A rapid AI based solution to detect Milk adulteration in just 30 seconds
The festive season of India officially begins from this month of Sravana and it will continue to be there in one form or the other till the end of this year. This festive season of the country would be characterised by abundant use of milk in as myriad forms as one can imagine, either as an offering or in the form of processed product.
But how safe is this milk! Well, if one goes by the report of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the apex body of the country looking after food safety parameters, then a pan India sample study that they undertook does point out that a large chunk of the sample – about 41 per cent to be exact- failed at the altar of safety parameters one way or the other. Complicating the matters, the report pointed out that 7% of the samples were laced with serious health hazard components.
Spanning a timeline of one year from May 2018 to 2019, foot mapping all States and Union Territories the mandate of this survey was to monitoring prevalent standards pertaining to safety and quality of liquid milk in the country. Sample size was around 6,432 to ascertain adulteration concern and analysis.
One of the highlights of the survey was presence of Aflatoxin M1 residues beyond permissible limits in 368 (out of 6,432) samples or 5.7 % of the total samples. For India it was for the first time that a survey focusing on presence of Aflatoxin M1 in milk was conducted. Aflatoxin M1, is a form of fungus, that gets mixed in the milk through feed and fodder- an unregulated terrain in India. Preponderance of aflatoxin was found from samples in Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
The survey underlined that around 41% of the samples had problems on quality parameters. As a follow up this survey FSSAI has swung into action and has directed all the stakeholders to strive and adhere to quality and safety parameters in milk products.
Is it easier said than done? Not really. Technology has evolved to such levels that one can get tests related to quality parameters in a jiffy.
Qualix: An AI based rapid technology to detect Milk adulteration & contamination in just 30 seconds
AgNext promoted Qualix, is one such first-of-its-kind portable NIR spectroscopy-based milk testing device in India. Apart from being cost-effective, Qualix provides accurate composition (Fat, SNF, Protein & 6 other trade parameters) and adulteration (detection of vegetable oil, urea, detergent, melamine and starch) testing within 30 seconds.
The ease of the process in testing has the potential to impose strict adulteration testing at the point of collection at the collection centre itself. As compared to the present manner of strip-based testing which is time consuming and is costly, Qualix does it in just 30 seconds & has zero no recurring consumable costs with zero maintenance.
Configuring new adulterant remotely in just 5 days
The innovative wireless solution embedded in Qualix has easy adaption for any new type of adulterant and can be remotely configured within 5 days of the incidence of first detection. Further, the solution can easily be integrated with existing ERP and online management solutions of various companies.
One only hopes that the report submitted by FSSAI would be an eye-opener for the industry and they would start adopting solutions like Qualix to give a new paradigm shift to the milk industry- the requiem of the day for Milk Industry to redeem itself.
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Write to: contact@agnext.in
