Raman confocal microscopy is an increasingly useful technique when applied to food samples; it has the unique ability to interrogate the chemical structure, aligned with the same confocality capability that is available when using standard confocal microscopy. In this research, we investigated the potential of Raman confocal microscopy to investigate the components in a model cheese system. We showed an ability to distinguish whey protein particles within the casein protein matrix using several different image analysis approaches. The results illustrate the potential of Raman confocal microscopy and imaging to understand the chemical and microstructural features of cheese systems via the analysis of the distribution of the protein types in complex dairy matrices.

Keywords: Raman, imaging, cheese, protein, confocal, microscopy, casein, whey