Electronic panel for sensory assessment of food: A review on technologies integration and their benefits

Sensory assessment of food has been the measure for the acceptance or rejection of it in the market. However, the methods employed require human panels which are expensive. They have also been associated with various psychological and physiological biases being reported. In such cases, the novel E-panel technology including e-eye, e-nose, and e-tongue could be used and has proved to be applicable in various analyses such as fruit ripening stages and maturity tracing, identification and classification of volatile compounds, identification of specific taste, adulteration monitoring, pathogen detection, discrimination of geographical region, and cultivar region. E-nose, e-tongue, and e-eye work like the human olfactory system, human gustometry system, and performs computer vision or colorimetric analysis. Therefore, the e-panel technology could be explored for various food and food products to analyze their quality from the view of safety and consumer acceptance. Moreover, the qualities and demerits of E-panel over traditional sensory methods are weighed to understand their full potential. The current review exhibits the critical analysis of E-panel technology concerning the traditional sensory methods and individual e-nose, e-tongue along with the challenges associated with and future recommendations.