As the food industry deals with highly delicate products, it is extremely important to guarantee high-quality standards and adhere to common quality criteria. Also, the General Food Law Regulation aims at ensuring a high level of protection of human life and consumers’ interests concerning food. For this reason, players in the food industry must have appropriate quality control measures in their production lines and quality control departments.
HERA hyperspectral cameras have been employed in an Italian vertical farm, Agricola Moderna, to evaluate the health of vegetables and monitor their shelf life, which is a crucial characteristic for assessing the food safety. Thanks to the hyperspectral analysis, it is possible to detect senescence or signs of illness in advance with respect to the visual monitoring of the plant. Interestingly, the spectral response of the sample brings information on the chemical and nutrient composition, such as chlorophyll, anthocyanin, and phenol concentration. These features have been obtained by combining hyperspectral data acquired both in reflectance and fluorescence conditions.
The figure below reports two sets of spectra of harvested mustard leaves, one referring to reflectance and the other to fluorescence. For each set, the different colours (blue, green, and orange) refer to different days after harvesting. Senescence-related changes in the spectra are clearly visible.
Concerning the reflectance data:
Concerning the fluorescence data:
In the following, we also show two sets of images at different days after harvesting:
