Fecal contamination becomes easier to detect

USDA's ARS - Agricultural Research Service scientists Kurt Lawrence, Bosoon Park, Bob Windham, and Seung-Chul Yoon—all in the Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit in Athens, Georgia—have made two improvements to a hyperspectral imaging system used to scan the surface of poultry carcasses for contaminants. They have refined the system so that it can detect even tiny amounts of fecal contamination, which can vary significantly depending on where in the digestive tract it originated. They have also developed and implemented a new image-processing method to identify and remove false-positive readings.
To facilitate the transfer of their system, a prototype on-line multispectral imaging system was installed and tested in a commercial poultry plant to detect fecal-contaminated carcasses. The system was developed through a research agreement with Stork Gamco, a manufacturer of poultry-processing equipment based in Gainesville, Georgia. Carcasses were imaged after evisceration but before washing, at a rate of 150 birds per minute.
“The system ran for several days with no hardware or software problems, and it demonstrated the feasibility of accurately detecting fecal-contaminated carcasses,” says Lawrence. ... Read the full blog.