Detection of Offal Adulteration in Beefburgers Using near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy and Multivariate Modelling

The main aim of this study was to develop a rapid and reliable tool using near infrared (NIR) reflectance spectroscopy to confirm beefburger authenticity in the context of offal (kidney, liver, heart and lung) adulteration. An experimental design was used to develop beef burger formulations to simultaneously maximise the variable space describing offal-adulterated samples and minimise the number of experiments required. Authentic ( n = 36) and adulterated ( n = 46) beefburger samples were produced using these formulations. Classification models (partial least squares discriminant analysis, PLS1-DA) and class-modelling tools (soft independent modelling of class analogy, SIMCA), were developed using raw and pre-treated NIR reflectance spectra (850–1098nm wavelength range) to detect authentic and adulterated beefburgers in (1) fresh, (2) frozen-then-thawed and (3) fresh or frozen-then-thawed states. In the case of authentic samples, the best PLS1-DA models achieved 100% correct classification for fresh, frozen-then-thawed and fresh or frozen-then-thawed samples. SIMCA models correctly identified all the fresh samples but not all the frozen-then-thawed and fresh or frozen-then-thawed samples. For the adulterated samples, PLS1-DA models correctly classified 95.5% of fresh, 91.3% of frozen-then-thawed and 88.9% of fresh or frozen-then-thawed beefburgers. SIMCA models exhibited specificity values of 1 for both fresh and frozen-then-thawed samples, 0.99 for fresh or frozen-then-thawed samples; sensitivity values of 1, 0.88 and 0.97 were obtained for fresh, frozen-then-thawed and fresh or frozen-then-thawed products, respectively. Quantitative models (PLS1 regression) using both 850–1098nm and 1100–2498 nm wavelength ranges were developed to quantify (1) offal adulteration and (2) added fat in adulterated beefburgers, both fresh and frozen-then-thawed. Models predicted added fat in fresh samples with acceptable accuracy ( RMSECV=2.0; RPD=5.9); usefully accurate predictions of added fat in frozen-then-thawed samples were not obtained nor was prediction of total offal possible in either sample form.