Vis/NIR hyperspectral imaging to assess freshness of sardines (Sardina pilchardus)

Biochemical reactions and microbiological activity are responsible of fresh fish short shelf life. The deterioration processes involve a series of changes in the product quality affecting its appearance, odor and taste. The present work aims at discriminating samples of sardines during the shelf life at 4°C by means of a Vis/Nir HyperSpectral Camera (HSC) camera. After preprocessing techniques, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to evidence spectral differences related to the deterioration processes. By analyzing the score plot of the first two principal components (PC1 = 94.1%; PC2 = 3.0 %), a distribution according to time was observed, showing that hyperspectral data could be a good indicator of fish freshness and decay state progress.