Rapid and/or nondestructive quality evaluation methods for potatoes: A review

Potato, with its several processed products, has a major rank on the human diet in many countries. Among electronic-based methods that have been used for tracking and rapidly measuring the quality attributes of raw and processed potatoes (more specifically: French fry and chip), and which are reviewed herein, vision and spectroscopic systems have shown the most promising applicability, robustness, and stable performance. Detection of external and internal defects associated with potatoes during harvesting and handling operations has been made possible using nondestructive techniques. Commercial electronic systems used for sorting potato tubers and products are being incorporated into the potato industry and are included and discussed in detail related to operation theories and performance. The need for healthy food requires more attention for detecting harmful chemicals in fried products such as acrylamide which itself demands continuous tracking of sugar during storage and in French fries or chips which encourages the need for constitute-based sorting for potatoes. Hyperspectral imaging is one of the most recently emerging tools and provides advantages of vision and spectroscopic systems and can be used, after speeding up image acquisition time, in prediction of processing-related constituents as well as defects detection. Moreover other noninvasive techniques, such as NMR and X-ray CT, have shown the potential for successful application in quality monitoring of fruits and vegetables with expected possibility for application in potatoes.