Assessment of meat authenticity using portable Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy combined with multivariate classification techniques

In the present contribution, the feasibility of portable Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) combined with multivariate classification techniques is assessed for classification of minced beef, lamb, chicken and pork samples. In this regard, both attenuated total reflectance-FTIR (ATR-FTIR) and diffuse reflectance-FTIR (DR-FTIR) methods are evaluated. First, principal component analysis (PCA) was used for exploring FT-IR spectra of four meat species to find similarities and dissimilarities among samples. Additionally, one-class classification (OCC) was utilized as a new approach for halal meat species certification. For OCC, two scenarios were defined: (i) 100% correct classification for pork, and (ii) a most favorable overall classification rate for all species investigated simultaneously. With the OCC approach, both ATR and DR methods were found to produce high false-positive scores in scenario (i), whilst the DR method scored the best in scenario (ii) with an overall score of 89% correct classification. In the next step, partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and support vector machine (SVM) with radial basis function (RBF) as kernel function were evaluated for meat speciation. On this matter, SVM showed better classification performance in terms of total accuracy for both ATR-FTIR (98%) and DR-FTIR (100%) datasets over PLS-DA (90% and 98%, respectively).The promising results of both portable ATR-FTIR and DR-FTIR combined with OCC approach and discriminant analysis indicated for the first time their use as successful non-destructive, cost-effective and rapid routine screening methods for on-site analysis of meat speciation and halal meat species certification which could be useful for quality control officers to manage and control meat authenticity at various stages of the supply chain.

Automated summary

The feasibility of portable Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy combined with multivariate classification techniques for meat classification and halal meat species certification was assessed in this study. The results showed that the combination of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and multivariate classification techniques can accurately and rapidly classify meat samples and certify halal meat species.