This study developed a novel method for monitoring cheese contamination with Clostridium spores noninvasively using hyperspectral imaging (HSI). The ability of HSI to quantify Clostridium metabolites was investigated with control cheese and cheese manufactured with milk contaminated with Clostridium tyrobutyricum, Clostridium butyricum and Clostridium sporogenes. Microbial count, HSI and SPME-GC-MS data were obtained over 10 weeks of storage.
Our results demonstrated the ability to use HSI combined with multivariate pattern recognition, to monitor the spatial and temporal biochemical processes associated with clostridial metabolism in cheese. Our maps of butyric acid concentration showed distinct patterns between control and Clostridium contaminated cheeses.
The developed method using HSI successfully quantified butyric acid (R2 = 0.91, RPD = 3.38) a major compound of Clostridium metabolism in cheese. This study creates a new venue to monitor the spatial and temporal development of late blowing defect (LBD) in cheese using fast and non-invasive measurement.
