ABSTRACT

Food safety is undoubtedly the most critical public health concern which is equally important for consumers as well as for food industry. Certain features such as freshness, firmness, color, texture, odor, etc., are commonly measured in the quality control of horticultural commodity and their processed food products to ensure food safety. Earlier analytical techniques had been used for quality analysis of fruits and vegetables. However, such techniques require proper sampling from the entire lot of raw materials. Also, absolute damage to the tested samples is inevitable. Therefore, in recent years research has been focused on progress and development of nondestructive approaches/instruments for determining the organoleptic properties of food. The development of sensors has great potential as it could be used in many areas of applications of food industry. The sensation of smell, taste, and vision resulting from a chain of particular molecular recognitions are being used as a tool for quantification of food samples, beverages, and chemical products in these devices (electronictongue, e-tongue; electronicnose, e-nose; and electronicvision, e-vision). These systems, frequently referred as artificial senses, are getting popularity due to their simplicity, rapidity, and objectivity. E-tongues are applied to analysis of liquid samples, whereas e-noses—for gases, and e-visions for solids. This technology provides many advantages such as impossibility of online monitoring, individual variability, subjectivity, adaptation, harmful exposure to dangerous compounds, etc. 224These features of sensors will completely change the scenario for quality control of fruits and vegetables and their processed products. With correct operation, calibration, validation, and training, thesesensors can contribute significantly for the maintenance and improvement of product quality.