X-ray microtomography and statistical analysis: Tools to quantitatively classify bread microstructure

• X-ray microtomography as a tool for the classification of different types of bread.
• Application of advanced statistic analysis to the data to classify bread types.
• X-ray microtomography combined with integrated statistical approach for food classification.

In this study, five different types of Italian bread samples chosen for their visible differences in physical structure were analysed by X-ray microtomographical analysis. The average and individual object microstructural parameters of the bread samples were obtained from data analysis. Following data analysis, the application of advanced statistic analysis to the obtained microtomographical data was used to quantitatively classify the different bread types in this study. The results of this work show that X-ray microtomography combined with an integrated statistical approach does not only provide important microstructural information of the product under investigation but is also able to classify these products into specific group types based on the average or individual microstructural properties of the objects present in the sample.