Detection of insect fragments in wheat flour by near-infrared spectroscopy

Insect fragments in commercial wheat flour are a major concern to the milling industry because consumers expect high quality and wholesome products at the retail level. Thus, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has established a defect action level of 75 insect fragments per 50 g of flour. Millers routinely test their wheat flour to comply with this federal requirement and to deliver sound flour to their consumers. The current standard flotation method for detecting fragments in flour is expensive and labor intensive. Therefore, we examined the possible use of a rapid, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) method for detecting insect fragments in wheat flour. We also compared the sensitivity and accuracy of the NIRS method with that of the current standard flotation method. Fragment counts with both techniques were significantly correlated with the actual number of fragments present in flour samples. However, the flotation method was more sensitive than the NIRS method with fragment counts below the FDA defect action level. We were unable to predict whether the number of fragments in a sample exceeded the FDA action level with our NIRS instrumentation. However, we were able to predict accurately whether flour samples contained less than or more than 130 fragments. Although current NIRS instruments are unable to detect insect fragments at the FDA action level, this method should be re-examined in the future because NIRS technology is rapidly improving.