Portable near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer and chemometrics for rapid identification of butter cheese adulteration

Author(s)

Medeiros, Maria Lucimar da Silva ; Lima, Adriano Freitas ; Goncalves, Monica Correia ; Godoy, Helena Teixeira ; Barbin, Douglas Fernandes

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Food Chemistry; v. 425, p. 9-pg., 2023-06-06.

Abstract

Artisanal cheeses are highly valued around the world for their distinct sensory characteristics, thus being prone to adulteration by substituting authentic material for cheaper products, such as vegetable oil. In this work, we developed a method based on a portable NIR spectrometer as a non-destructive and low-cost alternative to identify adulteration in butter cheese. Dataset consisted of authentic and intentionally adulterated cheeses in the laboratory and commercial cheeses, which were identified as authentic and adulterated with vegetable oil after analysis of the fatty acid profile. PLS-DA classification models identified adulterated samples with an accuracy of 94.44%. PLS prediction models showed excellent performance (RPD > 3.0) to predict the adulterant level. These results demonstrate that NIR spectra can be used to identify the replacement of authentic fat by soybean oil in butter cheese and that the developed models can be used to identify adulteration in external samples with good performance. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/24351-2 - Applications of image analyses and NIR spectroscopy for quality assessment and authentication of food products
• Grantee: Douglas Fernandes Barbin
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Young Investigators Grants