Quantitative texture measurement apparatus and method

A non-destructive photo acoustic quantitative method for measuring texture attribute of a food product, wherein said texture attribute is selected from a group comprising:

• hardness, fracturability, tooth-pack, crispiness, denseness, roughness of mass, moistness of mass, residual greasiness, surface roughness, or surface oiliness, said method comprises the steps of:
• a) striking a surface of a food product with a laser, thereby generating an acoustic signal from a surface of said food product;
• b) capturing said acoustic signal with an acoustic capturing device;
• c) sending said acoustic signal to a data processing unit coupled to said acoustic capturing device;
• d) converting said acoustic signal from a time domain to a frequency domain;
• e) identifying relevant frequencies and their associated intensities;
• and
• f) quantifying said texture attribute of said food product based on said relevant frequencies and said associated intensities.

An apparatus for quantitative non-destructive texture attribute measurement of a food product, comprising;

• a housing;
• a laser generator attached to said housing;
• an acoustic capturing device proximally located to said housing;
• a data processing unit in communication with at least said acoustic capturing device;
• wherein a laser from said laser generator is directed to strike said food product, thereby producing an acoustic signal to be detected by said acoustic capturing device;
• wherein further said data processing unit is configured to quantitatively measure said texture attribute of said food product based on input from said acoustic capturing device;
• and said acoustic capturing device is positioned such that said acoustic capturing device is configured to capture energy density in said acoustic signal within a range of 62.5 mJ/mm2 to 594.5 mJ/mm2.