Research Pick: Testing for food contamination - "Applications of hyperspectral and optical scattering imaging technique in the detection of food microorganism"

Food can become contaminated with pathogenic bacteria even when hygiene standards in a kitchen, whether domestic or commercial, and in the food industry. There are so many possible microbes that can come into contact with food from a wide variety of sources including people with poor personal hygiene or outsourced ingredients that have been contaminated elsewhere.

Now, a team from China has reviewed hyperspectral and optical scattering imaging techniques to reveal whether food samples contain problematic microorganisms. These non-invasive approaches circumvent many of the long-winded and complicated laboratory techniques on which such tests have relied in the past.

Optical techniques offer quicker result and avoid the need for destructive testing and even significant operator expertise.

Xu, J., Ma, L., Wu, J., Xu, X., Sun, Y., Liu, Q., Pan, L. and Tu, K. (2018) ‘Applications of hyperspectral and optical scattering imaging technique in the detection of food microorganism’, Int. J. Computational Vision and Robotics, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp.267–282.