Visual evaluation of sliced Italian salami by image analysis

Multifractal analysis application to the study of fat and its infiltration in Iberian ham: Influence of racial and feeding factors and type of slicing

This paper explores the multifractal features of different commercial designations of Iberian ham (acorn 100% Iberian ham, acorn Iberian ham, feed/pasture Iberian ham and feed Iberian ham). This study has been done by taking as input the fatty infiltration patterns obtained from digital image analysis of ham cuts comparing mechanic and manual slicing. The yielded results show the multifractal nature of fatty connective tissue in Iberian ham, only when knife cutting is applied, confirming the differences between the designations according to their genetics and feeding. Thus, the multifractal parameters presented in this work could be considered as additional information for checking Iberian ham quality by using non-destructive methods based on the combination of image analysis and predictive techniques. Meat industry can take advantage of these methods to evaluate meat products, especially when fat-connective tissue with complex pattern distribution is involved.

Visual evaluation of sliced Italian salami by image analysis

Visual inspection is an important part of quality control not only for manufacturers but also for retailers and consumers. The object of this investigation was to determine fat content in sliced salami by means of image analysis. The image analysis procedure is applied to digital images of sliced Italian salami produced in 16 different salami factories (A–P). The image analysis method described in this work is nondestructive and the necessary equipment is cheap. It extracts directly interpretable parameters of fat particle morphology (e.g., area, roundness) and number of fat particles from 15 digital images for each sample (A–P). The correlations between the fat features extracted from the images with the chemical fat content measured on the samples were also studied. Good relationships were found between the fat particle characteristics measured by image analysis procedure and the percentage of chemically extractable fat by correlation (R²=0.75) and principal component analysis.