Discover Food Safety and Quality
Spices are very expensive ingredients used in the food, beverage, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Production of spices can be a very labor intense process. This makes spices high-value commodities for commercial gain by unscrupulous suppliers. PerkinElmer can offer you a full range of effective and rapid solutions to determine if spices have been adulterated and evaluate their quality.
With an inherent toxicity, a tendency to accumulate in the food chain and a particularly low removal rate through excretion, lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As) cause harm to humans even at low concentrations.
There is an increasing need to monitor the essential element levels in food samples at ever decreasing concentrations. For this purpose, very sensitive, yet rapid and inexpensive methods are necessary. The quantification of trace metals in food samples has routinely been carried out by ICP-OES, ICP-MS, graphite furnace atomic absorption (GFAA) and flame atomic absorption (FAA). Compared with other techniques, FAA has the characteristics of good precision and simplicity with lower cost and minimum operator proficiency.
Coffee is widely consumed as a beverage because of the stimulating effect it produces in humans. The aroma of coffee contributes to the flavor and taste of the beverage and has consequently led to extensive research on coffee. Hundreds of volatile/semi-volatile aroma and flavor compounds have been identified in coffee using traditional laboratory based headspace GC/MS systems1. We present a study for rapid fingerprinting of coffee volatile/semi-volatile compounds using solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) coupled to a portable GC/MS system for separation and detection. The on-site analysis of coffee using portable technology can be used for quick quality control check of raw and finished products, comparison of competitor products, analysis of storage conditions or for process development.
