Detection of Adulterated Black Pepper Powder Using a Smartphone

Food adulteration is a threat that has existed for a very long time. A popular and commonly used spice called black pepper (Piper nigrum) is sometimes tainted with papaya seeds; one of the earliest instances of this was documented more than 2000 years ago. There are already several analytical techniques that can successfully distinguish contaminated samples of black pepper powder. These techniques take a lot of time and resources, though. This study explores the viability of a smartphone-based, contactless, non-destructive, real-time, and widely accessible computer vision technique for determining the calibre of black pepper powder. The suggested technique compares image histograms to distinguish between photographs of various samples of black pepper powder, and then it uses the outcomes to create a data set.