Multitudinous Applications of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy in Food and Cognate Industries – An Overview

Food industry is one of the fastest growing industries and has vital roles like customer satisfaction, safety, providing product information and the maintenance of commercial viability. Authentication, quantification and quality control are the essential measures to be taken right from the procurement of raw materials to the production of the end product. There are several conventional methods for the analysis, quantification and quality control of samples. All such wet chemical methods are highly time-consuming, labour-intensive and most importantly deal with hazardous materials. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy copes with the above limitations and thus serves as a rapid method of analysis in the food industry. Thus, FTIR serves the purposes like discrimination between varieties, analysis of the composition, vitamin content and structure, determination of microbial spoilage checking the effects of preservation methods and authentication of raw materials and food products by a non-destructive method.