Agriculture & Food

Visible and NIR spectroscopy is utilized in fruit and vegetable pre-harvest and post-harvest quality control and processing. Ideal times to harvest are determined by measuring brix and dry matter. Furthermore, the spectroscopic analysis of sugar, total soluble solids, internal defects, acids or color is necessary in post-harvest processing such as fruit sorting & grading, further processing or drying steps. ZEISS MMS1 NIR enhanced (310 - 1100 nm) and MCS-CCD NIR (600 - 980 nm) spectrometers are ideal for internal & external food and vegetable quality inspection, with excellent wavelength stability & long-term calibration, minimal thermal drift and robust design. Plane gratings and Polychromator gratings in the VIS and NIR range are well adapted and can be tailored to customer-specific spectrometer designs for fruit and vegetable processing.

NIR spectroscopy (NIRS) is an excellent tool for the content analysis of raw material such as minced mixtures and the monitoring of ageing processes or adulteration, which ensures high quality standards in the meat processing industry. ZEISS PGS NIR spectrometers (960 - 2500 nm) offer fast, non-destructive estimation of fat, water and protein e.g. in sausages or ground meat. With excellent wavelength stability, a robust and compact design and optimized thermal stability, PGS NIR is ideal for meat quality and processing  applications.
ZEISS optical gratings for customer-specific spectrometers are well adapted to Raman spectroscopy, which is used for quality control, contaminant identification and the handling of various meat products. Parameters such as proteins, water and lipids are determined within these processes.
Hyperspectral imaging is used to improve meat quality by combining spectral and spatial information. Offner gratings for hyperspectral imaging can be tailored to VIS, NIR spectral ranges, enabling multi-channel detection. Recent detector developments enable the combination of VIS and NIR spectral ranges into one spectrometer.

UV-VIS and NIR spectroscopy is utilized for a variety of lab and industrial processing applications in the beverage industry. The industrial production of beverages like soft & energy drinks, juice, mineral water, alcoholic beverages or tea & coffee require fast, low-cost in-line solutions.
ZEISS provides customized fiber-optic OEM spectrometers as well as system solutions allowing for a non-destructive real-time analysis of multiple liquid constituents in one shot.  MMS UV-VIS and PGS NIR  spectrometers specify color, caffeine, phosphoric acid and sugar content in soft drinks. In wine production, they are ideal for pre- and post-harvest wine analysis. MMS 1 UV-VIS ensures contaminant-free CO₂ gas in mineral water. Furthermore, ZEISS MMS 1 UV-VIS are employed in mineral water production by ensuring contaminant-free CO₂ gas quality. For the brewing industry and coffee roasting, Corona® extreme und Corona® process from ZEISS deliver a complete solution comprising a spectrometer system, calibration and software package.