Digitalized food quality assessment – 3D X-ray and ultrasound

Can you test the quality of a cheese without cutting it into pieces? And is it possible to obtain information about when a lamb is ready for slaughter - already when it goes to pasture? Researchers at Luleå University of Technology and SLU have investigated this together with local food producers in a project funded by NorrlandsNavet.

Today, the majority of food quality assessment is carried out using manual techniques that involve cutting or drilling the raw material, inspecting and tasting the product. This research project has investigated two other technologies - ultrasound and 3D X-ray - that can be used for simple, objective and digitalized quality assessment. The techniques were tested on lamb and cheese in collaboration with local food producers. Norrmejerier, Nyhléns Hugosons, Hälje Gård and Burträsk slaughterhouse have been involved in the project, whose preliminary results have been presented at several scientific conferences and to local food producers.

– "What we have seen is that 3D X-ray works well for both cheese and lamb meat. Ultrasound has not worked very well on the cheeses, as the holes interfere with the technology. However, ultrasound is a good method for examining whether a lamb is ready for slaughter, and as a farmer you can relatively easily examine the lambs on the farm," says Mårten Hetta, researcher at SLU.

When the lambs are examined with ultrasound at home on the farm, it is mainly a matter of measuring fat deposits and the thickness of the muscles. This allows you to get an idea of the animals' growth early in the process - important information for the farmer. The image from the ultrasound also provides clear feedback on feed, breeding and breeding work.

– "The goal for the sheep industry is to get even carcasses and even cuts that work well in cooking, and the methods we have tested now can help us with that. We lamb producers would not have been able to test these techniques on our own, but it is possible thanks to NorrlandsNavet," says lamb producer Kristina Johansson at Hälje farm outside Umeå.

Once the lambs have been slaughtered, the slaughterhouse always makes a manual assessment of the carcass called grading, a measure of how useful the cuts are in the kitchen from the chef's perspective. This grading is abstract and difficult to interpret for many farmers. In this project, the choice was made to measure the distribution of bone, fat and muscle using 3D X-rays. In the case of cheese, 3D X-rays can describe how the holes are distributed, measure the density of the cheese and detect any cracking. Overall, this gives a good picture of how well the cheese meets consumer expectations. This project has mainly worked with Grevé type cheeses.

– "We are positively curious about this technique because it is possible to describe the inner qualities of the cheese without destroying it. We can follow a cheese over time and see how it develops," says Peter Forsman, Norrmejerier.

The instruments for 3D X-ray come from Luleå University of Technology's wood technology research in Skellefteå and were originally developed to classify wood raw material. The ultrasound technology is available at SLU and has previously been used mainly on cattle. Although the research project only tested the techniques on cheese and lamb, it is likely that these new methods can also be used for other food production.

– "Since the methods are efficient, digital and safe, and the food does not need to be destroyed, they will be cost-effective in the long run, even if the initial investment is large for a small company," says Mårten Hetta.

In this video, some of the researchers tell us more about the project.

In this video, researcher Mårten Hetta from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and lamb producer Kristina Johansson tell us more about the project.

Our researchers

Lars Hansson

In collaboration with

Åse Lundh
Professor, Animal Foods, SLU

Mårten Hetta
Researcher, SLU

Karin Hallin Saedén
Head of Research and Cheese Project, SLU

Gun Bernes
Experimental manager, SLU

Katarina Arvidsson Segerkvist
Associate Professor in Meat Science, SLU

Anders Karlsson,
Professor of Meat Science, SLU

Annika Höjer
Expert milk raw material Norrmejerier

Do you want to get in touch with the researchers or know more about this project?

Contact
Mårten Hetta, marten.hetta@slu.se