Applications of biosensing in assessing food flavor: advancements, challenges, and prospects

The increasing demand for high-quality, flavorful food products has driven improvements in flavor detection technologies. Traditional methods, such as sensory analysis and instrument-based techniques, often lack thorough quantitative assessments. This inadequacy points to a significant gap in the precise evaluation of food flavors, highlighting the need for more advanced analytical approaches. This study provides a systematic review of the recent innovations in biosensing technologies, focusing on cellular, enzymatic, fluorescent, and quartz crystal microbalance sensors for assessing food flavor characteristics. A comprehensive analysis of literature from the past five years highlights key developments in sensor technologies, such as advancements in cellular biosensors using taste organoids and multisensory arrays. This review emphasizes that biosensors exhibit remarkable sensitivity and specificity in detecting multiple flavor compounds. Furthermore, novel approaches in biosensing, particularly those that merge machine learning techniques with sensory data, have significantly enhanced the precision of flavor profiling.