Hyperspectral imaging through vacuum packaging for monitoring cheese biochemical transformation caused by Clostridium metabolism

[Display omitted] •Growth of three Clostridium species in cheese monitored with HSI.•PLS and SVM models showed similar prediction performance.•The HSI map revealed the diffusion process of the metabolic products in cheese.•HSI is a fast and reliable technique to monitor late blowing defect in cheese. This study developed a novel method for monitoring cheese contamination with Clostridium spores non-invasively using hyperspectral imaging (HSI). The ability of HSI to quantify Clostridium metabolites was investigated with control cheese and cheese manufactured with milk contaminated with Clostridium tyrobutyricum, Clostridium butyricum and Clostridium sporogenes. Microbial count, HSI and SPME-GC-MS data were obtained over 10 weeks of storage. The developed method using HSI successfully quantified butyric acid (R2 = 0.91, RPD = 3.38) a major compound of Clostridium metabolism in cheese. This study creates a new venue to monitor the spatial and temporal development of late blowing defect (LBD) in cheese using fast and non-invasive measurement.