'Electronic Nose' Shows Promise for Detecting Food Allergens and Spoilage

A new "electronic nose" developed at University of California, Berkeley, may not look like the real thing, but this device outperforms it in key tasks, including sniffing out food spoilage and identifying allergens with impressive accuracy.

The device has 16 gas sensors built in, which help turn chemical reactions from the food into electronic signals.

A UC Berkeley-led study found that the device identified walnuts and cashews 100% of the time, hazelnuts 91.96% of the time and peanuts 80.65% of the time. Researchers stated that the largest confusion from the electronic nose "arose between hazelnut and peanut VOCs, indicating some cross-over between nut odorants or shared dominant compounds that elicit a similar sensor response." This means that the device sometimes got the two nuts confused due to similar chemical smells.

If this technology could be expanded to more food groups, it could be a major advancement in food allergy detection,...

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