In fact, in 2018, a company in France, Aryballe Technologies, actually developed a portable artificial nose with the goal of helping food manufacturers with quality control testing as well as new product development.
What is an Artificial Nose?
An artificial nose is also known as an electronic nose, eNose, or electronic odor sensing device. Electronic odor sensing devices are used for artificial olfaction or machine olfaction.
How Does an Artificial Nose Work?
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, artificial noses “mimic the human smell sensors and their communication with the human brain.”
Essentially, eNoses analyze volatiles from foods or beverages to develop flavor profiles. These machines then compare these profiles with their existing database of aromas. This technology mimics the way people recognise smells by comparing them to those stored in the brain.
Aryballe’s Artificial Nose
Aryballe Technologies is based in Grenoble, France, where they develop and manufacture mobile-connected, universal odour sensors to help manufacturers in quality control and new product development.
According to Aryballe’s founder and joint CEO, Tristan Rousselle, their artificial nose is “based on optic technology and has a layer of bio-sensors. So it’s a bio-optic smell sensor” that can detect aroma volatiles. Aryballe’s eNose can also track the evolution of a product and the changes of a flavor profile over time.
Their device can be used during the manufacturing process. It can test any item in a product’s supply chain. And, it can even detect oxidation of foods and beverages.
5 Benefits of Artificial Noses
Electronic noses offer many benefits for food and beverage processing plants.
- They help with quality control.
According to FI Global Insights, these devices can help manufacturers track the “evolution of flavour and aroma in their products over time,” which will lead to more consistent quality in foods and beverages. They can also help food and beverage manufacturers when trying to find the right balance of flavor when developing products.
- They can track the maturation of foods.
Artificial noses can help food manufacturers track the maturation of foods, like fruits, vegetables, or herbs from the time they are picked until they are used to create the final product.
- eNoses can evaluate raw materials.
According to Aryballe’s website, digital olfaction “offers a rapid assessment of fragrance or flavor quality and can provide a quick “pass,” “fail,” or “needs further analysis” grade to incoming materials. This provides food and beverage manufacturers a simple way to know if the raw materials they have just received meet their quality standards.
- Electronic noses can help save food manufacturers time.
According to the Aryballe team, eNoses allow for a reduction in “development time” because they can quickly characterize and assess new formulations.
- Artificial noses can help food and beverage manufacturers save on operation costs.
Quality control can cost food manufacturers a significant amount of their controllable expenses. But, eNoses can help speed up the quality control process as well as limit the manpower needed to conduct quality control, so they can help a company save on operation costs in the long run.
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SOURCES:https://insights.figlobal.com/innovation/artificial-nose-smells-food-quality
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3231405/
https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2018/08/02/Aryballe-s-artificial-nose-with-bio-sensors-can-boost-quality-control-and-NPD?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright
https://aryballe.com/improving-cost-of-quality-with-digital-olfaction/
https://aryballe.com/industries/food-beverage/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323958824_Role_of_electronic_nose_technology_in_food_industry