With increased expectations for food products of high quality and safety standards, the need for accurate, fast and objective quality determination of these characteristics in food products continues to grow. Computer vision provides one alternative for an automated, non-destructive and cost-effective technique to accomplish these requirements. This inspection approach based on image analysis and processing has found a variety of different applications in the food industry. Considerable research has highlighted its potential for the inspection and grading of fruits and vegetables. Computer vision has been successfully adopted for the quality analysis of meat and fish, pizza, cheese, and bread. Likewise grain quality and characteristics have been examined by this technique. This paper presents the significant elements of a computer vision system and emphasises the important aspects of the image processing technique coupled with a review of the most recent developments throughout the food industry. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.