Pankaj B. Pathare - Nondestructive Quality Assessment Techniques for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Quality and safety of fresh fruits and vegetables are of the utmost importance to consumers, retailers, and processors. Traditional methods of quality evaluation, such as mechanical or chemical approaches, are destructive and time-consuming. In addition, chemical methods need to use many chemicals and many of these may be toxic and difficult to dispose. Nondestructive testing is an emerging technology for the fast and easy testing of external and internal fresh produce quality. In recent years, significant progress has been made on the nondestructive methods to develop and their applications in food quality detection. Due to its rapid and nondestructive benefits, nondestructive testing is becoming a key technical support for promoting the fresh produce business by applying technology in an intelligent way.

This book titled Nondestructive Quality Assessment Techniques for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables contains details of the nondestructive approach to feature the present-day trends and existing future opportunities in the fresh food supply chain. First, this book provides an overview of different nondestructive techniques in food quality detection. Then it presents nondestructive methods: monochrome computer vision, imaging techniques, biospeckle laser technique, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging, Raman spectroscopy, near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, X-ray computed tomography, ultrasound, acoustic emission, chemometrics, electronic nose and tongue. Selected applications on each method are also introduced in this book. As a result, the reader can definitely experience a better understanding of how to use nondestructive methods and technologies to detect the quality of fresh fruits and vegetables.

With various interesting topics covered, it is expected that the book will benefit a wide array of audiences including postharvest and food scientists/technologists, industry personnel, and researchers involved in the field of fresh produce quality detection. Besides, the book can serve as a readily accessible reference material for postgraduate students including Ph.D. students, and scientists can extend their knowledge in these research fields. The editors are confident that readers will find this book informative and interesting.

As the editors of this book, we are grateful to all of our research collaborators for their invaluable contributions. We wish to express our sincere gratitude to Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman, for providing us the opportunity, facilities, and support to execute such an exciting book project. We sincerely acknowledge our parents and teachers for their unconditional contribution in our educational progress and support in life. We acknowledge our spouses and children for their kind support with their encouragement and patience throughout the project. Special thanks to our colleagues and other research team members for their support and encouragement.