Using unlabelled data to update classification rules with applications in food authenticity studies

Summary. An authentic food is one that is what it purports to be. Food processors and consumers need to be assured that, when they pay for a specific product or ingredient, they are receiving exactly what they pay for. Classification methods are an important tool in food authenticity studies where they are used to assign food samples of unknown type to known types. A classification method is developed where the classification rule is estimated by using both the labelled and the unlabelled data, in contrast with many classical methods which use only the labelled data for estimation. This methodology models the data as arising from a Gaussian mixture model with parsimonious covariance structure, as is done in model‐based clustering. A missing data formulation of the mixture model is used and the models are fitted by using the EM and classification EM algorithms. The methods are applied to the analysis of spectra of food‐stuffs recorded over the visible and near infra‐red wavelength range in food authenticity studies. A comparison of the performance of model‐based discriminant analysis and the method of classification proposed is given. The classification method proposed is shown to yield very good misclassification rates. The correct classification rate was observed to be as much as 15% higher than the correct classification rate for model‐based discriminant analysis.