Food
In­dus­try

Icon in a hexagon that resembles two bottles on a conveyor and that stands for the use case of the HaVoc® Sensory System as an industrial food sensor

In the food in­dus­try, cus­to­mer trust and sa­tis­fac­tion are cru­cial, and the­re is a gro­wing awa­re­ness of food qua­li­ty and re­gio­na­li­ty. The in­dus­try is un­der pres­su­re to meet zero fail­ure to­le­rance and main­tain trans­pa­ren­cy. In­dus­try 4.0 tech­no­lo­gies such as au­to­ma­ted ana­ly­sis of vo­la­ti­le or­ga­nic com­pounds (VOCs) and in-line pro­cess con­trol th­rough in­dus­tri­al sen­so­ry sys­tems of­fer ad­van­ced so­lu­ti­ons to cur­rent chal­lenges like food safe­ty, food fraud, and food de­sign.

Watch our brand­vi­deo or cont­act us to learn how our so­lu­ti­ons can help your in­dus­try.

Food Safe­ty:

  • Iden­ti­fy un­de­si­red re­si­dues or con­ta­mi­na­ti­ons.
  • En­su­re con­for­mi­ty of raw pro­ducts and in­gre­di­en­ci­es.

Food De­sign:

  • De­ve­lop and crea­te new food re­cipes tail­o­red to spe­ci­fic cus­to­mer groups.
  • Pre­dict cus­to­mer ac­cep­tance of main­stream pro­ducts.

Food Fraud:

  • Va­li­da­te pro­duct au­then­ti­ci­ty ba­sed on a mole­cu­lar fin­ger­print.
  • Iden­ti­fy stret­ched or adul­tera­ted pro­ducts.
  • De­ter­mi­ne pro­duct ori­gin and qua­li­ty.

Ex­em­pla­ry
Ana­ly­ses

Cho­co­la­te –
Sa­ni­ti­zed cus­to­mer ex­am­p­le

The fla­vor of cho­co­la­te is sup­po­sed to be made up of about 600 vo­la­ti­le or­ga­nic com­pounds. This ex­am­p­le shows a sa­ni­ti­zed com­pa­ri­son of cho­co­la­tes from dif­fe­rent ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers.

Picture of stacked pieces of chocolate
Six charts of quan­ti­ta­ti­ve com­pa­ri­son by the industrial food sensor HaVoc® Sensory System showing the sub­sti­tu­ti­on of Va­nil­lin by more ar­ti­fi­ci­al re­pla­ce­ments with si­mi­lar fla­vor

The Ha­Voc sen­so­ry sys­tem not only al­lows to de­tect the sin­gle vo­la­ti­le or­ga­nic com­pounds, it mo­reo­ver en­ables to con­duct a quan­ti­ta­ti­ve com­pa­ri­son high­light­ing e.g. the sub­sti­tu­ti­on of na­tu­ral in­gre­di­ents like Va­nil­lin by more ar­ti­fi­ci­al re­pla­ce­ments with si­mi­lar fla­vor.

Cof­fee

Cof­fee fla­vor is sup­po­sed to be very com­plex. While the smell of dif­fe­rent cof­fee be­ans ap­pear ra­ther flat, the in­di­vi­du­al roas­ting pro­ce­du­res of the ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers lead to com­plex and very spe­ci­fic fla­vors.

Coffee beans raining on five packages of different coffee brands that were analyzed by the industrial food sensor HaVoc® Sensory System
Chart that shows the VOC fin­ger­prints of four different coffee brands measured by the industrial food sensor HaVoc® Sensory System

Ba­sed on the ana­ly­sis of the in­di­vi­du­al VOCs and the over­all VOC fin­ger­prints of dif­fe­rent cof­fee samples, Ha­Voc is able to clus­ter, dif­fe­ren­tia­te and iden­ti­fy dif­fe­rent cof­fee roas­tings. The ana­ly­sis fur­ther­mo­re reve­a­led, that the spe­ci­fic cof­fee roas­ting pro­ce­du­res of the ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers are even more si­gni­fi­cant than the ac­tu­al kind of cof­fee (es­pres­so, cof­fee cre­ma, etc.), as in an over­all as­sess­ment, clus­ters are for­med by pro­du­cers ra­ther than kind of cof­fee.

Pro­duct Qua­li­ties – Sa­ni­ti­zed cus­to­mer ex­am­p­le

For the as­sess­ment of pro­duct qua­li­ty in the food in­dus­try, hu­man sen­so­ry pa­nels are of­ten the me­thod of choice. Ho­we­ver, the pa­nel-ba­sed as­sess­ment has some draw­backs, espe­ci­al­ly re­gar­ding re­lia­bi­li­ty and com­pa­ra­bi­li­ty of re­sults.

Two small glass bottles filled with liquid in comparison
Chart that shows Q1 in blue and Q2 in green dots

This ex­am­p­le shows a sa­ni­ti­zed com­pa­ri­son of two dif­fe­rent pro­duct qua­li­ties, which were pre-clas­si­fied into qua­li­ty gra­de #1 (Q1) and qua­li­ty gra­de #2 (Q2) by the hu­man sen­so­ry pa­nel of the pro­du­cing com­pa­ny.

Ha­ving a look at the al­go­rithm-ba­sed clus­te­ring (Ha­Voc) while kee­ping the pre-clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on in mind al­lows to de­ter­mi­ne a re­gi­on cle­ar­ly be­lon­ging to Q2 and an­o­ther re­gi­on whe­re Q1 and Q2 are over­lap­ping.

This clear se­pa­ra­ti­on of the two re­gi­ons sug­gests some po­ten­ti­al mis­clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on due to sub­jec­ti­vi­ty of the hu­man-sen­so­ry-pa­nel.

In ad­di­ton, you will find a spe­cial vi­deo of “Gin Tasting done dif­fer­ent­ly” here

Re­la­ted Ar­tic­les

Plas­mi­on at Anu­ga

Plas­mi­on is pre­sen­ting their Ha­Voc In­dus­tri­al Sen­so­ry Sys­tem at Anu­ga food tec trade fair.

Bet­ter safe than sor­ry

Dis­co­ver more about food safe­ty con­trol in the in­dus­try and learn how con­su­mers and pro­du­cers can be even bet­ter pro­tec­ted in the fu­ture with the smart so­lu­ti­on by the Ha­voc® Sen­so­ry Sys­tem.

Re­la­ted App Note

Cha­rac­te­riza­ti­on of cher­ry-type fla­vorings
In this ap­pli­ca­ti­on note, we will in­tro­du­ce the ca­pa­bi­li­ties of our new sen­sor sys­tem (Ha­Voc) for real-time ana­ly­sis of vo­la­ti­le or­ga­nic com­pounds (VOCs). This sys­tem is ba­sed on mass spec­tro­me­try and de­li­vers real-time re­sults of la­bo­ra­to­ry-gra­de qua­li­ty.

Loo­king for a La­bo­ra­to­ry So­lu­ti­on?

The Ha­Voc Sen­so­ry Sys­tem is de­si­gned to re­vo­lu­tio­ni­ze in­dus­tri­al ana­ly­ses. If you are ra­ther loo­king for a la­bo­ra­to­ry so­lu­ti­on than an in­dus­tri­al one, dis­co­ver our lab ap­pli­ca­ti­ons ba­sed on the SICRIT® io­niza­ti­on tech­no­lo­gy!

Alt: Line art of the SICRIT® ion source