Food - Orange Spoilage Detection

During breakdown by pathogens such as fungi, bacteria and insects, food releases volatile compounds which we recognise as the classic "off-scents" of spoilage. The volatile compounds released change as degradation of the food proceeds, with certain compounds indicative of early infection and others released late during infection. Often infection is undetectable at early stages, leading to costly monitoring programs to make sure that the food that goes for sale is of the highest quality.

Inscentinel is currently working with researchers at Rothamsted to identify the compounds emitted by the early stage infection of oranges by the medfly (Ceratitis capitata). Honeybees are trained to recognise the smell of infected oranges and discriminate these from uninfected oranges, and the compounds they identify are recorded as "biomarkers" of infection by medfly.

Inscentinel is also working on several other food spoilage related projects, including a project with the Norwegian research institute Matforsk to develop a honeybee-based sensor to detect tainted meat products. We expect food sensors to be a major area of Inscentinel's focus in the future.

Oranges awaiting processing. Just one orange in this batch of 1000s may contain medfly infection, which may result in medfly maggots in end products (such as orange juice).