On-line NIR analysis of fat, water and protein in industrial scale ground meat batches

Abstract Fat, water and protein contents in industrial scale meat batches were determined on-line by near infrared (NIR) reflectance spectroscopy. The NIR instrument was mounted at the outlet of a large meat grinder, and the measurements were performed in an industrial environment. Beef and pork samples, with chemical compositions of 7–26% fat, 58–75% water and 15–21% protein, were processed with hole diameters of 13 mm in the grinder plate. Calibrations were made both for a combined set of beef and pork samples, and for separate sets of beef and pork samples. Validations were either done by full cross validation of the calibration set, or by bias corrected prediction of a test set. Prediction errors for the two sample sets, expressed as root mean square errors of cross validation or standard error of prediction, were in the ranges 0.82–1.49% fat, 0.94–1.33% water and 0.35–0.70% protein, depending of sample set and species of animal. The presented application is an improvement to the existing manual meat standardisation procedure, and has been implemented for regular use in a Norwegian meat manufacturing plant.