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It is a well established fact that quality of a food product (meaning either real or perceived quality and provided
that it does not compromise the safety standards) and its assessment has a direct impact on the price consumers
are willing to pay and thereby on company's turnover. Additionally, its accurate assessment may also have a
direct socio economic impact in terms of sustainability by preventing food wastage due to extremely conservative
product shelf-life predictions.
The final objective of the project is to demonstrate the possibilities offered by the integration of on-line non
invasive sensing methods and process analytical technologies (PAT) with mathematical models capable of fast
estimations of variables related to food quality and safety along the food distribution chain. Previous results and
conditions such as the availability of affordable measurement microelectronics or a reasonable and complete
understanding of the mechanisms responsible of final product quality and safety support the viability of the
project.
From this perspective, the project concentrates on the development and validation of intelligent sensors for
process control and in-line prediction of product shelf-life. Because of its industrial relevance in the food sector,
thermal processes and particularly thawing by high frequency (microwave and radio frequency processing)
and storage (refrigerated and frozen) of meat and fish products will be the main applications considered as a
proof of concept. In particular, control of temperature uniformity and quality-related parameters such as water
content and color will be considered in thawing by high frequency. On the other hand product shelf-life
assessment based on quality and safety indicators will be considered for fish and meat products during
refrigerated and frozen storage. The resulting sensors will be validated in the context of process control and in
prediction and updating of product shelf-life in response to the present temperature history.
