Food Quality Factors
In the wake of the most recent romaine lettuce recall, it’s a good time to talk about food quality factors. Food quality is all about the maintenance or improvement of key features of the product including color, flavor, texture, safety, nutrition, and shelf life. To maintain quality, it is important to control things such as microbiological spoilage, enzymatic degradation, and chemical degradation. These components of quality depend on the composition of the food, processing methods, packaging, and storage.
Let’s start simple: with the appearance factor. Unsurprisingly, the look of a product plays a big part in regards enticing a customer. The appearance of a product can be separated into two categories, the color attributes and geometric attributes (size and shape). Of these two, color is by far the most important- a banana should be yellow after all. Color typically is an indication of ripeness or spoilage and the end point of cooking processes can be judged by color. In addition, changes in expected colors can indicate problems with the processing or packaging amongst many other things. In order to maintain quality, the color of food products must be measured and standardized. Instruments such as the Hunter Lab Color and Color Difference Meter measure the value, hue, and chroma of foods for comparisons. Now in regards to geometric attributes, depending on the product, consumers expect foods to have certain sizes and shapes — if an orange is diamond shaped then there is a problem. The size and shape — and weight for that matter — can be easily measured by computerized electronic equipment.
Up next, let’s talk about textural factors. While it may not be the first thing that comes to mind when someone talks about food quality standards, it is definitely an important one. If a consumer finds that their gum is crunchy instead of chewy, there is a problem. The texture of food refers to the sensation a person feels with their fingers, tongue, the teeth. Another way to describe texture is the mechanical behavior of food. There are a lot of methods to check on texture such as compression, shearing, shear-pressure, cutting, tensile strength, and elasticity.
Now to look at something a bit more complicated, the flavor factors. Flavor as a term refers to the taste sensations perceived by the tongue — sweet, salty, sour, and bitter — and to a lesser extent smells as perceived by the nose. While flavor is one of the leading influences on a consumer’s decision to purchase and enjoy a product, it very subjective as people’s tastes and preferences differ. That being said, the best method of measuring taste is to still have people taste the products. Taste panels may be a group of professionals or a group of customers that are typically separated by booths so that they cannot influence each other.
Some other factors that affects food quality include shelf life, safety, nutrition, and convenience. When extending the shelf life of a product a company has to make sure that the food stays safe and doesn’t lose too much of its healthiness, and hopefully also make purchasing and consuming the product more convenient. The extension of storage life of products generally involves heat treatments, irradiation, refrigeration or freezing, or reduction of water activity by either addition of water-binding agents, like sugars, or drying. In some cases, some compromises must be made to achieve desired shelf life or convenience.
The next important point to talk about are quality standards- something QWerks specializes in. There are a few different types of standards — including research trade standards and government standards. Trade standards are established by members of an industry and are set up by a company to help ensure the quality of a product in the competitive market. As for government standards, some are mandatory and some are optional — but all are important. Grade standards are established by the government and provide a common language for producers, distributors, and consumers for buying and selling products. A side note: all of these different standards can be easily tracked and complied with using a quality plan built with QWerks monitoring software.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) develops and maintains the official U.S. quality standards and grades for hundreds of agricultural products. As part of these standards, quality grades provide a common language for buyers and sellers, which assures a consistent product for consumers.
Moving away from agriculture and going back to food manufacturing and packaging, there are the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs). GMPs are guidelines that a company uses to evaluate the design and construction of food processing plants and equipment. Agencies such as the USDA and the FDA help food companies select appropriate equipment. GMPs also require that hygiene standards are met and food contact procedures are followed. The FDA and the USDA use these guidelines when inspecting a plant to ensure that the plant is following the regulations.
Consumers have certain expectations about the quality of their food. When these expectations fall short, the food is rejected. There are many methods used to measure food-quality factors, to ensure a consistent, reliable product. Whether taste panels or more standardized quality plans, they are all important to keep consumers safe and happy with their purchases. This is the goal that all companies should strive for, to have their products meet the highest standards with as easy a process as possible. This is where Qwerks could help you not only meet FDA standards, but also improve operations with our easy to use software. Find out how QWerks can help your business today.
