Automatic ice-cream characterization by impedance measurements for optimal machine setting

Electrical characterization of products is gaining increasing interest in the food industry for quality monitoring and control. In particular, this is the case in the ice-cream industry, where machines dedicated to store ice-cream mixes are programmed ad hoc for different groups of products. To this purpose, the present work shows that essential product classification (discrimination between milk based and fruit based ice-cream mixes) can be done by means of a technique based on the measurements of non-linear response in the electrical behavior of the electrode-electrolyte interface. The addition of pH measurements allows to further reach the three parts classification occasionally required for advanced applications. The proposed idea is validated by means of measurements on 21 ice-cream mixes, different for producers and composition. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved,