pH-Sensitive Sensors at Work on Poultry Meat Degradation Detection: From the Laboratory to the Supermarket Shelf

In the last twenty years, the number of publications presenting generalized pH-sensitive devices proposed for food freshness monitoring has been steadily growing, but to date, none of them have succeeded in exiting the laboratory and reaching the supermarket shelf. To reach this scope, we developed a large-scale applicable pH-sensitive sensor array to monitor perishable foods’ degradation. We ensured freshness monitoring in domestic conditions, using sales packages and during chilled storage, by simple naked-eye readout and multivariate imaging analysis, and we fully corroborated the device by (i) projection of unknown independent samples in the PCA model, (ii) TVB-N quantification and (iii) microbiological assay. The choice of commercial and cheap dye and polymeric support already employed in food packaging ensures the low-cost and scalability of the device and the promising results obtained make this device an eligible candidate for large-scale implementation.