Abstract

BARDS: A new dimension in food ingredient and powder analysis

Author(s): Dara Fitzpatrick

Broadband acoustic resonance dissolution spectroscopy (BARDS) is a new tool for characterizing powders, blends and tablet formulations. Food powders, from salts to dairy products, represent a significant percentage of food ingredients and products. It is also a convenient stage at which to adulterate a product in the production chain. There have been many high profile examples in recent times, most notably with deliberate adulteration and contamination of infant food formulations in China. In this study BARDS will be shown to be an effective method of monitoring the quality/provenance of food grade powders and slats by establishing baseline data as a control against which comparator measurement can be made by a simple and rapid dissolution test.