Using Smartphones for Food Analysis

Despite all of the technological and social issues that need to be addressed, the forecasted sales of portable medtech devices is roughly $40 billion by 2022, Dr. Nielen says. “Many of these portables are and will be smartphone-based because of features such as excellent computing power, high-performance camera and battery, graphical user interface, apps and Internet of Things, wireless connectivity, and so on,” he relates. “Moreover, smartphones add global positioning system location and time stamp data, thus allowing geo-temporal mapping of outbreaks of diseases, for example. These trends towards ‘portable diagnostics for everyone’ and ‘near real-time mapping of issues’ will soon emerge for food quality and safety testing as well.”

Handheld Food Analyzer

New on the scene is the FoodScanner, a portable device that offers food sensing and analysis, courtesy of Spectral Engines Limited, Helsinki, Finland.

The FoodScanner concept utilizes the world’s smallest true NIR spectroscopy sensing module, advanced algorithms, and a cloud-based library to reveal the fat, protein, sugar, and total energy content of food items with good accuracy, says Janne Suhonen, Spectral’s chief commercial officer.

In March 2017, the Food Scanner captured the prestigious 800,000€ (approximately $950,000) Horizon 2020 Prize in a competition organized by the EU. “The challenge was to develop an affordable and non-invasive mobile solution that enables users to measure and analyze their food intake,” Suhonen explains. “We were able to differentiate from our competitors by developing both food scanning hardware and easy-to-use software, and combining them with smart artificial intelligence algorithms.”

Currently there are only a few non-invasive techniques for food content measurement, with the best and most-used being NIR spectroscopy, Suhonen points out. “This method is also used in agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry, but that hardware is much too big, expensive, and difficult to be used by a consumer,” he elaborates. “The FoodScanner presents a new, breakthrough technology that miniaturizes the required sensor hardware to a palm-sized device, with potentially the ability to be integrated into mobile phones and wearables.”

With the FoodScanner, fat, protein, carbohydrates, and energy content of foods can be measured below 5 percent detection limits, Suhonen mentions. The technology also detects allergens like egg and milk.

“A comprehensive spectrum library has been built by measuring 10,000 different food products,” Suhonen notes. “There are 14 different food categories, for example meat, milk, and alcohol and other beverages. New food products can be easily added to the library. As the number of measurements are growing, the smart algorithm improves the measurement results.”

Measurements with the FoodScanner occur in four steps. “A user makes a Bluetooth connection between our NIRONE wireless scanner and a mobile phone, then selects the desired food category to be measured,” Suhonen explains. “The sample is scanned, which takes roughly one second. Data is sent to a cloud where intelligent algorithms calculate the food nutrition facts and return those results to the user in one and a half to two seconds.”

The basic software can be further developed for different applications, such as detecting adulterated foods by creating libraries in collaboration with big food manufacturers, adds Suhonen.