If your only exposure is analytical lab work (where by definition the work is difficult), you may not be familiar with the breadth of field utility of near-IR.
[edit: removed LMGTFY link - sorry, that was rude. But please don't pull the expert card outside your area of expertise: NIR has been used to assess fruit ripeness for decades]
The optical and internal quality data were then merged and a PLS regression analysis was conducted using the NSAS software package (NSAS, 1990).
My comment wasn't that you couldn't test the ripeness of fruit using near-IR, it was that you could reliably doing it using a handheld consumer product.
There is a BIG difference between running a lab analysis using near-IR and making a consumer friendly product that can accurately produce the same data.
Some application examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7699186
> And how the hell does it determine the ripeness of a avocado through the skin?
eg: http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/234-347.pdf and http://www.aseanfood.info/Articles/13004404.pdf
[edit: removed LMGTFY link - sorry, that was rude. But please don't pull the expert card outside your area of expertise: NIR has been used to assess fruit ripeness for decades]