The Product
KPM Analytics has launched UCAL 5, a near-infrared calibration customization platform for its SpectraStar XT Series analyzers, targeting food, feed, and agricultural laboratories that build and maintain product-quality models. The software is available now in three tiers — Lite, Pro, and Enterprise — with a 30-day free trial of the Pro edition open to current SpectraStar XT users.
NIR calibration is a critical quality-control step in grain, dairy, and processed-food production, where moisture, protein, and fat readings drive purchasing, blending, and labeling decisions. Errors in calibration development — most commonly insufficient sample coverage or failure to validate against fresh samples — translate directly into out-of-spec product and regulatory exposure, a pressure point that has intensified as food manufacturers face tighter tolerances under evolving compositional-labeling rules.
How It Works
UCAL 5's patent-pending guided workflow leads users through four stages: data collection, calibration building in a Workbench interface, validation against held-out samples, and publication of a finished calibration file. Two embedded tools run throughout. UCAL Insight reviews each step against ASTM E1655 and ISO 12099 recommendations, flagging items green, yellow, or red with plain-language explanations — checks that Yuegang Zhao, President of KPM Lab Solutions and Chief Commercial Officer at KPM Analytics, described as addressing the most common points of failure. "Most calibrations do not fail because the math is wrong," Zhao said. "They fail because the samples did not cover the range, or because nobody checked the calibration against new samples before it went on the instrument." UCAL Autopilot, a second embedded engine, independently builds a parallel calibration from the same dataset, then presents both side by side so the analyst can compare settings property by property before deciding which to publish.
Fifteen built-in lessons explain calibration concepts and walk through actual UCAL 5 screens, from importing spectra to publishing a validated model. The company says no prior calibration experience is required to use the Lite or Pro editions.
Tiers and Pricing
UCAL 5 Lite, bundled at no extra cost with new SpectraStar XT analyzer purchases, supports four calibration methods and up to 500 user-supplied samples per calibration, with no cap on samples drawn from KPM's library files. Pro — aimed at individual analysts — expands the toolset to 18 calibration methods, including Modified PLS and three neural-network approaches, with no sample ceiling, enabling labs to train models against years of historical data. Enterprise installs on a company server, runs through a browser, and is licensed per user so data remains on the organization's network. All three editions support 11 languages, and existing UCAL 4 files open directly in UCAL 5 without recalibration.
The platform connects to KPM's web store, which carries more than 250 pre-built calibrations covering products from alfalfa hay and canola meal to cheddar cheese. Calibrations are sold by individual measured property — moisture, protein, fat, and others — or in 15 commodity bundles. Customers who purchase a calibration library with spectra included can open it in UCAL 5, augment it with their own samples, and republish a custom model. Finished calibrations can be pushed to an entire fleet of SpectraStar XT analyzers simultaneously through KPM's KPMLink cloud management software, a workflow relevant to multi-site food manufacturers operating centralized quality programs.
For food and feed operators evaluating quality-assurance instrumentation or reviewing their NIR analytics strategy, the tiered structure lowers the entry point while preserving a path to enterprise-scale deployment.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
