Anyone who has ever ruined a cake knows that the correct identification of visually similar substances such as sugar and salt has great significance in food preparation. However, complex compositional analyses can also provide information about the quality, ripeness or freshness of products.

The amount of plastic waste increases every year. Some of this waste is due to plastic packaging used to protect food.

In Germany, around twelve million tons of food end up in the trash every year. Over 30 percent of that is already destroyed in the production process.

Foreign objects – glass splinters, for example – that find their way into foods can be hazardous to consumers. Established X-ray techniques detect primarily metals – glass, plastic and wood pose a challenge. SAMMI^®, a new prototype, fills this gap: using radar, it has already detected glass splinters in sandwich cookies, as well as missing pieces of chocolate in advent calendars.