Measuring Food Quality with a Texture Analyser

More than ever before, the food industry is finding itself forced, through outside pressures, to improve constantly its product quality and to maintain that quality at a consistently high level. Food quality is an important concept, because the foods people choose depend largely on quality.

Consumer preference is important to the food manufacturer, who wants to gain as wide a share of the market for the product as possible. Quality is difficult to define precisely, but it refers to the degree of excellence of a food and includes all the characteristics of a food that are significant, and that make the food acceptable.

Texture is one of the major criteria that consumers use to judge the quality and freshness of foods. When a food produces a physical sensation in the mouth (hard, soft, crisp, moist, dry), the consumer has a basis for determining the food's quality (fresh, stale, tender, ripe). Sometimes, texture is the primary aspect of the food and the main focus of its acceptability. 

Cucumber pickles, for example, are evaluated for quality by the consumer primarily on the basis of texture. In one survey, 400 consumers were asked, "What should a good pickle be like?" Almost 90% answered that a good pickle should be crisp, firm and hard.

Companies must also monitor the quality of their products during storage, when changing ingredients, and when developing new lines. If fruits and vegetables lose water during storage, they wilt or lose their turgor pressure, and the crisp apple becomes unacceptable and leathery on the outside. Bread can become hard and stale on storage. Products like ice cream can become gritty due to precipitation of lactose and growth of ice crystals if the freezer temperature is allowed to fluctuate, allowing thawing and freezing.

Objective evaluation of foods involves use of physical techniques to evaluate food quality such as texture analysis. Evaluation of texture with a Texture Analyser involves measuring the response of a food when it is subjected to a force, such as cutting, shearing, chewing, compressing, or stretching. Such tests are essential in the food industry, especially for routine quality control of food products.

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For more information on how to measure texture, please visit the Texture Analysis Properties section on our website.

The TA.XTplus texture analyser is part of a family of texture analysis instruments and equipment from Stable Micro Systems. An extensive portfolio of specialist attachments is available to measure and analyse the textural properties of a huge range of food products. Our technical experts can also custom design instrument fixtures according to individual specifications.

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