Analysis of bun nutrient contents using TOPSIS: A case study of commercial sweet buns in Malaysia

• Published in: AIP Conference Proceedings
• Main Author: Ng S.F.; Ismail A.; Tukiman N.; Jabal M.F.A.; Khalid A.K.; Yunos N.M.
• Format: Conference paper
• Language: English
• Published: American Institute of Physics 2024
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85188473319&doi=10.1063%2f5.0194093&partnerID=40&md5=225e5ea92a74b2476655e7217f3793cb

This study demonstrated the application of Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) in analysing nutrient contents of commercial sweet buns in Malaysia. Due to the lack of nutritional knowledge and awareness, consumers are uninterested in reading and understanding nutrition information on food label. This study aims to transform nutrition information on food label in commercial sweet buns into a useful interpretation for consumers through mathematical analysis. In this study, the nutrition information for several types of sweet buns was analysed. As there are different brands selling same type of sweet buns in Malaysia, two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted to test whether there is an effect on nutrient values due to different brands. From the hypothesis testing, it was concluded that there is not enough evidence to indicate there is a significant difference in the nutrient values in the same type of sweet buns from different brands. In this study, TOPSIS was chosen as the mathematical approach to analyse the nutrition data as it is a technique for selecting the best alternative among a number of alternatives when multiple criteria are assessed. In this application, types of buns were the alternatives while the nutrient contents on the food label were the criteria. Weight of each criterion was determined by adopting Shannon's entropy model as it was an objective weighting approach. From the TOPSIS analysis, the ranking of the alternatives was produced, and the best alternative was determined. As a result, the type of bun that has the most beneficial nutrients and the lowest amount of non-beneficial nutrients was identified from the analysis. The findings of this study may benefit consumers and researchers by providing a useful interpretation of the nutrition information of sweet buns through mathematical analysis. © 2024 Author(s).