Digging for gold: evaluating the authenticity of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) via deep learning optimization

Introduction Saffron is one of the most coveted and one of the most tainted products in the global food market. A major challenge for the saffron industry is the difficulty to distinguish between adulterated and authentic dried saffron along the supply chain. Current approaches to analyzing the intrinsic chemical compounds (crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal) are complex, costly, and time-consuming. Computer vision improvements enabled by deep learning have emerged as a potential alternative that can serve as a practical tool to distinguish the pureness of saffron. Methods In this study, a deep learning approach for classifying the authenticity of saffron is proposed. The focus was on detecting major distinctions that help sort out fake samples from real ones using a manually collected dataset that contains an image of the two classes (saffron and non-saffron). A deep convolutional neural model MobileNetV2 and Adaptive Momentum Estimation (Adam) optimizer were trained for this purpose. Results The observed metrics of the deep learning model were: 99% accuracy, 99% recall, 97% precision, and 98% F-score, which demonstrated a very high efficiency. Discussion A discussion is provided regarding key factors identified for obtaining positive results. This novel approach is an efficient alternative to distinguish authentic from adulterated saffron products, which may be of benefit to the saffron industry from producers to consumers and could serve to develop models for other spices.