MUSE-tech project – MUlti SEnsor Technology for management of food processes
Gasera Ltd. is one the key partners in a EU-funded FP7 collaborative research project called MUSE-tech. The kick-off meeting of the project is held 22nd of October in Barcelona, Spain.
The concept of MUSE-Tech is the integration of three High-End sensing technologies (Photoacoustic Spectroscopy, Quasi Imaging UV-Vis Spectrometry and Distributed Temperature Sensing) in a versatile Multi Sensor Device for real-time monitoring of parameters associated with the quality and the chemical safety of raw and in-process materials. The optimization of the process is demonstrated in the three case studies: bread production, potato chips frying and brewing. Saving on energy consumption is estimated to be between 1-4% in all processes.
The motivation for the project comes from the fact that variability introduced by the sequence of unit operations in food processing directly influences the compositional and sensorial properties as well as the safety of the final food products, hampering to meet consumer and retailer expectations. Conventional strategies of Quality Assurance can be effective, but are expensive and not flawless; batch failures and reworks are frequent. Unsuitable or noncompliant batches have to be discarded or reworked. For these reasons, food industry is trying to shift towards a novel holistic concept, namely “Quality by Design” (QbD) inspired by Process Analytical Technology (PAT), which requires that quality of the food products should be incorporated into process development and design, not by post-production quality testing. Successful implementation of the QbD and PAT approaches require tools and systems which enable continuous analysis and control of processes, including real- time sensing and multivariate data analysis of both raw materials and in-process materials to assure achievement of end product quality specification at the completion of the process. MUSE-Tech project will bridge the gap between state of the art sensing technologies and industrial PAT applications by demonstrating fitness for purpose of the developed multi sensor device in three real-life case studies.
