A latent variable model for identifying and characterizing food adulteration

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Casa, Alessandro, Murphy, Thomas Brendan, Fop, Michael
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Casa, Alessandro
Murphy, Thomas Brendan
Fop, Michael
author_facet Casa, Alessandro
Murphy, Thomas Brendan
Fop, Michael
contents Recently, growing consumer awareness of food quality and sustainability has led to a rising demand for effective food authentication methods. Vibrational spectroscopy techniques have emerged as a promising tool for collecting large volumes of data to detect food adulteration. However, spectroscopic data pose significant challenges from a statistical viewpoint, highlighting the need for more sophisticated modeling strategies. To address these challenges, in this work we propose a latent variable model specifically tailored for food adulterant detection, while accommodating the features of spectral data. Our proposal offers greater granularity with respect to existing approaches, since it does not only identify adulterated samples but also estimates the level of adulteration, and detects the spectral regions most affected by the adulterant. Consequently, the methodology offers deeper insights, and could facilitate the development of portable and faster instruments for efficient data collection in food authenticity studies. The method is applied to both synthetic and real honey mid-infrared spectroscopy data, delivering precise estimates of the adulteration level and accurately identifying which portions of the spectra are most impacted by the adulterant.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_13939
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A latent variable model for identifying and characterizing food adulteration
Casa, Alessandro
Murphy, Thomas Brendan
Fop, Michael
Methodology
Applications
Recently, growing consumer awareness of food quality and sustainability has led to a rising demand for effective food authentication methods. Vibrational spectroscopy techniques have emerged as a promising tool for collecting large volumes of data to detect food adulteration. However, spectroscopic data pose significant challenges from a statistical viewpoint, highlighting the need for more sophisticated modeling strategies. To address these challenges, in this work we propose a latent variable model specifically tailored for food adulterant detection, while accommodating the features of spectral data. Our proposal offers greater granularity with respect to existing approaches, since it does not only identify adulterated samples but also estimates the level of adulteration, and detects the spectral regions most affected by the adulterant. Consequently, the methodology offers deeper insights, and could facilitate the development of portable and faster instruments for efficient data collection in food authenticity studies. The method is applied to both synthetic and real honey mid-infrared spectroscopy data, delivering precise estimates of the adulteration level and accurately identifying which portions of the spectra are most impacted by the adulterant.
title A latent variable model for identifying and characterizing food adulteration
topic Methodology
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.13939