Quality and tradition in pdo cheeses a comparative study of cheese-making processes, traditional and industrial, using ft-ir/atr

Twenty samples of Italian cheeses, some of which were provided by local producers and carefully selected according to the date of production and the seasoning while others were purchased at specialty stores and supermarkets, were evaluated using FTIR ATR accessory. The samples were analyzed either by destructive methods both with FTIR / ATR, which allows the measurement of quantitative characteristics directly on cheese portions (~ 0.5 g). The content of fatty substances, the level of moisture, total nitrogen and protein content were determined by official destructive methods; this quantification of the nutritional components was necessary to develop calibration models for infrared spectroscopy with Fourier transform FT / IR. Data was valuated though multivariate analysis. The objective of this research is to develop a simple and rapid screening tool for definition of the qualitative characteristics of Italian cheese by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)