Spectroscopy and Chemometrics Pave the Way for Safer, Higher-Quality Food

A recent review article examined how food quality monitoring processes have been enhanced by the combination of Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics. This article, which was published in the Journal of Food Measurement and Characterization, was led by Da-Wen Sun of the South China University of Technology (1).

Food safety and sustainability have taken on increased importance in the global economy. Supply chains are designed to produce and ship food products globally while maintaining rigorous safety and quality standards. Cold chain food monitoring is an essential part of this process.

Cold chain food monitoring is essentially the process of maintaining a consistent cold temperature in preserving food products throughout the supply chain to prevent possible spoilage or bacterial growth (2). Because the supply chain is long, there are numerous opportunities for the preservation of food products to go awry. Other products, environmental factors, the mode of transportation used, and even the food product itself can influence how well the food item remains preserved (2).

Other challenges with cold chain food monitoring include a lack of real-time visibility, the loading and unloading processes, inconsistent temperatures, and no data analytics (2). Currently, food producers and manufacturers rely on four key steps to overcome these challenges. These include loading food products at the proper temperature, preparing the container the food will be shipped in properly, ensuring that the container is loaded properly, and making sure the temperature is visible (2). However, these strategies are not foolproof.

Therefore, in their review article, Sun and the rest of the team explored how spectroscopy and chemometrics have been deployed to help the cold chain food monitoring processes. The main premise of their article was that these tools offer faster, more accurate assessments of food quality from processing to storage (1).

Traditional analytical methods, while effective, often fall short in speed and adaptability. These are two areas where spectroscopy and chemometrics excel (1). The review article describes how modern spectroscopic techniques, including visible/near-infrared (Vis/NIR), infrared (IR), mid-infrared (MIR), Raman spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), and hyperspectral imaging (HSI) are all providing non-destructive and highly responsive ways to assess food composition and freshness (1).

Meanwhile, chemometrics is being used to interpret the amounts of data generated by these spectroscopic methods. Some of the chemometric tools being used routinely in cold chain food monitoring include principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), artificial neural networks (ANNs), and partial least squares (PLS) (1). Based on the available research into this space, PCA and PLS have demonstrated the highest potential. Both methods have been consistently and successfully used to evaluate food quality during cooling, freezing, and long-term storage (1). PCA and PLS, the authors explain, can detect subtle physical and chemical changes, improving authentication, spoilage assessment, and process optimization.

“Several studies demonstrate that this combined approach offers considerable promise for rapid analysis of complex data sets, effective quality monitoring, food authentication, and overall cold chain optimization,” the authors wrote in their study (1).

By identifying the most common challenges in the cold chain food monitoring process, the research team was able to show, through examples, how spectroscopy and chemometrics can help mitigate these issues. They also presented how these methods can be applied across the entire cold chain (1).

Food supply chains are notoriously complex. As a result, it does require advanced analytical tools to ensure safety and efficiency. This review article demonstrates how spectroscopic and chemometric tools can be integrated at all steps in the cold chain process, offering a clear roadmap for researchers and industry stakeholders eager to modernize cold chain systems and build a more resilient food future.

References

1. Tsekwi, G. R.; Ma, J.; Sun, D.-W. Enhancing Quality and Safety Monitoring of Cold Chain Foods Through Integrating Chemometrics with Spectroscopy: Concepts and Practical Implementations. J. Food Meas. Char. 2025, ASAP. DOI: 10.1007/s11694-025-03806-5
2. Sensitech, Keeping the Cold Chain Unbroken with Four Simple Steps. Sensitech. Available at: https://www.sensitech.com/fr/blog/blog-articles/blog-four-steps-keeping-cold-chain-unbroken.html (accessed 2025-12-04).