Quality assurance of packaged food using nanotechnology

Abstract

Quality assurance is indeed the standard that ensures the quality of the food commodities as per the acceptability of the customer and regulatory authorities. These include appearance, texture, taste, nutrient composition, and reliability. Quality assurance is widely expected during the shelf life of the packaged food products owing to the market demand. Traditionally, the conventional food-grade quality assessment methods are surface sampling, direct counting, and molecular methods. These quality inspection approaches have certain constraints such as factual inaccuracies, elevated risk of contamination, nutrient depletion which limits the way of progression in the food-grade analysis. One of the main aspects of nanotechnology is discovering innovative analytical techniques for the food sector. They are valuable for both the consumers as well as industries to retain market dominance. Nanomaterials are incorporated in the design of sensing frameworks to boost the efficiency of traditional food analysis methods containing low recognition boundaries. Though these methods are quite expensive than the conventional methods, their implementation is superior to existing food quality detection methods on considering the factors like ultra-sensitivity, selectivity, multiple targeting, portability, and noninvasive packaged item monitoring. They require the minimal use of organic compounds like sugars or proteins from food samples as the nanostructured target-recognition class for nanoscale devices like nanofood sensors. The specific optoelectronics, and chemical morphologies of these nanosensors aids in detecting the presence of various contaminants in complex food matrices and regenerate the test speed in an array of biosensors/lab-on-chip, electronic noses & tongues, test-strips, etc. Despite the incorrect perception about nanotechnology among various sectors, they will persist to have a significant role in making food supplies cleaner, better, and more sustainable.