Fluorescence-based concept of Naturalness applied to organic processed fruit and vegetables

Summary

Background: According to the European regulation N°834/2007, processing of organic food should preserve the essential qualities of the fresh raw material. Thus, assessment of processed food quality should include verification of the absence of additives and contaminants and preservation of the sensorial, nutritional and health values of the raw material. In this paper, a quantifiable concept of naturalness measuring global quality loss due to processing and storage of raw organic material is proposed. This indicator is based on Front face fluorescence; a global and sensitive technique able to assess in real time and non-destructively these various dimensions of the food quality.
Results: A strong relationship between the naturalness levels estimated from front face fluorescence measurements and conventional chemical quality markers was found in several applications on different food matrices. The results also show that the naturalness indicator, which provides a global appraisal of the product quality, can also be used for process optimization through the evaluation of the impact of preprocessing of raw material, thermal treatments, packaging, storage, etc.
Conclusion: Front face fluorescence based measurement of quality loss during food processing and storage is a promising innovative approach which allows real time non-destructive assessment of the level of naturalness of an organic food product.