Reproducibility of the Italian ISQ method for quality classification of bread wheats: An evaluation by expert assessors

The great variety of different bakery products in Italy has led to the development of a method, the Synthetic Index of Quality (Indice Sintetico, di Qualita, ISQ), for the classification of bread wheats in different quality categories. Based on chemical and rheological properties, each wheat sample is assigned to the most suitable class by an expert assessor. In many cases this procedure is not straightforward, making the class assignation uncertain, thus leading to the possibility of controversies during the trading phase. In the present study, in order to have a quantitative estimate of the validity and reliability of this procedure, a panel composed of nine expert assessors was utilised for the repeated evaluation of 100 samples of bread wheats of various qualities. The results suggest that the proposed approach can be used both to monitor the reliability of the single assessors, and to identify samples whose class assignation is reasonably indubitable, e.g. to be used for the development of automated classification methods. Moreover, the analysis of the most uncertain assignation cases can be useful in order to enhance the ISQ classification method itself. (c) 2007 Society of Chemical Industry.