ABSTRACT
With the growing awareness of food quality and safety among consumers, food quality control and assurance have become essentials in the food processing industry. Consumers expect an adequate quality of food product at a reasonable price with longer shelf-life and high product safety, while food inspectors look for and emphasize safe manufacturing practices, adequate product labeling, and compliance with the statutory regulations. Quality is de‘ned as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics ful‘lls a need or expectation that is stated, generally implied, or obligatory (Hoyle 2001). As per the ISO 9000:2000 standards, quality control is a part of the quality management system focused on providing con‘dence that quality requirements will be ful‘lled. In other words, quality control means the control of “goodness” or excellence. Food quality comprises mainly three aspects: (1) food safety, (2) shelf life, and (3) consistency. Critical factors that affect the product quality and safety are plant conditions, manufacturing practices, housekeeping, sanitary standards, personal hygiene, work habits of employees, and visitors. Food producers are increasingly demanding ef‘cient control methods, particularly through online or at-line quality sensors to satisfy and ensure the quality and safety to consumers and regulatory authorities also. This would help to improve the feasibility of automated food processing and quality of sorting, and also to reduce the production time (increase throughput) and ‘nal product cost (Takhistov 2006).
