Food and beverage

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) enables rapid, nondestructive quality control of intact olives, supporting optimal harvest timing and improved oil yield estimation. NIRS provides fast, reagent-free determination of oil content, moisture, and maturity index without sample preparation. Its analytical performance is comparable to established methods such as NMR and Soxhlet extraction, while being significantly faster and easier to implement in mills or quality control laboratories.

Corn starch serves as a gelling and thickening agent in the confectionary industry. It is also an ideal reusable molding and drying medium for starch-molded candies, where its moisture content is critical to monitor. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) provides a rapid, reagent-free method to determine moisture and protein content in corn starch. The technique is straightforward to operate and suitable for atline monitoring or routine quality control laboratories.

Raman spectroscopy is ideally suited to rapidly screen for methanol contamination in spirits.

NIRS simultaneously measures important quality parameters in whey permeate (i.e., ash, phosphate, lactose, protein, pH, and moisture) without any sample preparation.

Ethanol content can be quickly and easily determined in different wines during fermentation and afterwards for quality control using near-infrared spectroscopy.