus or bacteria can enter the package and deteriorate the product well before the expiration date.

Seed and Grain

Predict protein content, remove contamination, characterise the consistency and produce quality.

Food Fraud Inspection

Hyperspectral cameras can, quite literally, see the invisible. While human eye and conventional cameras only see what is on the visible light spectrum; hyperspectral imaging sees both the visible light area and wavelengths that human eye cannot perceive, gathering much more accurate information than traditional cameras and visual inspection ever can. Each material has a unique “spectral fingerprint” that can be identified with hyperspectral imaging.

This means that with hyperspectral imaging you can quickly and cost-effectively differentiate materials that look identical but have, for example, different chemical composition or even amount of moisture. It is a non-invasive technique that allows you to characterise surface colour or texture as well as many chemical compositions.

Figure 1. Food Fraud Rice

Compared to traditional laboratory analyses, hyperspectral cameras save time and money and are suitable for quick screening of large sample sets, collecting spectral information on each and every pixel of your image.

SPECIM IQ, the mobile hyperspectral camera, provides instant results, also from inhomogeneous materials, with applications uploaded in the camera.

Check food quality and safety on-the-spot!

• Detect adulterated and contaminated products
• Separate fresh from thawed products
• Check freshness, ripeness and many other quality parameters

Specim IQ

• Mobile, compact and autonomous
• Integrated processing engine for obtaining instant results
• Highest sensitivity and data quality on the market

Specim have several webinars available, including a Live Q&A Session with Engineers Mathieu and Jeff, who deliver a practical demonstration of sorting almonds and then take questions from viewers.

You can also watch Specim Senior Application Specialist Esko Herrala and his special guest star Abi Ramanan, CEO of ImpactVision, who discuss the future of food production and introduce real life case examples.

Discover more about the latest Specim news and their webinars here https://qd-uki.co.uk/all-the-latest-on-hyperspectral-imaging-cameras/

We can still do live demos, despite lockdown! Get in touch with us today to book yours.

Specim specialist at Quantum Design UK and Ireland: Ashley Crane ashley@qd-uki.co.uk | 01372 378822 | www.qd-uki.co.uk