Food Sensors: Challenges and Opportunities

Food sensors have been developed for quality monitoring and contaminant detection to improve food management. Despite the alarming rates of food waste and food-related illness, few food sensor technologies are utilized and translated into commercial products. This review aims to explore challenges and opportunities relating to sensor translation by first documenting recent advances in state-of-the-art optical and electronic food sensors that target common analytes including temperature, humidity, pH, gases, pesticides, and pathogens. Promising sensors are designed with careful consideration of the chemistry of the contaminant or quality marker which they detect and the inherent challenges of analyte recognition in complex food samples. Recent advances focus on the incorporation of sensors into materials and devices for food packaging and processing. Challenges and opportunities for food sensor translation are then identified and discussed including the complexity of and natural variation in food products, different causes of food spoilage, the food-sensor interface, signal processing and governing legislation. For the successful translation of sensors into ubiquitous features on food products, these issues must be addressed through material and design advances.