IFT 14 New Orleans

Food producers looking for a faster way to check quality should definitely visit the booth of VeriVide at IFT in New Orleans.

Looking for better quality control in food and drink manufacture and processing?

VeriVide brings color and visual assessment into the picture on Booth #4229

VeriVide is a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of equipment and systems for digital assessment of color and appearance. Its DigiEye imaging and data capture system in particular is increasingly used in the food supply chain.

What does DigiEye offer the food industry?

DigiEye offers major advantages of speed, accuracy and repeatability. It helps to:

• Improve quality control.
• Reduce wastage.
• Sustain product integrity.

DigiEye is a step change from traditional methods of colour assessment, which mostly involve simply looking and making what is largely a subjective judgement, no matter how experienced the human viewer. For one thing, light conditions can vary significantly even within an otherwise stable production environment.

Even spectrophotometers and colorimeters may not help much. They have often-severe operational limitations and, crucially, cannot ‘see’ color as the human eye sees it. They also depend on an averaging of results, which can make data next to useless.

VeriVide’s DigiEye digital color measurement system is the complete solution.

Typical end-user applications include:

• Visual quality control across multiple production sites.
• Post-harvest storage and shelf-life monitoring.
• Measurement of coverage area of coatings.
• Evaluating the effect on appearance of different processing methods.
• Color measurement and analysis without having to separate components.
• Percentage distribution of visible product components.

DigiEye benefits

• First off, DigiEye is simple to use – operator training usually takes less than a day.
• It can sample any solid or liquid ingredient or product before, during or after production. (VeriVide has yet to find anything in a food production process that DigiEye cannot sample.)
• DigiEye can differentiate between the sample and any packaging or container, so no time-consuming sample preparation.
• It can be programmed to deliver, process and store exactly the data needed by the user.
• DigiEye can send data by normal file sharing means, or be configured to share data with other DigiEye systems anywhere in the world.
• Speed up quality assurance within the supply chain.
• DigiEye is fast, repeatable, consistent, compact, non-contact and hygienic.
• But perhaps the most significant DigiEye advantage is its ability to mimic the way human vision works. DigiEye sees color in context, focusing on what matters and filtering out the rest. It really is like having an automated pair of human eyes assessing samples.

There is probably no product or ingredient that it can’t measure. Its maximum field of view is around 40 x 50 centimetres, but at the other end of the scale it can accurately measure samples as small as a grain of rice.

How does DigiEye work?

Samples are placed in the DigiEye Cube, which excludes ambient light and ensures controlled, consistent lighting to CIE D65. Different illumination geometries are possible, including angled and diffused lighting.

Inside the Cube, a specially calibrated digital SLR camera captures data at millions of points. Color and texture are recorded precisely and in extremely high resolution.

DigiEye software relays data to a calibrated monitor and printer for instant comparison and, if needed, color-accurate printing of images to use as master product standards.

Unlike conventional instruments, which average out data, DigiEye ‘sees’ samples in context – as a human would – and can instantly pinpoint any variation from a known standard, even among multiple ingredients and with packaging present.

Saved image file transfer enables samples to be compared anywhere in the world, immediately or at intervals. This can, for example, establish supply chain standards or help research product shelf life and colour stability.

DigiEye is a fully non-contact system and so there is no risk of data being influenced by the act of measurement. Nor is there, in normal operation, any risk of sample contamination.

With so many benefits, coupled with its affordability, DigiEye can transform qualiity control for all food and beverage producers.

VeriVide – innovator in colour assessment

In the 1960s VeriVide pioneered viewing cabinets with daylight-mimicking lamps for use by textile manufacturers. It soon established a reputation as a technology innovator and product developer in the specialist field of colour measurement and assessment. Its products are now used in many industries worldwide to improve quality control and supply chain integration.

‘We’ve been the source of many significant innovations in colour assessment since 1964,’ says VeriVide director Paul Dakin. ‘We’re passionate about colour science and technology, but our mission is to help our customers improve their own performance and competitiveness. Digital colour measurement is still in its infancy, and in New Orleans we want to demonstrate just how many very substantial benefits there are for food producers.’