Food materials are usually mixtures of different constituents. Carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and other nutrients in foods and agricultural products normally are determined by traditional wet chemical methods, enzymatic techniques, and chromatographic procedures. These methods are performed off-line and are time consuming and destructive in nature. In a production setting on-line determinations of the target species is crucial for quality and safety assessment and to maintain the required standards and to comply with the regulations.

Although near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy for process control applications has been used, techniques such as the Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in the midinfrared region might offer potential alternatives because of its characteristic absorbance due to fundamental vibrational modes of the corresponding chemical groups in the food components. The suitability of FTIR spectroscopy as an analytical technique has been investigated. FTIR spectroscopy offers a fast and non-destructive alternative to chemical measurement techniques for compound determination.

A wide range of FTIR determinations will be pointed out and its potential integration in a process control setting in a production environment will be addressed and open for discussion.