Selected Sensor Technology Innovation in Food Quality and Safety

In order to assess food safety and quality, it is important to develop rapid, accurate, and simple techniques to measure the microbial and physicochemical characteristics of foods. Currently, varieties of new technologies are being emerged for their potential applications in food industry. In this chapter, selected technologies [i.e., biosensors, artificial electronic nose (e-nose) and electronic tongue (e-tongue) mimic to human, and ATP (adenosine triphosphate) bioluminescence technique] are reviewed in relations to their modes of operation, types of sensors, and their applications in food quality and safety assessment. Biosensors basically convert the biological responses in the presence of a chemical compound and translate into an electrical signal, and these are classified based on the mode of signal transduction, i.e., electrochemical, optical, and mass-based. E-nose and e-tongues are designed to ideally detect and discriminate complex aromas and tastes; these devices are made with arrays of sensors, which respond to specific aroma or taste compounds present in samples. The patterns from known aromas or tastes are used to train a pattern recognition system to later classify and identify unknown stimuli. The available ATP in biological cells is measured by bioluminescence technique, and it is used to detect microorganisms in foods. Bacterial detection by ATP bioluminescence assay is simply based on analyzing this molecule by an enzymatic complex called luciferase-luciferin, which produces light; and it is proportional to the ATP. ATP is a universal molecule found in all living organisms and is an excellent marker for viability and cellular contamination. Interference by non-microbial sources of ATP is however a major problem and is resolved by the inclusion of membrane filtration methods to separate bacteria from nonbacterial sources; thus it is able to detect bacterial ATP only. This chapter reviewed the feasibility, efficiency, and applications of different innovative technologies in food quality and safety assessment.