Freshness Assessment of Broccoli using Electronic Nose

[Display omitted] •Electronic nose has been designed for the freshness assessment of broccoli.•Bacterial isolation, FTIR spectra and GCMS data were correlated.•Staphylococcus, Salmonella and Shigella bacteria were found in spoiled broccoli.•Sensor response for unknown broccoli sample was observed and validated. Broccoli is one of the nutrient-rich vegetables that can easily be affected by bacteria and consumption of bacterial contaminated fresh products leads to a number of food borne illnesses. A multi-dimensional approach has been adapted to evaluate the freshness of broccoli considering four different mutually supporting techniques namely electronic nose, bacterial culture test, head sampler method with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Electronic nose output variations from 0.05 V to 1.5 V and the presence of Staphylococcus, Salmonella and Shigella in the order of Zero, 106 and 105–107 CFU mL−1 were observed for fresh, half and completely contaminated broccoli samples. GC–MS data revealed the presence of acetic acid, hexanoic acid, nonanol evolved from half and completely contaminated broccoli samples. In addition, Principle Component Analysis, Centroid-link, and Completely-link cluster analyses were used on electronic nose data in correlation with other techniques for decision making.