Quality Assessment of Aquatic Foods by Machine Vision, Electronic Nose, and Electronic Tongue

Abstract

The increase in demand for seafood products has catalyzed the desire for higher standards regarding safety and quality issues. Since seafoods are perishable, freshness is a major quality parameter to be considered [1,2]. There is no unique freshness or spoilage indicator for seafood, therefore combinations of selected indicators need to be used to evaluate freshness [3,4]. An important and widely used method to determine freshness is sensory evaluation [5]. The Quality Index Method (QIM) uses a demerit point scoring system [6] based on the evaluation of the important sensory attributes (odour, texture, and appearance) of fish and other aquatic foods. The sensory quality is expressed by the sum of the demerit points, and a linear correlation between these points and the storage time is used to predict the freshness of the target seafood [5,7,8]. The QIM has been developed for various seafood species and products, such as Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus), horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus), European sardine (Sardina pilchardus) [9], gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) [10], farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) [11,12], and cod (Gadus morhua) [13], etc. Even though QIM is fast and reliable in determining the freshness of seafood, it still requires experts to evaluate the quality attributes. Alternatively, appearance, odour, and taste can be measured by machine vision system (MVS), electronic nose (e-nose), and electronic tongue (e-tongue), respectively.