Collaborative project: Experimental development and validation of a handheld scanner for the assessment of the freshness and hygenic status of meat. Subproject 1

Project

Project code: 2816IP003
Contract period: 15.02.2016 - 14.02.2018
Budget: 156,274 Euro
Purpose of research: Applied research

The prototype of a mobile handheld device (freshdetect) for the non-invasive detection of the bacterial surface concentration of meat will be further developed and validated in the project to reach readiness for marketing of the device. Staff members of meat processing plants, retailers and the official surveillance shall be enabled to estimate freshness and microbial status of meat fast and on site by means of the easy-to-use fluorescence device. This shall improve estimating the shelf-life of meat products and facilitate preventive, process-oriented actions for semi-finished goods. The limits of detection of the device shall be improved to 10^1.3 cfu/cm² for the application which is requested and envisaged by the retail market and meat processors. Furthermore, the device shall be calibrated and validated with a varying meat flora to demonstrate the applicability under process conditions. To this end, a substantial experimental development is required for the device’s hard and software which includes the consideration of process parameters such as temperature, colour and packaging as well as the implementation of data processing algorithms.

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