New Application of Nondestructive Methods for Quality Evaluation of Fruits and Vegetables in Japan.

Studies on nondestructive methods for fruits and vegetables started in the early 1970s in Japan. The main goal of the studies was measurement of surface color of the products using visible light. After that, many studies using delayed light emission (DLE), near infrared (NIR), fluorescence, sound response, and impact force response have been carried out to develop ways of detecting maturity, firmness, surface defects and other properties. Since the late 1980s, NIR spectroscopy has been studied for determining the chemical composition of many kinds of products such as peaches, Japanese pears, apples, satsuma mandarins and other products. In my presentation, new application of nondestructive quality evaluation of fruits and vegetables, including (1) firmness measurement, (2) internal void and disorder detection, (3) color grading, (4) maturity detection, (5) sweetness sorting, and (6) other topics is explained.