Emerging trends of advanced sensor based instruments for meat, poultry and fish quality– a review

Abstract

Meat and fish chemical composition and sensory attributes are markers of quality that require innovative assessment methods as existing ones are rather technical, laborious, and expensive. Emerging trends of advanced technology instruments have been lauded in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industries for their high sensitivity, customizability, rapidness and affordability. Common among these, are the electronic tongue (e-tongue) and electronic nose (e-nose) but their use for meat and fish quality, remains scanty and scattered. This paper aims to systematically discuss the developing trends, principles and the recent use of e-tongue and e-nose for quality measurements in fish and meat. From over 90 research papers, it was observed that an arsenal of chemometric tools have been pivotal in applying these instruments for rapid quantitative, qualitative and predictive analysis of some physical properties, chemical properties, storability and the authentication of meat and fish. Both instruments require no reagent (waste free analytical procedure) and have been lauded for precision and à accuracy but e-nose may be better suited for meat and fish assessments. Unlike the e-tongue, e-nose requires no liquid sample preparation and portable versions are promising for rapid remote analysis of meat and fish samples that can save cost on transferring carcass to laboratories.

Historical Evolution and Food Control Achievements of Near Infrared Spectroscopy, Electronic Nose, and Electronic Tongue—Critical Overview

“…Since the appearance of the correlative analytical methods, they have been capable of producing highly multidimensional and multicollinear data in conjunction with chemometrics [ 27 ]. This was mainly catalyzed by the immense progression of computer technology.…”

“…The E-tongue has already been established to be better suited for liquid foods but current studies suggest its potential for meat and fish samples if the appropriate extraction methods are employed [ 27 ]. The E-tongue is advantageous in meat and fish analysis for multicomponent measurements because of its high selectivity, high signal-to-noise ratio, and various modes of measurements.…”

Fish Quality Index Method: Principles, weaknesses, validation, and alternatives—A review

“…Recently, another study has been classified the AQI instruments as Sensory Bionic Technologies (SBT), able to overcome the subjectivity and poor repeatability of sensory methods (Wu et al, 2019). SBT application is based on the artificial senses of smell, taste, and vision (Shi et al, 2018), and comprises (i) electronic noses (Loutfi, Coradeschi, Mani, Shankar, & Rayappan, 2015;Zaukuu, Bazar, Gillay, & Kovacs, 2019), (ii) electronic tongues (Jiang, Zhang, Bhandari, & Adhikari, 2018;Peris & Escuder-Gilabert, 2009;Zaukuu et al, 2019), (iii) computer vision techniques (Wu et al, 2019), and (iv) colorimetric sensor arrays (CSAs; Huang, Xin, & Zhao, 2011).…”

“…Moreover, these novel technologies still have structural (physical) and methodological (chemical) limitations that make their use defiant. E-nose and e-tongue sensors sensitivity are highly susceptible to environmental conditions (e.g., oxidation; Holmin, Krantz-Rülcker, Lundström, & Winquist, 2001), resulting in an aging process described as sensor drift, responsible to weaken their sensitivity (Zaukuu et al, 2019). In the e-nose measurements, in particular, the speed at which volatile compounds are taken from the sample to the electronic nose sensor chamber (headspace generation time) should be considered to establish their application method, as this may influence signal strength (González-Martín, Pérez-Pavón, González-Pérez, Hernández-Méndez, & Álvarez-García, 2000).…”

“…Therefore, the use of protocols where there is a minimum of biochemical changes, such as extraction and microfiltration (García et al, 2017;Han, Huang, Teye & Gu, 2015) could be adopted. However, there is no consent on which type of extraction method presents the most representative results (Zaukuu et al, 2019). In addition, the use of MVS to assess the quality of fresh fish also has its limitations, since, for the capture of the gills images, Shi et al (2018) needed to remove them from the samples, making the method time consuming and destructive.…”