Electronic nose turns up trumps at cheese smelling ...

Vieux Boulogne creates a stink. John Dunn reports

By John Dunn

- Published: 07 January, 2005

Page 43

An artificial nose more usually to be found sniffing out urinary tract infections and tuberculosis has agreed with a panel of human researchers that the world's smelliest cheese is Vieux Boulogne, a soft French cow's milk cheese matured by washing in beer.

Dr Stephen White, senior research officer at Cranfield University, who led the research, found that the results from his electronic nose, which is also used in medical research and for detecting food spoilage organisms, closely matched those from a panel of 19 human cheese sniffers. Vieux Boulogne topped the list of 15 mainly French cheeses tested by Cranfield University. The researchers were surprised by the strong correlation between the two sets of results.

The sniffing was conducted on behalf of Fine Cheeses from France, the consumer campaign that promotes French cheeses in the UK. The cheeses were chosen for their known niffiness, but the list also included less smelly varieties such as English farmhouse Cheddar and Parmesan. They were all bought from shops in the UK.

The electronic nose used an array of sensors linked to a computer. Each sensor responded to the odour chemicals given off by a cheese in a different way to provide a unique aroma 'fingerprint' of each cheese. The human sniffers were asked to rate each cheese on a scale of smelliest to least smelly. The results from the electronic nose and the panel were remarkably consistent, says White.

"The results suggest that electronic nose technology could be a useful tool for cheese characterisation, quality control, and authenticity testing in the future." Humans can only sniff out a few samples before losing their ability to distinguish between different smells. The electronic nose, however, can test thousands of samples a day, saving food companies much time and money.

Contact: s.f.white@cranfield.ac.uk