Application of Hyperspectral Imaging in Food Safety Inspection and Control: A Review

Food safety is a great public concern, and outbreaks of food-borne illnesses can lead to disturbance to the society. Consequently, fast and nondestructive methods are required for sensing the safety situation of produce. As an emerging technology, hyperspectral imaging has been successfully employed in food safety inspection and control. After presenting the fundamentals of hyperspectral imaging, this paper provides a comprehensive review on its application in determination of physical, chemical, and biological contamination on food products. Additionally, other studies, including detecting meat and meat bone in feedstuffs as well as organic residue on food processing equipment, are also reported due to their close relationship with food safety control. With these applications, it can be demonstrated that miscellaneous hyperspectral imaging techniques including near-infrared hyperspectral imaging, fluorescence hyperspectral imaging, and Raman hyperspectral imaging or their combinations are powerful tools for food safety surveillance. Moreover, it is envisaged that hyperspectral imaging can be considered as an alternative technique for conventional methods in realizing inspection automation, leading to the elimination of the occurrence of food safety problems at the utmost.