In a July Separation Science article, Aimee Cichocki speaks with Manuel Hutterli, Market Manager for the Food Flavor & Fragrance segment at TOFWERK, and Rohan Thakur, President of TOFWERK, about how real-time volatile analysis is accelerating food and fragrance testing. The discussion highlights how real-time mass spectrometry enables rapid, sensitive characterization of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), providing deeper insight into complex aroma profiles, off-flavors, and product quality.
The article explores the challenges of analyzing complex volatile mixtures, where important quality markers may exist at trace concentrations among hundreds or thousands of compounds. Manuel Hutterli discusses how high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry provides broad chemical coverage, fast data acquisition, and the ability to identify both known compounds and unexpected changes in real time. The article also highlights how real-time analysis can complement existing workflows by bringing faster chemical feedback closer to production and quality control processes.
Key applications include:
- Food and flavor profiling
- Fragrance and aroma characterization
- Detection of off-flavors and quality markers
- Real-time quality control and process monitoring
- Cork taint screening through rapid TCA detection
- Identification of unknown chemical changes using data analysis and machine learning approaches
- Monitoring volatile changes during processing and product development