Neogen and Hinalea Imaging Partner to Advance Digital Food Safety Solutions
Neogen® Corporation (NASDAQ: NEOG), a global provider of food safety solutions, is strengthening its innovation strategy through a new strategic collaboration and equity investment in Hinalea Imaging Corp. The partnership is focused on developing advanced digital imaging technologies designed to support food safety and quality inspection, helping food producers address increasingly complex testing, inspection, and quality-control challenges.
The collaboration represents another step in Neogen’s broader effort to combine its longstanding expertise in food safety with emerging technologies. As food manufacturers and processors face growing demands for faster, more accurate, and more consistent inspection processes, digital technologies are becoming increasingly important across the food production industry.
Through its relationship with Hinalea, Neogen aims to explore how hyperspectral imaging and related analytical technologies can be adapted for practical food safety and quality applications. The companies have already been working together since 2025 to evaluate potential uses of hyperspectral imaging technology within the food safety sector. The latest agreement builds on those efforts by creating a deeper relationship between the two organizations.
Under the strategic collaboration, Neogen and Hinalea plan to jointly develop digital imaging solutions that could enhance inspection and testing workflows. The technology is expected to focus on helping food industry customers obtain useful information more quickly while reducing some of the manual processes traditionally associated with inspection and analysis.
Neogen’s equity investment in Hinalea, combined with shared development costs, is intended to accelerate the advancement of Hinalea’s technology for food safety applications. By providing additional resources and strengthening the companies’ existing relationship, the investment could help move promising imaging technologies from evaluation and research toward practical solutions for customers.
“Food producers need solutions that deliver reliable information sooner and reduce the manual work involved in testing and inspection,” said Jeremy Yarwood, Chief Scientific Officer of Neogen. “We believe Hinalea’s imaging technology offers a promising way to address those needs practically and economically. This investment provides an opportunity to deepen our collaboration and develop digital capabilities that bring Neogen’s food safety expertise into new inspection workflows.”
Exploring the Potential of Hyperspectral Imaging
At the center of the collaboration is hyperspectral imaging, an advanced imaging approach capable of collecting information across a broad range of wavelengths. Unlike conventional photography, which primarily captures visible images, hyperspectral imaging can detect characteristics of materials that may not be apparent to the human eye or through standard imaging technologies.
This additional information can potentially provide food manufacturers with a more detailed understanding of products and processes. Depending on the application, hyperspectral imaging may be used to identify, measure, count, classify, or distinguish characteristics associated with food products and materials.
When combined with analytical software, automation, and machine learning, the technology could provide opportunities to make inspection processes more efficient. Instead of relying solely on manual observation or individual measurements, digital imaging systems may be able to collect and analyze large amounts of information in a consistent and repeatable manner.
For food safety and quality teams, this could eventually translate into faster access to actionable information. Automated or semi-automated inspection may also help reduce repetitive manual tasks, potentially allowing employees to focus on higher-value activities such as process improvement, verification, and decision-making.
However, the companies acknowledge that the technology is still being evaluated for specific applications. Neogen and Hinalea will continue assessing where hyperspectral imaging can provide meaningful benefits within real-world customer workflows.
The goal is not simply to introduce a new imaging technology, but to determine how that technology can be integrated into existing food safety and quality processes in ways that are practical, economically viable, and useful to food producers.
Supporting a More Digital Food Industry
Food safety and quality inspection are undergoing significant technological changes as manufacturers look for ways to improve efficiency, traceability, consistency, and speed. Digital tools are increasingly being integrated into production and quality-management environments, creating opportunities for companies to move away from highly manual processes and toward more connected and automated systems.
The partnership between Neogen and Hinalea reflects this broader shift. By combining food safety expertise with advanced imaging capabilities, the companies hope to develop solutions that can fit into the evolving digital infrastructure of modern food production facilities.
“Food safety and quality inspection are shifting toward digital, connected and increasingly automated workflows,” said Barry McDonogh, CEO of Hinalea Imaging. “Neogen’s investment validates both our technology and our shared vision for the future of food inspection. Together, we believe intelligent imaging can transform how food companies measure and control food quality and safety.”
The collaboration could also provide a pathway for applying intelligent imaging technology to a wider range of inspection challenges. As machine learning and analytical capabilities continue to improve, imaging systems may become increasingly capable of identifying patterns and characteristics that could be difficult or time-consuming to detect through conventional inspection methods.
For food producers, the potential benefits include improved consistency in inspection, faster interpretation of results, and greater automation of routine quality-control activities. The technology could also help organizations make better use of data generated during production and inspection.
A Strategic Investment in Innovation
For Neogen, the investment in Hinalea represents more than a financial relationship. It reinforces the company’s strategy of identifying emerging technologies that can complement its established food safety capabilities.
Neogen has built its business around helping customers detect and manage food safety risks. By exploring digital imaging, the company is expanding its technological reach into areas where visual and analytical information could complement traditional food safety testing and inspection methods.
The investment also builds on an existing working relationship rather than creating a partnership from the ground up. Neogen and Hinalea have been evaluating hyperspectral imaging applications together since 2025, giving both organizations an opportunity to better understand the technology’s potential within food safety environments.
The next phase of the relationship will focus on joint development and continued evaluation. The companies will work to identify applications where intelligent imaging can deliver measurable value to customers while determining how the technology can be incorporated into practical inspection workflows.
The shared development approach is designed to accelerate this process. By combining resources, expertise, and technology, Neogen and Hinalea aim to shorten the path from research and experimentation to commercially relevant food safety solutions.
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