Department of Food Science
Faculty of Life Sciences
University of Copenhagen
The NitFom project webpage
About the project
The project "NitFom" is a collaboration between Carometec A/S, the Danish company who is considered market leader in high-technological measurement equipment for the slaughter industry, and the Quality and Technology Research Group at University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Life Science. The project has been executed in a timespan of 3 years, and has gained financial aid from The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation. The project was completed late 2011, and have been refined into a commercial available quipment from Carometec A/S. The research conducted in the project is summarized below - in a peer-review article as well as a research poster (and video of the equipment in operation).
This page will be kept up-to-date on futher research done with the equipment. If you want to be notified on updates, send a message to Klavs Sørensen.
Peer-reviewed article (Feb. 2012):
An on-line NIR transmission method for determining depth profiles of fatty acid composition and iodine value in porcine adipose fat tissue
Klavs M. Sørensena, Henrik Petersenb, Søren Balling Engelsena
a Quality and Technology, Department of Food Science, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 30, DK-1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark
b Carometec A/S, Transformervej 9, DK-2730 Herlev, Denmark
Abstract
As published in K. M. Sørensen, H. Petersen & S.B. Engelsen, An on-line NIT method for determining depth profiles of fatty acid composition and iodine value in porcine adipose fat tissue, Applied Spectroscopy (2012):
The present work describes a measurement method which uses spatially resolved near infrared spectroscopy to determine porcine carcass fat quality as a function of the distance to the skin by estimating its iodine value (IV). The new method is capable of performing on-line carcass grading at full production speed (approx. 1000 carcasses/h). The method is demonstrated in an experiment where 35 carcasses were sampled at an abattoir, selected from three feeding groups. The NIR transmission instrument was applied on the loin of each carcass, and a parallel reference sample removed and processed into 1.8 mm thick disks, representing a depth of fat profile from the loin. The disks where analyzed for fatty acid composition using Gas Chromatography and for calculation of the IV. Using iPLS regression, a model were produced that can predict the IV of the fat at a given measured depth with a root mean square error of cross validation (RMSECV) of 1.44. The results show how the IV varies as a function of feeding regime and as a function of fat depth. The maximum variation found within a single depth profile was 10.1 IV from the skin to the innermost part of the fat layers. In the sample material investigated the average span in IV between the average values of the two porcine backfat layers was 6.4 IV (the maximum difference was 8.6 IV). The new method can provide the abattoir with new chemical information about fat quality and production quality which will open for new possibilities of meat/carcass grading and product development.
Video